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Monday 7 April 2014

A WAKE UP CALL FROM HISTORY


A Student Federation poster from Chile in 1920 echoes down the years to warn a Jersey public who fail to stand up to those who hijack the democratic process…

I was fascinated in reading about a man, Salvador Allende, who is not only a personal political hero but also without doubt one of the most important champions of democracy of the 20th Century to stumble across details of a 1920’s poster issued by the then FECH Chilean students’ federation newspaper ‘Claridad’ (Clarity). Indeed, given two highly symbolic events of the past seven days here in Jersey the message contained really could not resonate as being any more relevant:

Firstly, the final launch of the Committee of Inquiry into the decades of horrific child abuse concealed from Jersey’s ordinary people by years of corrupt Establishment politicians, ‘law lords’ and media sycophants. And equally, of course, the final ‘heads-in-the-sand’ decision to commit us to the huge burden of a Financial District that within twenty years will be as redundant as the crumbling ‘Off-Shore’ tax evasion industry on which it is based.

For the poster (the words of which I reproduce below) sums up in language as adroit as it is blunt the cost of what happens both individually and as a community when, as Plato so famously highlighted, the ordinary populace fail to engage in the political process or look beyond the lies and motives of those who would tell you theirs’ is the best and only way.

Indeed, replace the names of the Chilean newspapers of the 1920’s quoted within the poster with the Jersey Evening Post, Channel ITV and the local BBC and the words of 94 years ago could have been written specifically about the Jersey of 2014.

The words sum up not just Haut de la Garenne and so many other horrors which were allowed to happen by this failure of humanity but also how the victims/survivors, the two brave police officers who finally set out to drag out the truth; and, indeed, the handful of Leftist politicians and bloggers who stood tall alongside them were then trashed by the Establishment and their lackeys to protect the guilty.  

Just as it sheds light on how so many ordinary people continue to be sleep-walked down the crumbling, neo-liberal capitalist road to a moral less Nowhere by the same ‘leaders’ when the evidence of what lies ahead are all around to be seen if only one brave enough to look and see. Read the words of the poster; open your eyes and take heed.

As for Salvador Allende, a great leader whose democratically elected government was destroyed by the mass-murdering fascist General Augusto Pinochet at the behest of equally corrupt US President Richard Nixon – if only we in Jersey had a leader of his stature, vision and commitment to social justice to lead us away from the edge of the Abyss today! As we haven’t I guess it is up to us to save ourselves...

Chilean students’ federation newspaper ‘Claridad’ (Clarity) poster of December 1920

‘You are a coward. Yes a complete coward. And don’t think that we are saying this to attract you to this poster. No. Quite simply, you, whoever you are that is reading this, have you noticed how you live? What is it that you do every day? You are silent when convenient. You always ingratiate yourself with the more powerful. You opine like everyone else. When have you ever raised your voice against the scandalous infamy around you? When? Tomorrow or maybe the day after you may die and what purpose have you served? Do you know what the society we live in is, this capitalist society? Do you know what the society is that we push for and that you try to delay? No doubt you think the same as ‘El Mercurio’, ’La Nacion’ ‘El Diario Illustrado’ etcetera, the same as the newspaper you read every day. Learn for yourself man. Don’t be a puppet. Have some shame. Use your own head, that’s what it’s there for. Find out. Investigate. Don’t be fearful. And don’t leave calmly after reading this. In vain you try to be deaf. You are a coward, at the mercy of he who pays you best, or shouts at you loudest. Don’t fool yourself. When have you ever said anything that could jeopardise you? Because of docile individuals like you the world is unliveable with swine.’

Do you want to be on the easy side or on the side of what is right? I personally am proud to say that no matter the cost I have always stood – and will continue to stand – on the latter.

Keep the Faith.

26 comments:

  1. Fascinating piece of history. Catches the mood and culture we have got here perfectly.

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  2. Never heard of Salvador Allende so he can't have been much cop. Give me Philip Bailhache any day.

