Dictatorship and the Cold War in Official Chilean History Textbooks

Abstract

Oteíza and Castro explain the importance of studying how the memory of the Cold War period is negotiated in official Chilean history textbooks, and particularly how these textbooks address dictatorships in Latin America and the role played by the USA in regard to them. The authors focus particularly on the historical actors, events and processes identified in the textbook discourse and how they are evaluated in the construction of a historical account of a past that is still open to debate. The study uses discourse analysis anchored in a social, ideological and socio-semiotic perspective.

Introduction

The Cold War had a significant political and social impact in the Southern Cone between the 1950s and the 1980s. As has been documented by historians, during those years almost all Latin American countries underwent military dictatorships that drastically changed the social, economic and political development of each society and shaped their history until the present (Franco & Levín 2007; Loveman 2001; Lira 2013; Hiner 2009; Stern 2006). The military dictatorships committed severe human rights violations in the region, which were even strengthened with the establishment of a state terror that was orchestrated among several national repression and intelligence organisations with the collaboration of the United States’ CIA. This repressive coalition, in which Chilean, Argentinian, Brazilian, Paraguayan and Uruguayan military dictatorships were involved, was called the ‘Condor Operation’ (Loveman 2001). As a consequence of these dictatorships in the region, Latin American countries share national memories of a traumatic past of human rights violations. This recent past has been historicised and recontextualised in different ways in local history textbooks and with diverse levels of hegemony regarding the competing official and alternative memories that circulate in each society.¹

In the particular case of Chile, a violent coup d’état that overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973 signalled the beginning of 17 years of dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990). For the Chilean historical process and for all Latin American countries, the history of the Cold War has been a history of economic and political dependence on ‘the North’. As Harmer stresses in relation to Allende’s socialist Popular Unit and to Latin America as a whole, the division of the world was not between East and West, as was the case for many European countries, but rather between the global North and the global South (Harmer 2011).

As the Cold War has permeated the recent Latin American past, we believe that it is relevant to study the way by which the memory of this period is negotiated in Chilean official history textbooks, particularly how those texts address the period of dictatorships in Latin America and the role that the United States played in this process. In Chile, the traumatic recent past of a coup d’état and the human rights violations committed by Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship is still a space of competing collective memories. The memories that coexist in Chile and that give value and explanation to a painful past can be conceptualised as key emblematic memories, as Stern (2006) has proposed. In this manner, for different sectors of Chilean society the events that began on the 11th September are remembered as (i) a ‘salvation’ from a supposed Marxist dictatorship; (ii) as a ‘rupture’ of a democratic period; (iii) as a ‘closed box’ of a past that should be forgotten; and (iv) as a memory of ‘persecution and awakening’ (Stern 2006).

This chapter pays special attention to the historical actors, events and processes identified in the textbook discourse and how they are evaluated in the construction of a historical recount of a conflictive matter regarding the recent past of the region, a past that is still open to debate. Its does so via a discourse analysis anchored in a social, ideological and socio-semiotic perspective.

History textbooks as ‘official semiotic products’ offer a valuable space in which to understand how a society decides to remember and teach the national and international past to new generations. In Chile, the Ministry of Education holds a contest every year, in which the main textbook publishers compete to improve upon on the official history textbook to be distributed for free in more than 90 per cent of schools ‘co-existing’ in the Chilean educational system; that is, schools that are subsidised or partly subsidised by the government. Consequently, in the Chilean context, the history textbook is an important pedagogical resource that is widely used by teachers and students in classes (Manghi & Badilla 2015; Oteíza & Pinuer 2016; Oteíza et al. 2015, 2018; Oteíza 2018).

For this particular chapter we analyse the latest 11th-grade history textbook published, since this is the grade level in which, in accordance with the national history curriculum, the recent national past is taught. The two units of the national history curriculum considered in this analysis are: “The Period of Structural Transformations: Chile in the Sixties and Seventies” and “The Breakdown of Democracy and the Military Dictatorship” (MINEDUC 2015).² The next section presents a brief account of how Chilean history textbooks have evolved in relation to the construction and legitimation of the national past in the last two decades. The third section explores the discursive analytical framework in which this work is based, followed by an analysis and discussion of the Chilean official history textbook and how it negotiates memories of the Cold War in the fourth section. The last section addresses the official construction of social processes of remembering and teaching recent past in the Chilean context.

History textbooks in Chile: Between the Dynamics of Social Change and the Official Voice of the State

Official Chilean history textbooks constitute a privileged space in which social memories are constructed and negotiated (Oteíza & Achugar 2018). These are part of a social practice that is realised discursively, for the most part using verbal and visual semiotic resources. Chilean history textbooks have been characterised by a discourse of denunciation, commemoration and victimisation based on evidence primarily collected in the official reports promoted by post-dictatorial state policies regarding human rights violations committed during Pinochet’s dictatorship (Oteíza 2006, 2014).

