The clucking of chickens on the eve of deciding a new Constitution in Chile

• 

The popular tradition in Chile tells that if the hen clucks at night in the house where there is a sick person, it is because she has seen the spirit of the sick person who is going to die. It is also believed that someone will die when a hen imitates the crowing of the rooster.

That is precisely what is happening to Chilean society today.

On October 18, 2019, a social uprising began in Chile that resulted in street protests for more justice and respect for human rights. On November 19 of the same year, the political forces agreed to begin a process of organizing a Constituent Convention elected by popular vote, to propose to the country the text of a new constitution to replace the one written by the elite during the military dictatorship in 1980. It was decided that the text of the new constitution would be submitted for approval or rejection by means of a plebiscite on September 4, 2022.

Despite its very minority status in the constituent body, in the political agreement of November 19, 2019, the political right had obtained its first achievement by not accepting that the body be called the Constituent Assembly.

After a hard work of more than nine months of the conventional ones, the right sees the night approaching, that is, the decline of its power. It has mobilized all its resources to misinform, misrepresent, instill fear and create an atmosphere of uncertainty among the people that makes them prefer to continue as they are than to approve a new constitution that eventually produces chaos, as announced. This is what the reactionaries and the privileged economic and political elites want. They have proliferated like never before the polls announcing a victory for the Rejection of the new constitution in the plebiscite on September 4, which will offer two options: Approve or Reject.

With only two months left to finish the work of the conventionalists so that the text is submitted for review by three commissions that will be within it for this purpose, the right-wing campaign seems to go deep not only in the civil sphere, but also in some political sectors, especially the so-called social democrats who have already begun to address the press and social media to the Constitutional Convention to “moderate its proposal for norms and make it more inclusive”. 

We progressives cannot be fooled by this sinister campaign, but rather be certain that the day that will follow the night that we currently live in this unequal society will be the rebirth of a more just and equitable society in the distribution of power.

Regarding surveys, we all know that they generate opinion and influence behavioral trends. That is why I have always asked myself, like so many other people, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? That is to say, if it will be the results of the fraudulent surveys that will produce the citizen's rejection of the new constitution or if they really reflect the true sentiment of the people what is shown in the results of these.

Nor can we fool ourselves when we know that people want real and profound changes. Then the progressives should not play along with the right, but rather develop a hopeful discourse for the citizenry with firm arguments about the favorable changes that the constitution will produce and express themselves in all possible means. Let us not get caught up in the contagious pessimism of some who did not learn the lessons of Homer's famous epic, The Odyssey. Nor should social democracy let itself be carried away by the majority bourgeois extraction of its adherents, which suddenly makes some feel called by that "conscience" or that, wanting to defend the Constitutional Convention, they write for the elite instead of being enthusiastic about organizing open councils or doing political work with social organizations to report the truth, because it is from there that the next destiny of the nation will be decided.

In truth, with all my passing through politics, I cannot understand how and why many of those who define themselves as social democrats or those of the "democratic left” (a bad last name for the rest because it insinuates that there is a non-democratic left) express opinions that do not another thing to give more force to the lunges of the right. Although the right is in the minority, it will always use its economic power, its control of the media, the spokespersons of the influential people of the dominant elite, owners of the media, to install fear and uncertainty in the minds of a people “abandoned” by some of the so-called democratic leftists or social democrats.

They do not want to understand that what the right is pushing towards is a constitution that maintains (or increases) its privileges. For them, there really is no consensus or "majority agreements." Anything that does not continue to favor them will be torpedoed. However, they also use their influence on the professional and political bourgeoisie whose conscience is not that of the vulnerable class to deepen their lying campaigns, those that are orchestrated and supported by world financial capital and large corporations.

Finally, I want to leave a message that I have reiterated on other occasions, and that is that instead of acting in the way that some social democrats are doing, we must understand that more errors or fewer errors, supporting the Constitutional Convention is the only opportunity to initiate changes in the current power imbalance in Chile. The recalcitrant and dominant world elite does not want to allow Chile to be an example of real democracy and distribution of economic/political power for the rest of the world.

Instead of spreading debilitating messages of popular achievement, the political leaders of the center-left should go to the press to express a message of support and hope for a new Chile. They do have networks of contact with the mass media and could counteract the "tantrums" of the right. This fight is not only national in such a globalized world.

Finally, if some want to say something critical about the conventional, do not do it in public. Talk to them in private!