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    1. The feudal baron king Bailhache is the biggest problem Jersey has as without his influence pedophilia would have been dealt with appropriately instead of children being made to suffer indefinitely.

      Keep up the good work Trev.

      James Pearce.

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  3. If you have really not heard of Salvador Allende but think Philip Bailhache must be better anyway I must thank you: you make the case for the message of the poster and it's relevance to Jersey perfectly.

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  4. I remember reading in the late 1970s about the brutal Pinochet regime in Dr Sheila Cassidy's "Audacity to Believe" (1977). She came to Jersey once to speak, I believe on behalf of Amnesty International. She was prepared to testify when it was posssible that Pinochet would be on trial in the UK. She's also done good work in hospice care. A brave and remarkable lady.

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    1. Interesting comment Tony. Sounds like a brave lady indeed. Very good new book on Allende just out by Victor For Clark if memory serves. Anyone who hasn't should also read the short book Chile:the other September 11. Read it a while back and incredibly moving if disturbing first hand observations on the atrocities of Margaret Thatcher's best friend.

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  5. Great posting Trevor, perhaps your readers might also be inspired by a little modern day inspiration from LARKEN ROSE. Sorry to hear of your recent trouble mate :(

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  6. how and where do I find Stuart Syvret blog ?

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    1. There is a link on the left hand side of the Voiceforchildren blog. I will have one up myself soon.

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  7. I'm glad we have Geoff Southern, he is clearly the equal of Allende

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    1. I'm sure Geoff Southern would be thrilled to be mentioned in the same breath Jon. But doubt whether he would mention himself in the same paragraph or even book. But why not come clean, Jonnie - you don't even know who Allende was because you are thicker than a large print copy of Trolls R Us.

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  8. Oh dear - still banging on about Haute de la Garenne and the body parts... I mean coconut shells. Typical from the unintelligent, tree-hugging, sandal wearing left wing ratbags. Single issue ponies is all you are.

    The investigation is under-way, no thanks to you. Bang on about something else and let it take its course.

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    1. Yes, no thanks to us tree hugging Lefties! We were just the few who fought for this when people like Bailhache, Le Sueur and the thief. Sean Power didn't want it at any cost. Oh and don't mention the Scrutiny Review that exposed the lies the State media had spun on behalf of the Establishment cover up merchants...

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  9. Excellent. Allende was a very brave man.

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  10. In other circumstances I might chose to nit-pick when Trevor asserts that Allende was “one of the most important champions of democracy of the 20th Century” and that he lead a “democratically elected government”. It’s true that he was the world’s first democratically elected Marxist president, and the members of the Chilean Congress (parliament) were also democratically elected. However, the “government” – i.e. Allende’s ministers – were co-opted, largely from academia and the business world; they were not (s)elected by anyone other than Allende. And the same holds true of modern-day Chilean governments; parliamentarians chosen by a democratically elected president to serve as government ministers have to give up their seat in Congress.

    One could argue, too, with Trevor’s assertion about Allende’s “vision and commitment to social justice”, bearing in mind that the centre-piece of his political reforms (redistribution of land) was in fact started by his centrist predecessor (Eduardo Frei Montalva) and Allende failed, arguably, to show true commitment to “social justice” by ignoring the damage his policies did to huge swathes of the population. Little wonder so many Chileans all across the political spectrum welcomed the military coup (whilst decrying the excesses committed by those who overthrew Allende).

    Assuming however that Trevor is more concerned with modern-day Jersey than the political history of Chile, I agree very much that, with the substitution of the names of the Chilean newspapers with certain well-loved (?) UK and Jersey media outlets, the poster reflects rather well the “agog with apathy” attitude of so many people in Jersey in the face of a direct and long-standing threat to their Island’s well being.

    As I commented recently on Stuart’s blog, that threat goes somewhat further and deeper than what Trevor calls the “crumbling, neo-liberal capitalist road to a moral-less Nowhere”. The kind of dishonesty, bullying, corruption and downright criminality prevalent in the "upper strata" of Jersey society is insidiously permeating not only the “establishment” but also the very fabric of Jersey society: the families who live there.

