Featured image: Chilean communist leader and mayor of La Recoleta, Daniel Jadue, in the program Aquí con Ernesto Villegas. Photo: MPPC Press.
Daniel Jadue, mayor of the Chilean municipality La Recoleta in Santiago capital region, has emphasized the need for self-criticism within the left as part of its revolutionary praxis against neoliberalism. Jadue said during an interview on the TV show Aquí con Ernesto Villegas, that there is an “exhaustion” and “growing indignation” towards the attempts from the different left movements of the world, that have sought to mitigate the effects of capitalism through a legislative mode.
Jadue has visited Venezuela on several occasions. This time he was in Caracas to participate in the International Forum Against Fascism, held during April 11–13. He stated that this event “gave the world’s left the possibility of being self-critical with the movements that we have led.”
“The purpose of self-critique is to look towards the future and to leave behind those attempts that try to only humanize capitalism, which is not viable, and having had to give up the project of overcoming neoliberalism many years ago,” expressed Jadue. “When fascism is on the rise, and becoming more bloody and brutal in all countries that are seeking alternatives to neoliberalism, a meeting of this sort is pertinent,” he said, referring to the International Summit against Fascism.
Regarding whether the term fascism is an exaggerated one to describe what happened on April 11, 2002, during the coup d’état that tried to oust Commander Hugo Chávez from the presidency of Venezuela, Jadue remarked, “Perhaps such a term would not be scientifically adequate to describe the phenomenon. But, this is a secondary debate when it comes to the fact that this has been the go-to role of various sectors that, throughout history, have always done the same thing when it comes to protecting their private interests. The truth is that the extreme right has followed the same pattern in all parts of the world.”
Jadue is an architect, sociologist, politician and mayor for the past 10 years of the municipality of La Recoleta, a commune located in the north of Santiago, the capital of Chile. Jadue is a leader of the Chilean Communist Party and is well-known throughout Chile due to the implementation of local public policies that have reached a national level. In 2020 he ran as a pre-candidate for the presidency of Chile, from the Apruebo Dignidad coalition. He got 39% of votes in the primaries but lost to Gabriel Boric, the current president of Chile.
Jadue and his family are of Palestinian descent. This heritage has been decisive in his choice to embark on a political career and in social struggles.
“I was born in 1967, just after the six-day war, when Israel forcibly annexed the city of Jerusalem to its territory,” said Jadue about himself. “That was a conflict that accompanied me throughout my childhood, on all birthdays and in all family reunions. This predisposed me to a very early political militancy, initially, for the Palestinian cause.”
Jadue is an important figure in the Palestinian community in Chile, which is the largest Palestinian community in the diaspora outside of the Middle East.
Featured image: Chilean communist leader and mayor of La Recoleta, Daniel Jadue, in the program Aquí con Ernesto Villegas. Photo: MPPC Press.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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