Plurinationality does not mean the same thing in mestizo societies like many Latin American countries, including Chile. In a way, it was also a consequence of the good and the bad of the Spanish and Portuguese conquests, so different from the English on various issues, including ethnicity and race.
The draft of the new constitution defines Chile as a plurinational state, in an even deeper sense than the only other two countries that include it in the same way, such as Bolivia and Ecuador in the world, which especially in the case of the first , has a much larger population of indigenous origin.
The country is divided into at least 11 identities, each with its own autonomy, judicial pluralism system, and with the ability to veto collective decisions, a situation that is not immediate, but could put the country on the path of separatism, and although deny, backed by UN practice and action.
It includes peoples that are also cultures, but that do not meet all the requirements set by political science and international law, to be considered nations, but rather peoples and cultures, members of that historical construction called Chile, and that, by the way, have been offended and mistreated, in addition to the fact that some, like the Mapuche, never constituted themselves as a State.
On August 3, a recent survey was published that accurately reflects the reality of the issue, a survey carried out by a well-known institution, the Center for Public Studies (CEP), both among those who were not Mapuche and among those who identified themselves as part of the ethnic group. Interesting results appeared, the information on the Mapuches being striking, since a sample of 1,374 people define themselves in this way and 1,541 as only Chileans, in a country where there has been, contrary to what is supposed, an increase in double identification, which reaches 45%.
Only 12% believe in a multinational state while 30% would prefer one that is only multicultural, that is, diverse cultures coexisting within the same nation, which demonstrates once again the tremendous historical mistake that Chile had not made -such as many of us requested – this constitutional recognition a long time ago, with which the current radicalism was only fed.
It also coincides with what is known, showing at the same time that the narrative on which the plurinationality was built does not correspond to the truth, also demonstrated by the electoral behavior where there has been no ethnic vote, and the reality of the integration statistics to military service and to institutions such as Carabineros. In electoral behavior, the ninth region or Araucanía is consistently the most favorable to the right and the only one where Pinochet won in the 1988 plebiscite for his continuation in power. It is not contradictory, but only the unbiased reality of Chile.
In the CEP survey, 61% of the Mapuche population indicates that coexistence in the southern macrozone is peaceful, exactly the territories where armed groups have developed a low-intensity insurrection, with frequent attacks.
70% of Mapuches disagree with the idea of creating an independent Mapuche state and a majority said that the use of force to reclaim land is never justified. Finally, the opinion of 48% was that Chile should be a state without distinction of nations.
The rejection of plurinationality and the welcome of multiculturalism shows a different path, where the conclusion is that plurinationality, rather than benefiting the ethnic group, what it does is build a new structure for the benefit of white refoundational elites and the Mapuche people. , only benefits the activist minority, where the issue is power more than justice, and where this proposal is closer to the reality of Bolivia and has nothing to do with what is done with the native peoples in countries like Canada or Australia. In Chile it is also an ideological weapon of the so-called coloniality, that is to say, that a prolongation of the colony would still be lived.
The autonomies as they are proposed could be governed by populist caudillos, who in the name of an ancestral claim could bypass the Chilean institutions and go to international organizations, where they will find sympathy for separatist attempts, even if they do not want to, but such would be the dynamic that could go beyond what is indicated in provisions subject to interpretation, precisely because of its ambiguity.
Let us remember that there are at least 11 nationalities in the future Chile, some with large numbers such as the Mapuche, in addition to powerful stories such as the Rapanui and the Aymara, but others, almost disappeared such as the Patagonian ones due to the sad reasons for their extermination, as well as the northern buns. This artificiality, for purposes of its use in reserved seats in special lists of those registered with useful votes to define elections, could even increase since, in order to establish legislation, in the future only the occasional majority of those present in the only chamber with political power,
On another issue, the plebiscite draft is defined by a preference for Latin America and the Caribbean, which calls into question, as Boric has done, a structure of international treaties that includes Europe, the USA, China, Japan and many other countries, on which the country’s economic health depends. In addition, it appears at times when the government is approaching Mercosur, precisely when it shows its great obsolescence.
Beyond the inconvenience that a constitutional text establishes “preferences” in ever-changing issues such as international ones, the true impact of defining itself as a country that incorporates plurinationality at the constitutional level will inevitably be felt in neighboring countries.
The first is Argentina, since the separatist version speaks of the Wallmapu, a concept -like the flag- of recent creation in first world universities, where the territorial claim covers “from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean”, dividing and severing today Argentine and Chilean territory.
The basic problem is that Argentina has not only had similar delays in the dignity due to its original peoples, but also has the same denialism that Chile exhibited for so long, which considered that there was no armed challenge to the State, but only “rural violence”. ”. Being convinced that there would not be a low-intensity insurrection coincides with the complacent view of those who do not live in those territories, such as influential elites and rulers in Santiago or Buenos Aires, a view that also has multiple supports in political media, communication and the judicial powers of both.
In the north, a different process could develop, which could also affect treaties with Peru and Bolivia, with the leading role of those like Evo Morales and García Linera who use plurinationality as a strategic factor for the creation of a new ethnic state that would encompass Bolivian territory today. , Peru, Chile and perhaps Argentina, a strategy whose official announcement in Cuzco was only delayed by the decisive action of former Peruvian diplomats, which prevented it for now.
In the case of Peru, it could imply nullifying the 1929 Treaty with Chile, which states that any change between the three countries in territories that were part of the result of the 19th century War of the Pacific, needs the approval of Lima, as was visible in the failure of the Chilean-Bolivian talks between Banzer and Pinochet in the late 1970s.
In other words, a padlock was placed whose key is Peruvian, which includes Chile and Bolivia, but which could now pass into other hands. It would not happen immediately, but there is no doubt that a process is opening that creates new problems, including places where there were none and issues that were thought to be overcome, with the potential to create other conflicts.
Normally constitutions only have a national impact, but there are exceptions such as that of Evo Morales in Bolivia, which led to a failed attempt at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where a reluctant Chile was sued. The current proposal has derivations towards its three neighbors, and in Argentina there is not enough awareness about it, above all, that those same claims come only a few years behind Chile.
In summary, the constitutional proposal is not only the refoundation of Chile, not only a more fragmented and weak State arises that does not accept the current miscegenation as well as the diversity that exists within the original peoples themselves, but also creates situations of discomfort. on your neighbors.
Chile today has two characteristics for which there are few exceptions in the region, first, an institutional path for revolution, different from that of Allende, since it does not obey a development but only a special electoral moment, and second, realism magical that it would be enough to write down some free right in the text for it to exist, the result being that where there was one nation, in the future there could be a process where others would arise, which could eventually incorporate territories that merge part of current Chile and its neighbors .
“The opinions published here are the sole responsibility of their author.”