The educational reform in Chile (1999), during the period of democratic transition after Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–1990), had a significant impact on the transformation of the history curriculum in the country (Reyes et al. 2013; Rubio 2013). As Osandón (2013) and Oteíza (2006) point out, the change in the curriculum can be seen in official textbooks, not only with regard to the topics addressed in relation to recent national history, for example the sensitive topic of human rights violations, but also in the methodology. The latter promotes a more autonomous exploration by students, requiring them to work with a variety of primary and secondary sources. Before the main educational reform of 1999, the national history of Chile ended with the promulgation of a national junta in 1973. The coup d’état and the human rights violations committed by Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship were not included as historical content in the curriculum, thus remaining absent from the official history textbooks published before 2000.

In Chile, the textbook market is conditioned by a supply and demand monopolised by the Ministry of Education, the latter being the largest customer and the authority deciding printing policies and price. While no educational establishment is actually required by law to buy and use the textbooks that the Ministry approves and distributes, the fact that these are distributed free of charge to more than 90 per cent of the country’s educational establishments fundamentally determines their use (Oteíza 2006).³

The history curriculum, as well as history textbooks, have been influenced by the dynamics of social change regarding recent memoires of human rights violations in Chile. The publications known as the ‘Rettig Report’, produced and promoted by the Chilean Government’s National Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (1991) and the ‘Valech Report’ by the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture (2004 and 2011) have had a significant impact on how Chilean history textbooks portray the dictatorship and human rights violations committed by organs of state repression (Oteíza 2014). Secondary level history textbooks published in 2012 and 2013, for example, explicitly state that the ‘terror campaign’ against leftist parties in the country was supported economically by the United States through the CIA. Additionally, after a strong dispute between left-wing and right-wing political actors, the term ‘dictatorship’ was accepted as a valid label for what had previously been called the ‘military government’ (Oteíza & Achugar 2018). The critical changes to social and political processes in Chile and their impact on the national history curriculum and thus official history textbooks are represented in the following table.⁴

Table 11.1 Historical, social and educational changes and their impact on History textbooks

Sociosemiotic and ideological discourse analysis: valuing the historical experience

We conducted a discourse analysis of history textbooks taking into consideration the lexical and grammatical resources that authors use to negotiate interpersonal and ideational meanings. We paid special attention to the ways in which historical actors, events, processes and situations are constructed in the textbook analysed. As we have pointed out in previous work (Oteíza & Pinuer 2012), the discourse of history, as a social science that seeks to comprehend the complexity of human societies from a diachronic point of view, can be seen through the key domains of causality, temporo-spatial dimension and evidentiality.

In the analysis of history discourses, these dimensions are relevant to how individual and collective historical actors build historical events and processes in a certain time and space in the past. In the following diagram, therefore, we illustrate how the ‘actoral axis’ is combined with the ‘processual axis’ in this discourse.

Our analysis employs the appraisal system, developed as part of the discourse-semantic level of Systemic Functional Linguistics theory (Martin & White 2005; Oteíza & Pinuer 2012) for the analysis of the historical participants, events and processes that history textbooks deploy to negotiate the memory of the Cold War in the Chilean and Latin American recent past.

The disputes over recent national memories are ideological battles. Appraisal is a suitable theoretical resource that helps us to understand the evaluative character of memories as selective processes of remembering and forgetting, by which a society constructs more or less hegemonic positionings regarding the recent national and regional past of traumatic dictatorships (Stern 2006; Lira 2013; Jelin 2002; Ricoeur2010; Wertsch2002).

The appraisal system provides a comprehensive and descriptive systematisation of the linguistic resources authors can use to construct the value of social experience (Martin & White 2005). Consequently, this analysis contributes to our understanding of the patterns of interpersonal meanings that build, in this case, a historical experience as a text unfolds. These interpersonal negotiations of meaning work in a cumulative manner in a discourse creating determinate value positions between writers and readers.

The appraisal system organises interpersonal meanings into three main semantic areas: attitude, graduation and engagement (Martin & White 2005). The area of attitude deals with feelings considered as systems of meaning socially organised as emotions (affect), ethics or morality (judgement) and aesthetic values (appreciation). These evaluations of attitude can be built with a positive or negative charge, which can also be portrayed as inscribed (explicit) or evoked (implicit) instances in the discourse. The organisation of these types of evaluations with regard to the discourse entities appraised is shown in Table 11.2.

