Fighting for Chile: Conflicts and Consensuses in the Norwegian Movement for Solidarity with Chile, 1973-1979.

Abstract

This thesis investigates the transnational solidarity movement for Chile as it evolved in the Norwegian context following the 1973 Chilean coup. Centring itself on the two main national umbrella organisations for the solidarity movement in the years between 1973 and 1979, Solidaritetskomiteen for Chile and Chileaksjonen i Norge, the thesis analyses the political conflicts that made a bipartisan approach to the solidarity cause become unviable. The coup in Chile struck at the core of the 1970s Zeitgeist, turning it into one of the paradigmatic events of the Global Cold War resulting in the crystallisation of a unique radical imaginary surrounding Chile. With a particularly forceful Maoist movement attempting to use this imaginary to disseminate their ideology through the solidarity movement and controlling the solidarity committee, the solidarity movement became a political arena in which the political and ideological conflicts of the era played themselves out. This resulted in the bifurcation of the movement and the existence of two rival solidarity committees competing for establishing themselves as the main national organisation for the movement. Moreover, the thesis seeks to further our understanding of the shift from an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist emphasis to one based on human rights occurring within the solidarity movement, regarding it chiefly as a consequence of the lack of clear consensuses among the political Left in the 1970s. Subsequently, the thesis sets out to explore what the human rights breakthrough meant in the contemporary political landscape of Norway.