INDH and AFP: "Santiago rules"

Chile is a country of cliques. Not just its elites: the "pituto" (connections-based favoritism), as sociologist Emmanuelle Barozet explains, is a national institution. Meritocracy exists, but in an environment that regularly conspires against it. It is hard for merit and ability to prevail. And when they do, they usually play away from home. Until they find a clique and a cozy little niche, and thus adapt to the local league. That is why credentials matter so much, even more than learning something, since they serve to justify a favor. What are the rules of the local league? The "Santiago rules," a variant of the "London rules" from the Slow Horses universe. The first is to never criticize the rules of the local league. The second is to always defend the interests of one's own little niche and its members (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours). The third is to never take responsibility for anything. Dilute the blame, blame others, play the victim, and forget everything. That's not true, and if it is true, I don't remember. That is how the Venturas operate in Donoso's Casa de campo, and that is how many things work around here. One hand washes the other, and both cover your... face. Something fundamental to keeping a system based on these rules operational is the disabling of language. Chileans believe in interests, not in words. Words, we think, only serve to hide interests. Hence the country of lawyers: our conception of language is litigious. It is used like a shovel or a hammer, with no pretense of truth whatsoever. Everything a Chilean says, Raúl Ruiz used to say, is said strictly in quotation marks. If Habermas, upon dying, had gone to hell, he would have ended up in Chile. One of the first phrases Andrés Bello uttered upon arriving in our country was "the country prospers; the people, though immoral, are docile." One of his last was "write, young man, without fear, for in Chile no one reads." That is why our modernization, as Cousiño and Valenzuela pointed out, was produced not by politics but by the economy. Money doesn't lie. This week we have two related scandals in the local league. The board of the INDH (National Institute of Human Rights) defending itself, after being accused of politicization and misuse of its powers, and the boards of the AFP pension fund managers defending themselves after multimillion-dollar losses in the investments of the supposedly most conservative funds. In both cases, the Santiago rules are operating before our eyes. Let's see how. In the INDH case, Yerko Ljubetic was part of the institution's previous board, which set up Sergio Micco during the 2019 uprising for not playing by the rules. Micco, who was supposedly center-left, refused to say that there were systematic human rights violations in Chile: the crown jewel for those who wanted not only to bring down Piñera's presidency but also to put him in jail ("you've been warned," said a politician who later nearly wept at his funeral). And Ljubetic, despite the history that binds him to Micco — both were Christian Democratic student leaders who fought against the dictatorship — let him fall. Santiago rules. Anyone who reads Micco's memoirs (Ocurrió en octubre) knows that the INDH is a left-wing little niche, absolutely instrumentalized and rotten. Its own members wrecked it because Micco didn't give them what they wanted, and now they pretend to play the old-timers and the "vístims." No one assumes any responsibility for the institutional disaster, starting with Ljubetic. But the blame lies with the "far right." In the AFP case, if Chile were Japan, we would probably be witnessing mass resignations from boards and among senior executives, public apologies, and bows on bended knees. But far from that, the official statement is "nothing has happened here." As in the South Park episode about the subprime crisis (Margaritaville), the money disappears, but it is no one's fault. The oligarchic tone of the fund managers is incredible. Instead of speaking and behaving like champions of the working class who defend the savings derived from workers' labor and make them yield as capital yields (Piketty's dream), they almost take offense when they are asked to take responsibility. Santiago rules. NEWSLETTEROpinionSaturday, AMIdeas in tension, opposing views, and clear analysis: elements to unravel the issues that divide opinions and will set the agenda. By signing up you are accepting the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies of La Tercera.