Table 11.2 Attitudinal meanings in relation to entities appraised in the field of history

The region of meaning of affect considers the possibility of feelings that an emoter directs towards or expresses in reaction to some specific emotional trigger that can be present or past. Feelings can also involve intention, rather than reaction, in relation to a stimulus that is irrealis rather than realis (Oteíza 2017a). Thus, affect can be classified as in/security, dis/satisfaction or un/happiness, but also as dis/inclination as desire or fear, when the stimulus is irrealis, as in ‘the triumph of the Cuban revolution was considered by the United States as a threat to their interests’.⁵

The semantic domain of judgement pertains to the institutionalisation of feelings in terms of proposals or norms about how people should or should not behave. According to Martin and White (2005) this area of meaning can be divided into social esteem, which comprises admiration and criticism regarding values of normality, capacity and tenacity; and of social sanction, which involves praise and condemnation regarding values of veracity and propriety. An instance of an evoked positive social esteem pertaining to the capacity of president Salvador Allende, for example, can be seen in: ‘Salvador Allende’s rise to power, leader of the Chilean left …’⁶.

The evaluative space of graduation refers to the fact that expressions of attitude can be intensified or weakened, and in doing so, can construct different levels of alignment with the value positions deployed in the text (Martin & White 2005). The area or subsystem of engagement is considered in the framework to explore the source of attitudes; that is, to identify whether the text is relying mainly on the author’s voice, constructing a monoglossic orientation or a ‘single voiced’ text that presents facts and ideas as taken-for-granted, and thus closing down the dialogic space; or if the authorial voice actually recognises alternative positions creating an heteroglossic space regarding specific evaluations.

For the discourse analysis we follow the main categories of affect and judgement proposed by Martin and White (2005) to examine the different regions of attitude in the discourse. Nevertheless, we incorporate the appreciation analytical categories offered by Oteíza and Pinuer (2012) and Oteíza (2017a, b) to better understand how historical events, situations and processes are evaluated in the history textbook. The categories of power, impact, integrity and conflict allow us to explain in a more adequate manner how the specific ideational meanings, as shown in Figure 11.1 and constructed by the authors in the historical account, are valued in the discourse. These four categories in combination and with different levels of negative or positive value polarity can build discourses of historical legitimation or delegitimation, as is briefly explained and illustrated by the following paragraphs.

Fig. 11.1

Representation of actors, events, processes and situations in historical discourses

The category of conflict deals with the manifestation of a social, political and/or economic tension that can be expressed with different grades of radicalism along a cline, such as in the inscribed and graduated negative evaluation of high conflict of the diplomatic relations between the military junta and the United States during Pinochet’s dictatorship: ‘Diplomatic relations became especiallytense when the military junta reaffirmed its willingness to establish a long-term authoritarian regime’. The category of power is associated with the action and influence of powerful and dominant groups (Oteíza & Pinuer 2012; Oteíza 2017a, b). We can appreciate the realisation of this meaning as a high economic, military and political power enforced by the United States’ intervention in LatinAmerica, for example: ‘In addition to the enormous amount of resources that this country assigned to operations of sabotage and political propaganda, the dictatorships were promoted by military men trained in the US’.

Integrity refers to moral or ethical evaluations. An example of this category is the evoked positive evaluation of integrity of the historical event of Allende’selection to the presidency: ‘Salvador Allende’s rise to power, leader of the Chilean left, through a democratic election…”. The last category of impact deals with the importance and social value that authors attribute to historical events, processes or situations in the discourse, such as the positive appreciation of impact regarding socialism evoked in: ‘many political organisations in the region saw socialism as a possibility to achieve economic growth and social development’. These four categories of appreciation are shown in Figure 11.2:

Fig. 11.2

System of appreciaton for analysing events, processes and situations (Oteíza and Pinuer 2012; Oteíza 2017a)

We have briefly presented the framework of appraisal as an analytical tool that allows us to explore how ideological positionings are constructed in a particular discursive practice through the identification of the entities appraised, of who or what is constructed in the discourse as a source of evaluation, and the type of evaluation: judgement, affect, appreciation. We consider evaluation as a set of values and beliefs that to a certain extent inform social practices, semiotically mediated. Many of these discursive practices circulate as naturalisations promoted by the interests of hegemonic and powerful groups. In this manner, ‘ideologies constitute spaces of unequal distribution of semiotic resources of a community, as well as the reproduction of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses’ (Oteíza 2017b: 146).

In the next section we present a discursive analysis of two units of the 11^th grade official history textbook published in Chile by the Ministry of Education in 2017, paying special attention to how the historical process of the Cold War is negotiated by authors in this pedagogical recontextualisation of the national and Latin American recent past.

