Feminists want to cancel Latin America's best-known, socialist poet

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean Nobel laureate whose poetry chronicled the lives and struggles of ordinary Latin Americans, and whose life was once upheld as a symbol of resistance to tyranny and dictatorship.

The champagne-socialist accomplished all of this while also distinguishing himself as a diplomat and senator. 

At least until Chilean feminists had their way with him.

In 2018, a decision to rename the Chilean capital’s international airport after the famed poet was met with outrage from human rights activists who argued that Neruda deserved to be cancelled for admitting to an inappropriate sexual encounter with a woman in his biographical account, “I confess that I have lived.”

But while Carolina Marzán, a deputy who voted in favor of the move, told reporters that the name of the poet “who made all Chileans proud” should be the first thing visitors see when they arrive in the country, others felt that his name should be erased from the history books.

“There is no clear reason to rename the airport, and it is happening at a time when women are only beginning to dare denounce their abusers,” said Karen Vergara Sánchez, a student and activist who protested sexual harassment during a national wave of university strikes in 2018 and 2019.

The controversy went widely forgotten for several years but returned to the public sphere this week when famed Chilean novelist, Isabel Allende, defended the legacy of Chile’s best known voice while at a promotional event for her newest book on Monday – saying that if cancel culture succeeds, “no one will be spared.”

“Neruda confesses that he raped a woman and Chilean feminists want to eliminate Neruda,” Allende explained. “It’s one thing to talk about the man – we are all flawed – but it’s another to talk about his work. If in the case of an artist like Neruda we are going to focus on his actions, then let’s review his private life, but let’s not eliminate everything, because otherwise no one will be spared.”