| | |  Editorials | Issues | September 2008 
Salvador Allende - Greatest Chilean, by Popular Acclaim
 Daniela Estrada - Inter Press Service
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| | Salvador Allende (Argentine magazine "Extra") | | |
Santiago - The late socialist President Salvador Allende, who was overthrown by the armed forces on Sept. 11, 1973, was elected the "greatest Chilean in history" in a viewers' poll organised by a television programme that stirred up controversy.
The series "Great Chileans in History," broadcast by the state channel TVN, concluded on Wednesday night with the votes for Allende just barely outstripping those for naval captain Arturo Prat, hero of the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific waged by Chile against Bolivia and Peru.
Out of over four million votes from viewers, 38.81 percent went to Allende and 38.44 percent to Prat. In third place, with 7.97 percent, was Saint Alberto Hurtado (1901-1952), a Jesuit priest canonised by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
They were followed by folk singer and songwriter Víctor Jara, who was tortured and murdered a few days after the 1973 military coup that ushered in the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, and Chilean independence heroes Manuel Rodríguez (1785-1818) and General José Miguel Carrera (1785-1821).
Next on the list were legendary Mapuche indigenous leader Lautaro (1534-1557), and poets Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) and Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), both winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Famous singer and songwriter Violeta Parra (1917-1967) took 10th place.
Allende began his political career as a student leader and subsequently became a member of the lower house of Congress, a senator, a minister, and finally the world’s first democratically elected socialist president. Among his most memorable deeds was the nationalisation of the country’s copper, Chile's top export product.
He shot himself in the presidential Palacio de la Moneda after delivering a live radio farewell address to Chileans on Sept. 11, 1973, while the seat of government was under land and air attack by the armed forces led by the late General Pinochet, who died in 2006.
Allende's first place in the television poll "means that the efforts of the dictatorship, and the social and political sectors that supported it, to systematically discredit and denigrate his memory, as well as the shameful attempts by governments in power since 1990 to hide his achievements, have been unsuccessful," Chilean historian Sergio Grez told IPS.
"The continued relevance and popularity of Allende in Chile today can be explained not only by his heroic death, but also by the large numbers of Chileans who continue to cherish dreams and plans for major social changes that include many aspects of Allende’s programmes," said the University of Chile professor.
"Unlike other figures in national and world history, Allende has not been diminished in death. On the contrary, his stature has grown, in spite of the 'collapse of the walls' and the 'end of history' announced by some talking heads," Grez said.
Viewers awarded second place to Arturo Prat (1848-1879), the young captain of the Esmeralda, the ship that was rammed and sunk by the Peruvian armoured warship Huáscar at the naval Battle of Iquique on May 21, 1879. He is regarded as a hero for being the first to leap aboard the Huáscar, facing swift and certain death, rather than surrender to the superior Peruvian forces.
Although Chile lost that battle, it eventually won the War of the Pacific, a victory which allowed it to annex significant areas of Peru and Bolivia, the latter of which was left without an outlet to the Pacific ocean as a result.
"Prat is a hero too, but in contrast to Allende, who was a hero of the struggle for social liberation, Prat is a patriotic figure belonging to the final stages of the expansion of the Chilean state," said Grez.
"Although he was not a conservative, but more of a liberal, during this poll Prat has been held up as a symbol by today's conservative social sectors in an attempt to prevent a new triumph, symbolic this time, for Allende," he said.
"A barrage of messages has been flooding the Internet, from rightwing sectors and retired military officers, and it is said from those in active service too, calling on people to vote for Prat to prevent the triumph of the 'communist' Allende," the historian said.
In July, it was even reported that a hacker had interfered with the Internet web page of the "Great Chileans" programme so that Prat would win the contest.
"These conservative sectors, unlike some leftwing activists and academics who looked down on the television contest with Olympian disdain, fully grasped the political significance of this opinion poll and mobilised all their forces to win this symbolic battle," Grez said.
The series "Great Chileans in History" was a licensed adaptation of the original British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) series on "Great Britons," in which former Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was ranked first. The show has inspired a score of spin-offs across the globe.
In the United States, former President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was selected; in Germany it was Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967); in France, statesman Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) and in India, Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997).
In Chile, the stated goal was to select the man or woman who had contributed most to building the country, which will celebrate the bicentennial of its independence from Spain in 2010.
First an advisory committee made up of 18 intellectuals chose 60 "Great Chilean" candidates throughout history, who had already died. Foreigners whose contribution to the country was outstanding were also included.
Next, students and teachers in Chile's primary, secondary and higher education system were entrusted with selecting the 10 finalists. Voting by the general public - by landline and mobile phones, and via the Internet - began on Jul. 8, when weekly documentaries on the life and work of the 10 contestants commenced.
Throughout the process, the series was heavily criticised. It was accused, for instance, of trivialising a debate that deserved deeper analysis, and for mixing public figures from different areas of activity, like war heroes, members of religious orders and artists.
"Although clearly the 'popular vote' cast in the TVN opinion poll is not equivalent to the 'verdict of history,' I think a very interesting situation sprang up around what could be referred to as the 'battle for memory,'" said Grez.
"The 10 people selected highlight the rift between official history, ever-present in traditional historiography and in textbooks, on the one hand, and the people's memory, on the other," he said.
"The iconic heroes from history lessons, regarded as symbols of a vision of state and society, were not included by our fellow-citizens who were asked to be the ‘jury,’" he said.
The host of the "Great Chileans" programme, journalist Consuelo Saavedra, said on Wednesday that 60 percent of the students and academics who selected the list of 10 finalists were aged between 13 and 24.
"The most conservative sectors of Chilean society were indignant that the list of 10 finalists did not include figures like (national independence hero) Bernardo O'Higgins, (assassinated statesman) Diego Portales, (president) Manuel Montt, (reformer and president) Arturo Alessandri, (general, dictator and president) Carlos Ibáñez del Campo or Augusto Pinochet, 'founding' or 'refounding fathers' of the nation's institutions at different points in our history, who were nearly all closely associated with the armed forces," he said.
"On the contrary, nearly all the people on the final list of 10, in spite of the wide differences between them, share the hallmarks of having firm convictions, honesty, heroism or artistic sensibility, and in many cases, a tragic yet dignified end," Grez concluded. |
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