From a Polarised Vision of East and West to an Inter-America polarisation

The selected fragments of the history textbooks analysed were part of the history units entitled: ‘the period of structural transformations: Chile in the sixties and the seventies’ and ‘the breakdown of democracy and the military dictatorship’. The proposed general learning outcome stated in the Chilean curricula establishes the development of the two necessary skills for analysing and valuing different points of view regarding the recent national past: a) to critically analyse and compare different political views and historiographical interpretations of the past that led to the crisis of 1973 and the democratic breakdown, and b) to characterise the main features of the coup and the military dictatorship in Chile, including the systematic violation of human rights, the political violence, and the suppression of the rule of law (MINEDUC 2015:38).

The United States’ longstanding relationship with Latin America as disrupted by the Cuban Revolution (1959) and the rise to power of left-wing Salvador Allende (1970)

The unit entitled ‘the period of structural transformations’, covers national Chilean history and how it is shaped in the local and global contexts between the 1950s and the 1980s.

The main text can be classified as a history genre in which participants, processes and events are organised in a chronological manner and in terms of a simple construction of causality. The principal participants included and evaluated with more prominence in this unit are the United States, Latin America, Cuba and world geopolitical blocs. The historical events and processes highlighted are the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the Cold War, and the propagation of communist and Marxist ideology in the region.

As mentioned above, the United States is clearly depicted as the main protagonist of this historical account. The ‘country from the north’ is the participant who thinks, desires, influences and worries about Latin America. The United States clearly represents here a powerful country that has both the power and the means to decide and act politically, economically and militarily across the region. It receives a positive appraisal with appreciation of great power throughout the unit. The Soviet Union is presented in a secondary role, siding with the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro, both representative of the threat or of the risk of the spread of Marxist ideology in the region. The Cuban Revolution plays an important role in the construction of the historical argument, as will be shown in the examples below. At the end of the unit, the United States is portrayed as partially responsible for the installation of the dictatorships in LatinAmerica and for the brutal human rights violations that characterised these regimes.

Example 1:

In the context of the Cold War, the United States intensified the ties that traditionallymade it closer to LatinAmerica through the establishment of mechanisms of mutual cooperation, economic intervention and military support. (SM 2017: 147)

En el contexto de la Guerra Fría, Estados Unidos intensificó los vínculos que tradicionalmente lo estrechaban con América Latina, a través del establecimiento de mecanismos de cooperación mutua, intervención económica y apoyo militar.

As Example1 shows, the relationship between the United States and LatinAmerica is portrayed positively as countries that have collaborated with each other ‘traditionally’ and that have ‘intensified’ their ties in the context of the Cold War. Later in the text authors reinforce this idea of ‘mutual’ cooperation in which LatinAmerica participates. However, this positive appraisal of judgment of capacity that is attributed to the United States from a monoglossic orientation renders the relationship between the two regions uneven, since it is the United States that has the power ‘to intervene’ economically in LatinAmerica and give military support. LatinAmerica as a historical participant in this narrative possesses less economic and military power and is on the receiving end of this ‘support’ from ‘the country of the north’.

The text then emphasises how the liberal and right-wing government of Jorge Alessandri and Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei were part of this process; the close relationship with the United States underwent several important economic and social reforms. At the same time, the text states that the United States perceived the rise to power of socialist Salvador Allende, presented as part of this period of changes under the Cold War, as a threat by the United States, as illustrated in Example2:

Example 2:

The rise to power of Salvador Allende, leader of the Chilean left, through a democratic election, was interpreted by the United States as a threat. (SM 2017: 147)

La llegada al gobierno de Salvador Allende, líder de la izquierda chilena, mediante una elección democrática, fue interpretada por Estados Unidos como una amenaza.

Interestingly enough, the fact that Allende was elected president of Chile has an evoked positive appraisal of integrity, ‘through a democratic election’, a fact not mentioned regarding the other two previously elected right-wing and centre presidents of the period, suggesting that democratic integrity is an implicit given to the two previously mentioned presidents. Allende, as ‘leader of the Chilean left’, is presented as an active participant evaluated with a positive judgment of political capacity. However, as a ‘threat’, Allende is evaluated with an inscribed negative appraisal of affect as fear by the United States, a participant portrayed by authors with the active role of being able to give opinions and to express concern in the discourse.

The Cold War is presented, as is often the case, as a polarisation in which ‘global geopolitical blocs of support and rejection’ sided with the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In this context, LatinAmerica is portrayed as being influenced by the United States and by having a long-standing mutual relationship of cooperation. However, Salvador Allende is constructed as the source of a fear that compromises the social and political order in the region. Later in the text, the Cuban Revolution is evoked as a new economic and social opportunity for the development of the region (Example3):

Example 3:

However, after the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, many political organisations in the region saw socialism as an opportunity to achieve economic growth and social development. (SM 2017: 150)

No obstante, tras el triunfo de la revolución cubana en 1959, muchas organizaciones políticas de la región vieron en el socialismo una posibilidad para lograr el crecimiento económico y el desarrollo social.

