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The Chilean Draft Constitution, 2022 and Mapuche Indigenous Rights

 

Members of the constitutional convention meet to vote on the latest provisions of the draft constitution in Santiago on Saturday 14 May. 

The Guardian, 16 May 2022, Photograph: Esteban Félix/AP

 

My project has investigated how textuality has been crucial in Chile’s development as a nation. Specifically, I have considered the art of poetry as a cross-cultural tool that enabled one of Chile’s Indigenous groups, known as the Mapuche, to assert their autonomy and cultural excellence. My study of three exceptional poets - Juan Paulo Huirimilla Oyarzo, Bernardo Colipán Filgueira and Maribel Mora Curriao – concluded that this genre of literature enables the crucial preservation of Indigenous nations, as well as a re-writing of canonical, whitewashed history. From this arose an exploration of the conflict over Indigenous incorporation into Chilean politics. This has been very limited, until now.

A new Chilean constitution has been in the making since the plebiscite of 25 October 2020 when Chileans voted on two questions: do you want a new constitution? (78% voted in favour), and what type of convention should draft the new constitution? (79% voted for a constitutional convention) The road to the plebiscite started in October 2019 when Chileans took to the streets in a consumer strike over rising bus fares and demonstrations about social inequality. The heavy-handed government response triggered a broader protest about the nature of Chilean democracy and the legacies of the Cold War-era dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). The preservation of the Pinochet-era constitution of 1981 that, among other things, was discriminatory to Indigenous groups like the Mapuche, was called into question. The Chilean Constitution had long been a source of discontent, as it recognised only one type of ‘Chilean’ person in what is indisputably a multicultural nation.

On 15 and 16 May 2021 Chileans elected the members of the new Constitutional Convention with the Mapuche activist, Elise Loncón, as president. The new constitution they have drafted, if passed, by Chilean citizens in a vote this September, will be hailed as a revolutionary forerunner in the name of minority rights. The draft was unveiled and submitted to the president, Gabriel Boric on 3 July this year. In the first of the new constitution’s 388 articles, Chile is described as “a social and democratic state of law”, as well as “plurinational, intercultural and ecological”. Areas of innovation are noticed in its pioneering for the legal rights of nature (as the Mapuche have represented for centuries), building on Indigenous-led tradition. Further, it inscribes environmental protection and education in Articles 39, 81, and 103-6.

Re-writing a constitution is a remarkable act. It suggests that history is never fixed, and that textuality can be mobilised for political gain. Mapuche activist and President of the Constitutional Convention, Elise Loncón, suggests that as a result of this newly written constitution, an optimistic Mapuche future could well be on the horizon. "It's possible to dialogue with us, you do not need to fear us," Loncón told Chilean newspaper La Tercera. "There is a lot of prejudice [against the Mapuche]. So, this is also a call to free ourselves from our prejudices and relate to each other on equal terms." We wait to see whether the draft will be approved by a majority of Chilean citizens and finally ratified as Chile’s new Constitution on 4 September this year.


Charlotte Crabtree, University of Warwick

 

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