Chile backs off removing 'dictatorship' from texts

[Judi Lynn]

Jan 6, 2:52 PM EST
Chile backs off removing 'dictatorship' from texts

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Chile is backing off a controversial plan to remove the word "dictatorship" from school textbooks in reference to the military government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

President Sebastian Pinera's new Education Minister Harald Beyer sparked a political uproar when he discussed the plan Wednesday, which was publicized in a local newspaper. He suggested grade-school students be taught a more "general" term by calling the 1973-1990 rule of Pinochet a "military regime."

Sen. Isabel Allende, whose father Salvador Allende was ousted in Pinochet's coup, called the change "unacceptable."

"It goes against common sense, because the entire world knows that during 17 years what Chile had was a ferocious dictatorship with the most serious human rights violations, where there was no parliament, where there was no liberty, where there was persecution, murders and disappearances," Isabel Allende said. "I don't want to return to that epoch - I want things to be called what they are."

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_CHILE_NO_DICTATORSHIP?SECTION=HOME&SITE=AP&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[arcane1]

1. Smart move

Trying to soften the harsh reality of history accomplishes nothing, except making history easier to repeat.

[Solly Mack]

2. Exactly. Call things what they are....

A dictatorship is a dictatorship

.....and torture is torture

.......and a war criminal is a war criminal

[David__77]

3. I would be more concerned with content than form.

It was a military government, of course. And they should not pretend that the history of Chilean so-called democracy was by comparison somehow glorious. I reject the overgeneralized use of the terms "democracy" and "dictatorship." Democracy by definition is a category of dictatorship.

[Louisiana1976]

6. So is democracy the new dictatorship?

[David__77]

7. Not "new" by any means.

There was "democracy" of Athens, "democracy" of USA circa 1790, Soviet "democracy," all sorts of things. By what yardstick are you measuring these things? Surely not just "majority rule." Doubtless the Nazis had majority support of the German people, but was national socialism a democracy.

[Ron Obvious]

4. Ousted?

"Sen. Isabel Allende, whose father Salvador Allende was ousted in Pinochet's coup"

Interesting euphemism.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Bless A.P.'s little hearts. They were right there, keeping the Pinochet living hell under wraps

all those evil years, too, and helping to keep U.S. Americans completely in the dark about what had happened, and who was behind it all.

"Ousted." Holy swear words.