The Chilean Constitutional Convention formally requested an extension to be able to work for another three months on the draft of the constitutional text. The above did not surprise anyone, since from the initial work plans this petition entered into any calculation.
What was most surprising was that the Convention plenary approved by 115 votes in favor (75%) and 34 against that “Chile is a Plurinational and Intercultural State that recognizes the coexistence of different nations and peoples within the framework of the unity of the State” ( excerpt from article 4, Political System, Government, Legislative Power and Electoral System), also approving in the same session that “pre-existing indigenous peoples and nations and their members, by virtue of their free determination, have the right to the full exercise of their collective and individual rights” (excerpt from article 5).
This recognition is not trivial, it comes to account for decades of struggle on the part of indigenous organizations, which from different areas have fought to make the situation of lack of protection and subordination in which they find themselves visible.
Formal recognition of the state’s plurinationality would be a direct blow to the internal colonialism that Pablo González Casanova illustrated so clearly decades ago to describe the plight of the continent’s indigenous peoples.
Since its creation, the Constitutional Convention has represented a qualitative change in the form of political representation in the country, instituting that it should be equal, with equal numbers of men and women, and that there should also be seats reserved for indigenous peoples.
Regardless of the delay in ratifying the reserved seats or the fact that they do not necessarily represent the percentage of the country’s indigenous population registered in the census, the fact is that 17 indigenous representatives of all the peoples present in the country were elected to directly represent their peoples, one of them being the Mapuche representative Elisa Loncon, elected president of the Constitutional Convention.
This situation is diametrically opposed to the entire republican history of the country, where only on a few occasions representatives of indigenous peoples reached positions of importance, both appointed and elected, and where they were always relegated to a secondary role, which is an evident sign of an asymmetrical relationship where the inclusion of their demands, needs or worldviews are not part of the Chilean nation-state.
There is still a way to go, the constitutional process has not yet been completed. Plurinationality, after being approved by the Commission, passed to the plenary where it was approved. This allows this article to become an integral part of the draft that will be presented to the country for approval in what is known as the exit plebiscite, which is expected to take place approximately 60 days after the final text is finished.
The consensus in the constituent assembly regarding this new paradigm was quite broad, managing to clearly surpass the two-thirds required as a minimum to approve any article by the plenary. However, criticism from conservative forces, both inside and outside the Convention, has not abated. With arguments often full of falsehoods, they intend to influence not to eliminate these types of articles from the draft, but to have the text rejected in the outgoing plebiscite.
In simple terms, the course of the conservative right’s strategies was to refuse the formation of the Convention (voting rejection in the plebiscite that started the process); defend the 2/3 quorum to the letter for having passed the election; the disruptive work of its elected Convention members; the use of fallacy as a political tactic, the media claim that the convention is hegemonized by the left, leaving no room for disagreement; that the quorum of 2/3 is very low; raise the possibility of adding a new alternative to the exit plebiscite, altering the agreed and approved electorally, among others.
When they seek to criticize plurinationality, they tend to do so with arguments built on fallacies, ignorance or both. The participation of indigenous representatives, and the approval of different articles that enshrine their collective rights as peoples, led to the allegation that a constitutional text is being written for a minority or that this new Magna Carta will be indigenist, in addition to the supreme ignorance that implies using as an argument, a concept that refers to the current present in Latin America in the 20th century, where states took care of indigenous peoples, but without them.
What is certain is that the recognition of the Chilean State’s plurinationality goes precisely in the opposite direction. It puts aside paternalism and the colonial relationship that the Chilean State established with indigenous peoples and jointly draws up a new constitution that takes this into account.
It is a Constitution where the State does not do a favor by recognizing the institutions or indigenous peoples, but they become an integral part of it, having to adapt the different institutions of the country to the new paradigm.
Another of the recurring accusations made in the context of the conventional debate on plurinationality and the autonomy of indigenous peoples is that the objective is to divide the country, create a parallel state or even a secession.
On the contrary, this new state intends to be a counterpart to the Chilean nation-state of the 19th century, a theoretical and empirical construction where only the possibility of a state and a nation is imagined, in this case, indigenous peoples being nations whose cultures, languages, cosmovisions , histories and subjectivities are dominated and made invisible, or at best, folklorized.
In other words, what is intended is an imaginary community where everyone is present with their differences and autonomy, but as Rosa Catrileo, a member of the Convention, pointed out during the debate, “within the margins of the State”.
It is undeniable at this point that the social upheaval of 2019 shook up the foundations of stagnant Chilean politics. Despite its own mistakes and conservative agreements, the work of the Constitutional Convention continues in a similar direction, bringing about substantive changes in the draft constitutional text such as parity and a gender perspective, environmental protection and, naturally, plurinationality.
The latter is probably not a magic solution to all problems or conflicts between the State and indigenous peoples, but it could represent a beginning to solve the country’s endemic prosopagnosia, where we used to look in the mirror and recognize European ancestry while, consciously or unconsciously, , we forgot our indigenous roots.
It remains to be seen how plurinationality will materialize, given that self-determination and the provisions of both articles must materialize, and this will encounter resistance within the same uninational and unicultural state that has dominated for two centuries.