All multilateral treaties between the United States and their allies in the region of LatinAmerica⁷ and, most of all, the economic influence of the United States over the region, were therefore in danger. The Cuban revolution implicated a new way of managing the economic and social growth that this ‘Third World’ needed in order to overcome poverty and its situation as underdeveloped countries. This idea is not stated outright in Example3 but rather implied with the use of a counter-expectative conjunction ‘however’, which signals a dialogic contraction.

The authors of the history unit also stress the ‘mutual assistance’ between the United States and LatinAmerica. This relationship is presented with a positive evaluation of appreciation that is highly graduated by scope in time and space. It is also presented as a given situation in the region ‘since the nineteenth century’, and ‘traditionally’ by ‘all’ countries in LatinAmerica that signed the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance and the Organization of American States (SM 2017, 150–151).

In the next section, the textbook authors address the Cuban revolution and its ideological positioning. Fidel Castro, as the leader of the ‘insurrectional movement’ and of the Cuban ‘rebel army’, is portrayed with positive evaluations of capacity in the discourse, and as a leader who took action to expropriate ‘important companies, especially American ones’. This brief mention of Castro’s political and economic action in Cuba is interrupted by the depiction of the political alliances in the region and the apprehension that these reforms caused in the United States, as shown in Example4:

Example 4:

As a result of these measures and the progressive contact between Fidel Castro and the local Communist Party, relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union become stronger. On the other hand, the government of the United States, increasinglyconcerned about the course of the Cuban situation, considered overthrowing the newly installed regime. In December 1961, Fidel Castro declared his adhesion to Marxism, which ultimately defined the Cuban situation within the global context. (SM 2017: 151)

Como consecuencia de estas medidas y del progresivo contacto entre Fidel Castro y el Partido Comunista local, las relaciones entre Cuba y la Unión Soviética se estrecharon. Por contraparte, el gobierno de Estados Unidos, cada vez máspreocupado por el rumbo de la situación cubana, consideró derribar al régimen recién instalado. En diciembre de 1961, Fidel Castro declaró su adhesión al marxismo, lo que terminó por definir la situación cubana dentro del contexto global.

As we perceive in Example4, the text continues to portray the social and political power and influence exerted by the Cuban revolution in the region from a monoglossic authorial positioning, constructing a simple causality for the tightening of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Cuba (‘as a result of these measures’). In Example5, the authors change the monoglossic orientation to a heteroglossic one, introducing a negative evaluation and of appreciation giving voice to many parties and movements of the left regarding liberal democracy promoted by the north. Nevertheless, in addition to this positive appreciation of power and impact of the Cuban Revolution (‘triumph’), the authors imply a negative appreciation of integrity towards these parties and movements, due to the risk that an ‘armed way’ represents to the rest of the region:

Example 5:

The triumph of the revolution in a territory so close to the United States and in a regional context of profound economic, social and political changes was exemplary for many parties and movements of the left, which declared their aversion to liberal democracy and leaned towards the armed way of access to power. (SM 2017: 151)

El triunfo de la revolución en un territorio tan cercano a Estados Unidos y en un contexto regional de profundos cambios económicos, sociales y políticos, resultó ejemplar para muchos partidos y movimientos de izquierda, los que declararon su aversión a la democracia liberal y se inclinaron por la vía armada de acceso al poder.

The Cuban Revolution is constructed as a ‘threat’ to what the United States ‘desire’ for the Latin American region. In Example5 the authors present the only instance in which the parties and movements of the left have a voice in the discourse, expressing their ‘aversion’ to the liberal democracy promoted by the United States with an inscribed appraisal of negative affect of unhappiness. As in previous instances in the discourse, the voice of the United States is the most prominent historical participant with the power to decide what is best for the region and, consequently, a participant ‘thinking’ and ‘expressing its concern’ in the following pages of the text. In sum, the primary historical processes in the region emphasised here stress that the Soviet Union has an ally in LatinAmerica and that the United States considers this a ‘threat to their interests’, seeking to ‘prevent the triumph’ of socialism on the continent, as shown in the following Example6:

Example 6:

The triumph of the Cuban revolution (1959) implied the establishment of the first allied government of the Soviet Union in America, which the United States considered a threat to their interests, promoting from that moment two strategies to prevent the triumph of socialismon the rest of the continent: a regional pact, the Alliance for Progress, and the establishment of the National Security Doctrine. (SM 2017: 152)

El triunfo de la revolución cubana (1959) implicó el establecimiento del primer gobierno aliado de la Unión Soviética en América, lo que Estados Unidos consideró una amenaza para sus intereses, impulsando a partir de ese momento, dos estrategias para impedir el triunfo del socialismo en el resto del continente: un pacto regional, la Alianza para el Progreso, y el establecimiento de la Doctrina de Seguridad Nacional.

