Who's in charge here?

Por Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt, historiador

It is such happiness that future ministers have shown, and why say you miss one (including the "social" and "evolved" right and the flattering press), that it is enough to wonder if the announcement with the Natural history Museum behind was nothing more than a collective selfie. Byung-Chul Han, who has analyzed this selfies, would say: a "mere appearance" in which the portrayed "look like masks" (in fact, they do not show the whole face) and exhibit themselves "without aura" for once (non-things, 2021). And for the record, what impressed an ex-communist with the euphoria of pro-Dignity activists on social media-I read him about-was the lack of political reasoning, as if they were prematurely enthusiastic fans. As for the differences with Aylwin's blue and dark grey cabinet photo (the rainbow and "Joy already comes"), which has been so insisted, there are some, but they could well be due to the fact that in thirty years the brand clothes have become colorinche, and it remains to be seen whether the portraits will effectively be defenders of "descamisados" and "homeless", not only ministers and ministers without ties or with guaguas hanging.

Often the key behind an image is what does not appear on the screen. In Cerro Castillo, the great absentee is Pinochet. It is therefore necessary to ask whether the power, the hard and really, resides this time in another place (in the street, Convention, or in the "system"), taking care not to show itself yet. The PC is inclined to do so. Indeed, the non-militant "independent", how autonomous are they? (Izkia Siches, ex PC, doesn't look like it). At the same time, Mario Marcel does not express himself as "moderate" if one thinks about it. This euphemism serves to disguise other qualities and functions. Not even to be a social democrat or reformist, but made to measure to fulfill an aseptic task, that of a man of state (who should not be confused with a statesman), an instrumental technocrat to an apparatus that aspires to and demands for itself several monopolies, that of force, the prosecutor (with which it is financed), and even the normative one (disregarding laws, and simply decrees to govern).

Realistically, let us agree that the state-in the eye and in dispute-is the only one that can set conditions, and demand for itself a command capable of exceeding that of elected authorities, as well as surpassing the executive in charge of the state administration and with gigantic resources at its disposal, in both cases invoking the "scratch of the court" and "state reasons". All of this for no other reason and strength than those it demands for itself. Needless to say, a device that captures this picture has not yet been invented. It is only to be hoped that history, without censorship, will record the outcome of that tremendous struggle to be seen.