The Forgotten Memory: Working Class Struggle versus Neoliberal Memories of Transformation (original) (raw)

Fifty years ago, the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet (1973) reorganised Chilean society within the neoliberal framework, reframed its institutions and systematically dismantled any evidence of collective solidarity and agency among the working class. The UK followed Chile six years later when Margaret Thatcher brought neoliberalism to British shores after the democratic elections (1979). Since then, Chile and the UK have been paradigmatic cases of neoliberal transformations by coercion (Chile) and by consent (the UK) (Mansell, Watkins and Urbina 2019). This paper aims to reflect on the ways in which two traumatic moments of working-class struggle have more recently been narrativized by the media , looking at how the death of its key actors (Pinochet in 2006 and Thatcher in 2013 ) allowed shifting the process of memory to stress the neoliberal narrative of transformations as a pivotal moment of modernization and national renewal, as the living history is fading away. This paper continues previous work done by the authors (Watkins and Urbina 2022), where it was argued the need for a bottom-up approach to memory to counteract institutionalised approaches, stressing how the narratives of ‘capital realism’ (Fisher) have prevailed as the way forward for both countries without the inclusion of working-class struggles, whose narratives have been turned into largely forgotten memories. Recent events such as Brexit in the UK and the rise of the hard- right in Chile despite Gabriel Boric’s presidency, have romanticised the Pinochet regime and Thatcher administration as historical conjunctions that led to a positive transformation and turning point that allowed both countries to become economic exceptions in their own rights. Therefore, this paper will argue that context and media narratives have actively participated in the construction of memories, stressing the absence of class discourses.