The socialist and communist ideologies are evaluated with a high negative appreciation of political and social power throughout the discourse, but most of all with an inscribed and strong negative evaluation of affect- as fear that justifies the United States’ military intervention in the region: ‘with the aim of stopping the advance of communism in the context of the Cold War’ and ‘to move away the ghosts of communism”.

Dictatorships in the Southern Cone: The Intervention of the United States and the Overthrow of democratic governments

The Unit entitled ‘The Military Dictatorship’ covers the process of ‘breakdown of constitutional order’ from the coup d’état in September 1973 to the return to democracy at the end of the 1980s. The processes of military dictatorship and the recovery of democracy in Chile are presented here locally as part of a series of dictatorships in Latin America, and globally as politically, economically and socially influenced by the United States. The main participants included and evaluated in the discourse are, therefore, the United States and the different administrations of the period, the dictatorial regimes in Latin America, the Chilean military junta and, to a lesser extent, the Chilean Intelligence Agency (DINA), and the groups that were opposed to the regime. The historical events and processes highlighted in the text are the rise of dictatorships in the Southern Cone, the violation of human rights, and the return to democracy. As in the previous unit, the United States is presented as an actor whose point of view is fundamental for understanding the historical development of LatinAmerica. The feelings, opinions and interests of ‘the country of the north’ are central in this narrative.

At the beginning of the unit, the Latin American dictatorial regimes established in the second half of the 1960s and in the 1970s are characterised in a negative manner in terms of their lack of integrity. In addition, the discourse expresses the power these repressive regimes exerted over the populations of their countries and, primarily, over opposition groups, as shown in Example7:

Example 7:

Most of these military regimes exhibited common characteristics, derived from their ascription to similar ideological trends, which sought to suppress reforms that would have led, according to them, to internal chaos, for which it was necessary to eliminateany kind of opposition. (SM 2017: 204)

La mayoría de estos regímenes militares presentaron características comunes, derivadas de su adscripción a similares corrientes ideológicas, que pretendían suprimir aquellas reformas que habrían llevado, según ellos, al caos interno, para lo cual era necesario eliminarcualquier tipo de oposición.

The discourse presents evoked appreciations about the negative integrity of the military regimes in LatinAmerica, as well as their high power, presenting first their will to ‘suppress’ the reforms and then to ‘eliminate’ all forms of opposition. This negative evaluation is reinforced by quantification, extending that appraisal to ‘most’ of these regimes. On the other hand, the political and social situation of Latin American countries before the dictatorships is evaluated in an equally negative way, as conflictive. Such evaluation is sourced in the ideological standpoint of the regimes, according to which there was an ‘internal chaos’ provoked by an opposition that therefore had to be eliminated.

The characteristics shared by Latin American dictatorial regimes are later described using a technical lexis that informs about a series of historical processes, such as ‘suppression of the Rule of Law’, ‘prohibition of political parties’, ‘use of censorship and political violence’ and ‘systematic human rights violations’ (SM 2017: 204–205).

Despite the predominantly positive representation of the United States in these two historical units analysed, the role the US played in the advent of dictatorships in LatinAmerica is also portrayed in a negative manner in terms of its integrity, as in the following example:

Example 8:

Most of these [dictatorships], in principle, were supported and, at times, economically sustained by the United States. In addition to the enormous amount of resources that this country assigned to operations of sabotage and political propaganda, the dictatorships were promoted by military men trained in the U.S. Army School of the Americas, and by the introduction of the National Security Doctrine. (SM 2017: 204)

La mayoría de estas [dictaduras], en principio, fueron apoyadas y, en ocasiones, sustentadas económicamente por Estados Unidos. Además de la enorme cantidad de recursos que este país destinó a operaciones de sabotaje y propaganda política, las dictaduras fueron propiciadas por militares formados en la Escuela de las Américas y por la introducción de la Doctrina de Seguridad Nacional.

The intervention of the United States is not only presented negatively by means of a judgment of impropriety carried out by the instances of ‘sabotage’ and ‘political propaganda’, but also highly reinforced, since this country assigned an ‘enormous amount’ of resources to supporting ‘most of these’ dictatorships. At the same time, the support the Unites States gives to the dictatorships expresses the power this country has to intervene in the political destinies of Latin American countries.

