The fight between them Renato Garin y Fernando Atria It’s been a long time since it’s just been limited to cross-statements on social media. In April this year, the former deputy from the DR exposed his dissatisfaction with whoever was his co-worker in the Constitutional Convention before the academic faculty of the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile, where both teach, after a video went viral through various platforms in which a young woman was seen in Atria’s house hitting a piñata with her face with a bat .
But the case did not stop there, and in recent weeks it continued to escalate to the point where last week Dean Pablo Ruiz-Tagle spoke before the facultycalling the ex-frenteamplista to order, who chose to suspend his work as a teacher.
The new episode of tension was triggered after last Thursday, August 25, Garín – who has the rank of assistant professor – shared an email with the academic faculty in which he reported on the way in which Antonio Bascuñan Rodriguez, who wrote a column for The Cliniche meant Atria.
“I would like to share with you an interesting reflection from a colleague, who was my teacher, although I did not manage to learn much from him at the time”part saying in the email that he was able to access The Third PM. And he continues: “It happens that today, after years of banalities, the grandson of Aníbal Bascuñán has published an interesting text and it is not a legal report. It happens that when the son of guild dean he decides to write in Spanish, far from the punitive gibberish, without clients or prosecutors, turns out to be quite a lucid jurist”.
As Garín expresses in the writing, “Bascuñán dissects the deep performative-intellectual contradictions of Mr. Fernando Atria. As you know, both know each other intimately, even the latter recognizes himself as a disciple of the first dean appointed by Pinochet. Therefore, given this umbilical closeness, this text has even more value because Bascuñán manages to see -in a diffuse way- the same thing that he observed at the time: contradictions driven by a theological-eschatological drive that drinks from the theology of liberation in its most radicalized interpretation. Interestingly, the only real disciple of the fellow operatic is another young theologian. It looks like Wagner’s work.”
And it does not stop there, because it adds: “Guess the praise Zapallarinos that Bascuñán Rodríguez dedicates to Atria have the objective of preventing the funas, piñatas and pelambres of their surroundings. Likewise, it seems to me that Bascuñán’s criticism of Atria is devastating and leaves the door open for the real test: the role of salvific Catholicism in the egalitarian political philosophy that we see displayed in Atria’s followers. That is to say, we are facing a radical catholic advance of the left. In the 60s we met the Mapu and the Christian Left, now we know them they. And inside the building, in less than a decade, the deanery passed from the hands of a pro-Jesuit squanderer to an ex-opus dei, who discovered Lutheran liberalism at Yale.”
This is how at the end, the ex-conventional argues that the “badly called anticlericals” must wake up “from this lethargy.” In his opinion, what was expressed by the also lawyer “could be the beginning of a doctoral thesis.”
Although Garín’s pronouncements did not usually generate much debate within the university, on this occasion the annoyance itself was evident among his peers, who questioned his tone. In fact, Dean Ruiz-Tagle himself stepped forward and sent him his response about three hours later, also via email.
“Dear Professor Garín: Today I received an email from you that contains unfortunate expressions, referring to professors and former professors of the faculty. You have alluded to these people without the respect demanded by the principles that govern our university coexistence. Your inappropriate words constitute a misuse of your colleagues’ emails. Moreover, many people in our faculty have told me that they do not wish to continue receiving this type of communication”, expressed the highest authority of said academic unit according to what he was able to gather. The Third PM.
Faithful to the style that has characterized him until now, Garín did not let the mail from his hierarchical superior pass by as if nothing had happened. Yesterday he went back to his email, but this time to attach a letter through which reported his decision to suspend his work as a teacher at the University of Chile.
“From the contest that was awarded to me in 2019, prior to the social outbreak, I have experienced a series of unusual situations for which I have decided to suspend my teaching duties at the school. This decision is painful for me, because my family has been linked to the institution for more than a century, however, your philo-authoritarian behaviors are intolerable to me”, he assures in the five-page letter.
In that same email, the ex-conventional refers to the series of difficulties he had to obtain his degree as an assistant professor. He also assures that the current dean led, in his opinion, an “unusual” claim in the Comptroller’s Office against him, for the alleged incompatibility of functions at the university and at the Convention. All this, to graph what according to him would be an unfair treatment.
“Not content with this, the deanery of Professor Ruiz-Tagle has deployed a tutelage of a school nature, gendarme, unacceptable in a university environment. It started as a whimpering babble about my emails, to follow up with recommendations, errands, and other attempts to influence my view of the Ruiz-Tagle management and his ‘team’. This unacceptable trend, typical of a precordilleran school principal, has reached an unusual milestone. During the last week of August, Dean Ruiz-Tagle Vial has allowed himself to send an email urbi et orbi, instructing my prose, questioning my references and -even- moralizing my words. He has been exalted for being referred to as a ‘former Opus-Dei’, just as he has been scandalized by the references to Professor Bascuñán Valdés as ‘founder of Gremialismo de la Chile,’” said the former deputy.
However, and despite the strong questions he expresses against the dean, Garín states that he will remain in the university faculty: “By the way, I will continue within the cloister and I hope to vote and present myself in competitive elections. I will return to teaching if I see a change in your school trend, otherwise I will wait until the best tradition is resumed. My family is personally connected to at least four historical deans.”
The ex-conventional and ex-deputy, in parallel, already communicated to him -as can be seen in another email sent by him- to the only student enrolled in his Wittgenstein Workshop for Lawyers course who will not teach the chair.
Consulted by the new exchange of statements, Garín insisted that he is being the target of “unacceptable” censorship. In the same sense, he stressed: “The Dean exploded because we did not repeat his fables. He’s clearly on Atria’s side, they’ve turned the faculty into a campaign command. Daniel Jadue made a speech against the Chilean legal tradition, and implicitly against former presidents Lagos and Aylwin, who are professors and emeritus. And Ruiz Tagle, on the other hand, is worried about my emails”.