Authoritarian terminology in Chile

A controversy is brewing in Chile because of a decision to replace the word "dictatorship" with "military government" in primary school textbooks.

When I was interviewing military officers in the late 1990s, I quickly realized how much language mattered. They used "military government" exclusively. It is in fact strictly accurate, since the president was an army general and many government positions were held by military officers, but of course it is much more generic than "dictatorship" and does not convey the same obvious image of repression.

Also important to the military was use of the word "pronunciamiento" rather than "golpe." From their perspective, there was a constitutional removal of a government, not an illegal coup, since the Chamber of Deputies had declared Salvador Allende to be violating the constitution and asked the military to take action.* Again, it is the use of a fairly bland term instead of one that immediately conjures up certain negative images.

More generally, it is a reminder of how much textbooks matter in every country, and certainly we hear about this pretty much constantly in the United States. Even if children don't bother reading them, their teachers will be using them to frame their own discussions in the classroom. They are a critical part of the construction of national identity, so revisions--subtle or otherwise--are a high-stake endeavor.

*The rationale of the Honduran military in 2009 was very similar.