    BTW, anyone interested in reading the original text of the poster in Spanish can find it here on the website of the modern-day ‘Claridad’: www.claridad.uchile.cl/index.php/CLR/article/view/7814/7578

    Interestingly, there’s a footnote under the text pointing out that it was adapted from a poster made by Insurrexit, a Marxist student association in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Apathy, it seems, knew no national boundaries then – and, sad to say, is very much alive and well in Jersey today.

    RL

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    1. I don't think Allende himself would have claimed to be perfect or have all of the answers RLH. However, to suggest that he was not a hugely important figure and example that there can be a better way than the politician doctrine of spivs - neo-liberal capitalism is an argument that very few would attempt to sustain. Add in what the great democrats of the U.S. Did right from the moment Allende won election and he truly deserves his recognition. What likely says it all is the fact that he is still revered in Chile and was he even voted the greatest Chilean of all time. Can't imagine those famous democrats like Thatcher or George Bush being so acclaimed. Can you?

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    2. Trevor, you say Allende "is still revered in Chile" - but so, too, is Pinochet. If you lived here, and got an inside feel for this country's values, principles and politics, you'd be aware that public opinion on those two individuals is pretty well balanced.

      You refer to Allende’s “democratically elected government” as if it might be a model for Jersey to look up to, or even emulate. However, if you look at the composition of his government and the way Chilean ministers were (and still are) hand-picked by the president, often from among people who have never even attempted to win any election, and compare that with the current system in Jersey where ministers are picked from senators and deputies elected (albeit by an apathetic electorate), the balance of democracy tilts, I suggest, slightly in favour of Jersey.

      It’s worth remembering (but may be poorly appreciated in a place with no tradition of party politics) that a nation’s constitutional regime of government and any individual government’s left/centre/right policies are largely independent (except if constitutional reform is on the agenda, as in Chile today). Chile’s presidential system has served marxist Allende, Pinochet’s ‘Chicago Boys’, Piñera’s straightforward neo-liberalism and (now for a second term) Bachelet’s broad leftist conglomerate, all of those personalities being free to pick and chose, hire and fire – not only at ministerial level but also in the upper echelons of the civil service – without having to bother one iota about the principles of democracy.

      With that in mind, are we assume you support Ian Gorst’s ideas on reform of the way ministers are hired and fired, leading to something somewhat closer to a (potentially despotic) presidential regime and somewhat further away from a democracy governed by individuals who have sought and obtained at least a modicum of support from an apathetic electorate?

      RL

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    3. Hi RLH. One of my friends has been working in Chile since we were both at university so I do try to keep in touch. I certainly have not got around to Chile myself yet in my journeys to the Americas but hope to one day. What I would say is that anyone who still admires Pinochet - and I fully concede they exist - is that they clearly have no respect for human rights or justice. The 'man' (I use that term loosely) was a coward, a murderer and also a spineless poodle for thugs like Nixon and Kissenger. Actually, the Jersey Establishment would likely have loved him!

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  11. The similarities you suggest between the message from Chile in the 1920s and our own septic isle are very apt. The question is will enough of our people wake up before it is too late? I suppose if the answer is no then they deserve what they ultimately get?

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  12. Big Trev. A word of advice. Don't even bother responding to that nut job Mick Rolland slanging you the troll's hate blog. Even Rolland's mates treat him as a joke. One of life's losers who spouts abuse just to feel big and important.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Had to delete a comment because of typos. This was agreeing that your comment on Rolland was fair comment and also to state a few facts about the equally abusive Daren O Toole. I will post again about this thug shortly.

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  13. Ex Deputy Pitman is Treasury MInister Ozouf trying to cause as much havoc and put jersey into deep dept before he loses his seat, like his close friend Freddie Cohen ? Its unbelievable that he is allowed to run riot with the islands cheque book.

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