In the Chilean case, as we have seen, the US’s intervention is presented as a consequence of the constant concerns and threats perceived by the latter, first regarding the Cuban revolution and then in relation to Salvador Allende’s rise to power as the first democratically elected socialist government:

Example 9:

Avoiding the emergence in Latin America of ‘another Cuba’ led the United States to intervene in Chile through its intelligence agencies. At least since 1963 it triedto impede the election of Allende, an issue that worsened from 1970 until the military coup in 1973. (SM 2017: 205)

Evitar que surgiera en Latinoamérica "otra Cuba" llevó a Estados Unidos a intervenir en Chile a través de sus organismos de inteligencia. Al menos desde 1963 intentabaevitar la elección de Allende, cuestión que se agudizó desde 1970 hasta el golpe militar en 1973.

In Example9, the actions taken by the United States ‘to intervene’ and ‘to impede’ express a negative evaluation of the integrity of this country. The volition of the United States is expressed by means of the verb ‘tried’, which is intensified as an issue that ‘worsened’ over time.

As the insecurity felt by the United States is presented as the main motive for its intervention, this historical account assumes a heteroglossic discursive orientation, presenting the US’s perspective on the political situation of LatinAmerica. In this vision, the Allende government is directly linked with the Cuban Revolution, which epitomises the presence of socialism in the region, read as a menace by the United States. The USSR does not appear as a participant in this historical interpretation, nor are the affects or opinions of the Chilean and Cuban governments presented (e.g. concerns about the US intervention or hopes regarding the socialist project).

The construction of the United States as the main agent in this interpretation of the Cold War period, as well as its representation as the sole emoter of the affections expressed (‘concern’, ‘threat’) can be particularly observed when the international relations of the Chilean regime are addressed in the text. In this regard, the affects attributed to the United States and the evaluations of judgements applied to it vary according to the specific US government in power. First, relationships are presented as positive but not entirely satisfactory for the United States during Nixon’s administration, that received the military coup in Chile ‘with moderate approval’. The relations then appear as conflictive due to the assassination of former chancellor Orlando Letelier and his secretary Ronni Moitt while on US territory (1976). The distance between the governments is constructed as intensified in the discourse during the Kennedy era and its change in human rights policy, as Example10 shows:

Example 10:

Diplomatic relations became especiallytense when the military Junta reaffirmed its willingness to establisha long-termauthoritarian regime. One of the mostcritical points was the murder in Washington of former chancellor Orlando Letelier and his secretary Ronni Moitt in September 1976, in which DINA agents were involved. This was a clearviolation of US’s security (SM 2017: 229).

Las relaciones diplomáticas se volvieron especialmentetensas cuando la junta militar reafirmó su voluntad de establecer un régimen autoritariode largo plazo. Uno de los puntos máscríticos fue el asesinato en Washington del ex canciller Orlando Letelier y su secretaria Ronni Moitt en septiembre de 1976, en el que estuvieron involucrados agentes de la DINA, y que constituyó una claraviolación a la seguridad estadounidense.

The worsening of relations is expressed in the discourse by means of resources of appreciation that express a high conflict level, reinforced by intensification: ‘especially tense’, ‘one of the most critical points’. The historical event that explains this situation (the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moitt) is presented as ‘a clear violation of US security’, which evokes a negative affect of insecurity whose emoter is, as in earlier instances in the discourse, the United States. This ‘violation’ (sharpened by the presence of the adjective ‘clear’), also inscribes a negative evaluation about the integrity of the Chilean regime, represented by ‘the military Junta’ as a historical actor. The same negative evaluation is manifested in ‘authoritarian regime’, ‘murder’ and ‘were involved’, instances in which agents of DINA⁸ are also evaluated. As a result, a contrast is presented between the United States and the Chilean regime in which the latter is evaluated negatively. Such contrast is even more evident when the text presents the Jimmy Carter government’s policy with regard to human rights violations, as it is shown in Example11:

Example 11:

During the government of Democrat Jimmy Carter, an international policy was applied that privileged the respect of Human Rights […] While diplomatic relations improved during Ronald Reagan administration, the pressures to initiate the transition to democracy continued, especially after the crisis of 1982 and the social outbreak that it provoked, which caused the State Department to opt for supporting the democratic opposition, extending that policy to the entire Southern Cone. (SM 2017: 229)

Bajo la presidencia del demócrata Jimmy Carter se aplicó una política internacional que privilegió el respeto a los Derechos Humanos […] Si bien las relaciones diplomáticas mejoraron con el gobierno de Ronald Reagan, las presiones para iniciar la transición hacia la democracia continuaron, especialmente a partir de la crisis de 1982 y el estallido social que provocó, lo que hizo que el Departamento de Estado apostara por apoyar a la oposición democrática, política que se extendió a todo el Cono Sur.

