Alberta, August/agosto 2008
16
ALTERNATIVA Latinoamericana
ENGLISH SECTION
EDITORIAL:
By Nora Fernández
At one hundred years of the birth of
Salvador Allende, I can't help to feel both, joy and
sadness. I think they come together because
with the celebration of his birth and his life
comes also the reality of his death. In vain I
search for that which could provide me with
some solace -so that, side by side to a life full of
promise, hope and projects, I try to balance the
reality of this death. Now, whether Allende was
murdered or ended his life himself, seems to me
no longer relevant. I find it very difficult to imagine
Allende surviving the military coup unless, of
course, he would have been restored to power -
which seems utopian considering what took
place. Allende had choices, even if the choices
he had seemed to us uninviting or difficult; he
chose to remain faithful to his project until the
very end and aware that the road he travelled,
the path he selected was not an easy one.
Sometimes I think, that although we believe
we know why Allende died, we truly do not know
it. We know, of course, what forces attacked
him in La Moneda; they are familiar forces to us
and to our ancestors as history has been
marked by military coups throughout Latin
America even though denial and talk about a
tradition of democracy runs rampant in the
southern cone of our continent. Our history is
not that different from the history of other Latin
American peoples; the military have risen again
and again to protect the elites, their own
privileges and the further away masters of the
continent -the dominant empire of each time.
We may at times, wish to see them (the military
and their connection) as "evil" but their actions
are too vulgar, too commonplace, too human to
explain or need intervention from forces beyond
the natural world. Pinochet was a disagreable
human being, a murderer and a thief for sure,
but he was no Darth Vader, and behind his
actions there was nothing greater that his greed
to create and increase a personal fortune and to
enrich his cronnies.
Still, we believe we know, and I think we do
not, the greater reason Allende died for. Some
share stories about Allende the child and
premonitions about something terrible awaiting
him in La Moneda -his destiny somehow fulfilled
by his death in 1973. I believe that a destiny of
some sort was, in fact, fulfilled; but, it was not
the destiny that according to the story the child
foresaw. It was a much more important destiny,
the destiny of a leader with visions greater than
himself, greater than other visions of the past.
Visions about his people and the future, and their
future together, visions about a destiny named
and given flesh by Allende.
Many of those who accompanied Allende
on his path, abandoned him at some point or
other. Some denied him with their feet walking
away; some denied him with their mouths
speaking untruths, some denied him with their
souls falsifying and betraying his project mostly
after his death.
What moved Allende to fulfill this "destiny"
of his, we may ask. Allende was not a simple
man and he valued his life, he enjoyed it. But he
saw things greater than his own life in the
coming together of his people and in his
leadership of them. The legacy of Allende, is not
only what chileans know took place during his
long pathway to the presidency, or during his
mandate, but beyond all this to the vision he left
chileans with as he offered his life. The chilean
people of the future, was the gift Allende left to all
chileans to be born, maybe also to other peoples
of the future but particularly to the chilean
people. Without doubt his message is one of
resistance, it validates creativity, protectiing what
we are capable of
creating. To life and
change for the
better. To justice
and fairness and
love.
Allende the
leader and Allende
the physician came
together
envisioning and
defending a vision
proper of both -the
good and intelligent
leader and the
doctor commited to
help others and to
health -which is
more than just
absence of disease
as it has to do with
the "presence of
well being". We
often forget this,
being well means
having basics such
as food, shelter,
provisions for
health (physical,
mental, spiritual), a
life worth while
living and connections to people who value,
love us and accept us.
A society based on exploitation and
hierarchy can never fulfill these basics
needs of people. Allende knew this and
envisioned a different society. Just as Che,
Allende dedicated his life to the pursue of
this vision of his. We can call it the vision of
a just society, and there is no need to call it
socialism which today has come to mean so
many things as to mean nothing. A just
society is a society ensures that his members
flourish. It is also full of colour and life and all
people feel it has room for them. So, there is no
forgotten, neglected or abused children or
women or men. It is a society planning for the
future, protecting resources -like water and
clean air, and protecting the most important
resource of them all which is people
themselves.
Allende tried to do the "decent" thing.
Decent not in the way this is sometimes
understood or the hierarchical "decent" which is
what people sometimes do to pretend they are
"more or better than others". Decent in its true
sense is doing the honest, the proper, the
dignified, the ethical thing that needs to be done.
Allende, the physician, president, leader of
his people, brought to life a vision "for them" and
a vision "of them". His vision "for them" had to do
with his commitment to his project of a good
society that welcomes all chileans, ensuring
there are not destitutes. His vision "of them" has
to do with the creation of the "people" Allende
was the leader of, and this was, in my view his
greatest gift and most important creation.
Like other visionary leaders before him,
Allende created his project and the people who
inspired it. Thus, as Marx created the glorious
"proletariat" destined to free the world from
capitalistic oppression, or Che created his
"vanguard" with the sublime destiny of liberating
Latin America from imperialistic oppression, or
as Martin Luther King created his "veterans of
creative suffering" certain that one day their
nation will live out the true meaning of its creed:
that all men are created equal, so Allende too
created his own people. They are the ones who
With sober surprise, he understood. Love and risk awaited him inthis night of the mortal eyes into which he now
descended: Ares and Aphrodite, for he now made out, since it was all around him, the sound of glory and hexameters, the
sound of men defending a temple the gods will do nothing to save and of black ships searching the sea for a beloved island,
the sound of the Odysseys and the Iliads that it was his destiny to sing and make resound reciprocally in the memories of men.
These things we know, but not what he felt when he sank into the final darkness. (The Maker, Jorge Luis Borges)
Allende, his vision, his people...
one day will walk free though the open
Alamedas.
Great men have great visions and great
men find the language to communicate their
visions so others will see them like they do and
find strenght to fight and make them their own
visions. Leaders like Allende can never die; they
fooled death and live eternally with us. Their
creations give them eternal life. Like Aquiles
gave eternal life to Homer, the vision of a just
chilean society has given eternal life to Allende.
The people who Allende envisioned never
betrayed him, it is with him and in eternal motion
awaiting proper timing to become a reality.
Allende molded a new type of chileans of the
future and gave them life, and they are as strong
and as visionary as Allende himself was. Time,
which is infinite, is in their side. We can lament
the past without changing it, or, we can project
ourselves into the future, always green and
hopeful, always full of options, to become one
with people Allende envisioned for us. We can
cross with them the open Alamedas and be free;
we can do it at the sound of their voices singing
in the distance "el pueblo unido jamás será
vencido", voices of the past, the present and the
future that Allende has given us together with his
greatest gift: its glorious people of the future.
Allende is alive in them and with them, with the
chilean people he created for his honour and his
glory, as well as for our glory and our honour.
Because it is as it is said:
It was his destiny to envision and to sing as
well as to make these visions resound in the
memories of men, women and children, so they
could guide them in the constructions of better
places for humanity in the future to come...