CBC Ideas Week: How to Defeat Authoritarianism

How do authoritarian leaders use threats, illusions and force to seize and maintain power? And what does it take for truth and justice to prevail? Guided by host Nahlah Ayed, Ideas explores the rise and fall of four pivotal authoritarians and their regimes from recent world history, and asks what we can learn from their eventual downfall.

Augusto Pinochet’s Chile

In 1973, a committee, or ‘junta’, of Chile’s military leaders put General Pinochet in charge of the country after the 1973 coup that killed socialist president Salvador Allende. Supported initially by the U.S., Pinochet tightened his grip on power, imprisoning and executing thousands of opponents and dissidents. Nahlah and panellists explore Pinochet’s popularity with centre-right Western leaders, the referendum that removed him from power, and the story of his eventual arrest and trial.