The international policy of the United States is presented through the measures taken by the Carter administration, in turn interpreted as a continuation of the Kennedy Amendment. This allows for the construction of a positive evaluation of the United States by means of an inscribed judgement regarding its integrity: ‘privileged the respect of Human Rights’.

A contrast is then established between the relations with the Chilean regime before and after the Carter administration (manifested in the adversative conjunction ‘while’). The United States began to put pressure on the Chilean regime and, over time, decided to support the democratic opposition. These instances inscribe a positive judgement on the capacity of the United States to intervene (‘pressures’), as well as an affect of inclination (‘opted’) that expresses the will of this country to take measures regarding the politics of Chile. Such a will is not only a desire but an actual capability to decide the political fates of Latin American countries, with regard to both the rise and fall of democratic governments and dictatorial regimes. The fact that the US intervention towards the recovery of democracy is explained based on the complex social situation in Chile (‘crisis’) and the ‘social outbreak’ that this caused, contributes to the construction of a positive depicture of the international policy of the United States in the region.

The main evaluative prosodies of the analysis are presented in the following Figures:

Fig. 11.3

Evaluative prosody of power and conflict of main historical entities

Fig. 11.4

Evaluative prosody of fear from a temporal perspective

Final Remarks

History textbooks and their negotiation in the classroom play a fundamental role in the process of constructing social memories. In history textbooks authors have a tendency to portray dominant narratives that express different ideological positions about the past. This is particularly evident in the reconstruction of recent national pasts, in which different contesting memories coexist. The historical period known as the Cold War has thus had an immense impact on the memory cultures of the countries involved, according to their position in the struggle and their political and social particularities.

This chapter has explored how the memory of the Cold War is currently negotiated in official Chilean history textbooks. We carried out a discourse analysis with the purpose of identifying how and which historical actors, events and processes are included and evaluated in the text. In the case of LatinAmerica, these memories have been shaped by its geopolitical situation as a region traditionally influenced by the United States and by the series of dictatorships and human rights violations that most Latin American countries underwent in the 1970s and 1980s.

As demonstrated in the analysis, the Cold War in LatinAmerica was experienced as a struggle between North and South rather than East and West. In the historical account presented by the history textbook analysed, the longstanding relations of cooperation and support between LatinAmerica and the United States were disrupted by the Cuban Revolution and subsequently the election of socialist Salvador Allende in Chile, both interpreted by ‘the country of the north’ as a threat as they instantiated Marxist ideology in the region.

The historical construction throughout the discourse of a negative appraisal of affect as fear, provoked by the presence of Marxism, allows authors to explain and justify the measures the United States imposed on LatinAmerica: the actions taken to undermine the Cuban regime, the attempts to prevent Allende’selection, the political, economic and military support given to right-wing dictatorships across the continent, and finally the steps taken to return to democracy. At the same time, the United States is imbued with a positive appraisal of integrity, since its actions sought to maintain the security and stability of the region.

While in this historical -recount authors assign an agentive and prominent role to the United States, other historical actors are less represented in the discourse. The Soviet Union hardly appears in the text; and when it does, its inclusion is always contingent to its relationship with the Cuban Revolution as the primary counterpart of the United States in the ideological dispute over the Southern Cone. Fidel Castro plays a more active role in the narrative; however, his actions and the process of the Cuban Revolution are presented in the context of a highly conflictive situation and as a result of the poverty-stricken conditions in which most of the Cuban population lived. In the Chilean case, there are few mentions of actors such as right-wing parties, which in fact played a key role in establishing and supporting the military dictatorship. The opinions, feelings or visions of left-wing groups and parties are given even less consideration in the text.

In sum, with the discourse analysis of the actors, events and processes presented in this historical account, it is possible to appreciate how the memory of the Cold War in LatinAmerica is constructed as a situation of political, economic and social dependency on the United States, with Chile as part of this extended process. This historical narrative of fear and conflict contributes to an interpretation of the recent Chilean traumatic past in which the dictatorship is mainly presented as the result of this dependency, blurring or minimising the role other actors played in the process. This historical positioning of an official textbook reflects a series of discussions and debates in which the Chilean society has participated over the last decades regarding the search for causes, responsibilities and explanations. The study of history textbooks, as official semiotic products that play a key role in the negotiation of memories in Chilean schools, helps us to comprehend those social debates, and in doing so identify which memories have become ‘encapsulated’ meanings and which memories are still open to debate in Chile and in other Latin American countries that have experienced a violent past.