Chile is a country whose history cannot be disentangled from our own; one of history’s great coincidences reminds us of this. On September 11th, 1973, 28 years before the terror attack on the United States, the democratically elected government of socialist leader Salvador Allende was overthrown in a violent coup that left Allende himself dead. The ensuing 17 years of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship led to at least 40,000 people being killed, tortured, or imprisoned. To say that the United States’s hands are not clean in these matters is an understatement.
Join us as we explore the fascinating history and politics of Chile in a multi-episode series that will span from before Allende’s election to the recent political debates and struggles of modern Chile. In this first episode, we provide some necessary background about the country’s political system and its history of democracy. We leave off with the election of Salvador Allende in 1970.
Show Notes
Salvador Allende: Revolutionary Democrat by Victor Figueroa Clark
Salvador Allende quote on moving Chile towards socialism:
We are moving towards socialism, not from an academic love for a doctrinaire system, but encouraged by the strength of our people, who know that it is an inescapable demand if we are to overcome backwardness and who feel that a socialist regime is the only way available to modern nations who want to build rationally in freedom, independence and dignity. We are moving towards socialism because the people, through their vote, have freely rejected capitalism as a system which has resulted in a crudely unequal society, a society deformed by social injustice and degraded by the deterioration of the very foundations of human solidarity.
Credits
Theme music by our youngest brother Tate.
Cover art by Arthur Santoro.
