Every Tuesday, The duty offers a space to the creators of a periodical. This week, we offer you a text published in the Political History Bulletin, flight. 31, nbone 1-2, 2023.
September 11, 1973 was the tipping point in a series of traumatic events in Chilean history. A military coup, supported by the Chilean right and the Christian Democrats and aided by the United States, overthrew the democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, and established the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who would remain in power until in 1990. This tragic day, which caused the death of thousands of people, put an end to three years of intense popular mobilization.
In Quebec, the coup d’état of September 1973 had a double effect. On the one hand, by violently crushing the Chilean socialist project, it simultaneously put an end to the hopes that had arisen from it among a part of the Quebec population. The socialist and democratic project of Popular Unity (UP) had in fact aroused a lot of curiosity and interest in a wide range of circles in Quebec: union, religious, in education, in politics, in the human and social sciences. Renowned public figures, like trade unionist Michel Chartrand or politician Pierre Bourgault, saw in the Chilean experience a model that could be applied to Quebec, then in full social and political turmoil.
Several Quebecers — priests, trade unionists or activists from popular groups — flew to South America to experience the historic moment that began with the victory of the UP in September 1970. Among the testimonies collected, that of Ovide Bastien and by his wife, Wynanne Wyatts, shows how the Quebecers who were in Chile wanted to help those persecuted by the new regime, coming up against the opposition of the Canadian ambassador Andrew Ross. The latter approved the coup, accepted only a very small number of refugees into the embassy (which Secretary Marc Dolgin had let in) and pressured Bastien and his wife to leave Chile, in order to prevent them from influencing the investigators sent by Ottawa in November, responsible for selecting asylum seekers that Canada could accept.
On the other hand, the coup d’état of 1973 had the effect of strengthening the already existing links between Quebecers and the country of Allende. Many wanted to understand the reasons for the drama that had just played out in Chile, and to assess to what extent a similar outcome could take place in the French-speaking province, if ever the “Chilean model” was applied. In his study, Nikolas Barry-Shaw believes that “the surprising victory of the etapism in November 1974 at the fifth congress of the PQ would have been impossible without the tragic experience of Allende’s Chile. René Levesque […]embarrassed by the analogy that his adversaries established between Quebec and Chile during the October 1973 electoral campaign, believed that it was necessary to give the population a more reassuring image of the PQ” (p. 118).
Above all, there was an enormous wave of solidarity towards those who were fleeing the repression of the dictatorship and in favor of those who, remaining in Chile, tried as best they could to oppose the regime. Less than a week after the coup d’état, a Quebec-Chile Solidarity Committee was created in Montreal, at the initiative of Suzanne-G. Chartrand, who at the time worked for the Quebec-Latin America Secretariat of Jean Ménard, a missionary father returning from Chile, and Michel Chartrand, president of the Central Council of Montreal. Several other solidarity groups have also emerged in the metropolis and elsewhere in the province over the decades.
Multiple dimensions
During the half-century from 1973 to 2023, the Quebec-Chile relationship has taken on important and multiple dimensions. Chileans continued to emigrate to Quebec, during and after the dictatorship, now becoming part of the social and cultural landscape of the province. In fact, Chileans have contributed to all spheres of Quebec life, whether as workers in factories and construction sites, in services, commerce, the arts, professions and educational establishments. Several Chileans have also become involved in politics in Quebec, campaigning in parties at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, in some cases succeeding in being elected.
Although historical conditions have changed, the memory of 1973 remains alive in Chilean and Quebec memories, both among the generation that experienced the tragic events of that year and among more recent generations. The 50e anniversary of this coup d’état, a sad anniversary if ever there was one, deserves to be highlighted in Quebec, to both remind us of these events of the time and perhaps, above all, to understand their lasting impact in the time, in Chile as here.
Comments or suggestions for Ideas in Review? Write to [email protected].