Spring Comes to Chile

This post is also available in: Spanish

In the Southern Hemisphere, spring starts on September 21^st. For many, this is cause for joy as temperatures begin to rise and flowers on trees and in gardens color the landscape. However, there are many people who don’t enjoy this change—those whose allergies are triggered by all the pollen in the air.

This year, spring in Chile started on October 18^th, when a group of brave Chileans, represented by secondary students, called on the population to evade subway fares after a fare increase of 30 pesos. And so began the “Revolution of the 30 Pesos.”

I’m using spring as a metaphor not to be romantic, but because of what has caused the recent movements. Leaving the status quo behind is always uncomfortable, but those who have taken to the street in protest have done so with hope—a hope that those who are allergic to change are trying to shut out.

Photo: Jorge Fernández Salas

As the hours passed after the call to evade fares, television news and social media began to report that, as discontent grew, more and more people were joining the protests. In the morning, television programs interviewed commuters, expecting to find them angry about the amount of time they had to wait to get to work or return to their houses. The interviewers were surprised to find that, yes, people were angry, but not at the students—they were angry because fares had increased without a corresponding increase in the minimum wage, without improvements to healthcare, without changes to the pension system, without corrupt politicians or members of the business class being held accountable for their crimes. They were angry because, despite thousands of promises, there still wasn’t free education, public transportation still hadn’t reached the outskirts of the city, water had been privatized—the list goes on. There were some who said they were surprised at the actions of the protesters—seriously? What planet had these people been living on that they hadn’t realized what people had been enduring for the last thirty years?

As the protests moved from the subway stations to the street, people started to march, raising their voices to demand change. When protestors started barricading streets, banging on pots and pans (the cacerolazo), the government decided the situation was getting out of control—perhaps, they thought, the level of repression they had exercised over the last thirty years hadn’t been enough. For the first time since democracy was reestablished in Chile, a state of emergency was declared, and the military was dispatched to the streets to “restore order.” It started to seem like the dictatorship had never ended after all.

Photo: Sebastien G. Mora, used with permission

At around 10 o’clock at night on Saturday October 19^th, after having spent the whole day on Instagram and Twitter trying to understand what was going on in my home country, I saw a video from the Plaza Anibal Pinto in Valparaiso—it would have been unrecognizable if I hadn’t spotted my favorite ice cream place in the background. In the video is a truck of the type used by the military and, just behind, a group of about a dozen uniformed men. As the person filming changes direction, you see a group of five soldiers beating up a civilian. One of the soldiers throws the man on the ground, kicks him in the stomach. I felt as if something inside me was breaking.

It’s hard to be so far away from a struggle that I had been part of as a student and later as part of my work, a struggle that I had heard so much about from my colleagues as they worked for justice. They were working for exactly this, a justice that demands dignity and opportunity—like, for example, a healthcare system that allows people can focus on getting better, rather than worrying about how they’re going to pay their medical bills.

Being away from home has made me think of some of the things I heard as I was moving to Colombia: that in Chile there had never been guerrillas, there had never been violence in Chile like there was in Colombia. For while I believed it, and even felt guilty for having had such a different life experience. Now I realize that, while I didn’t know what people here had experienced, it turns out I didn’t even know about the repression in my own country, my own city.

Since the first day of protests in Chile, people have—almost spontaneously—started to express their discontent through the cacerolazo, during the marches and at the hour of curfew. Who would have guessed that the sound of all these pots sounding at the same time would come to symbolize the unity of the people and their struggle for justice? Protestors didn’t stop doing the cacerolazo, not even after the president declared in an address to the entire country on October 20^th that “we are at war”: words that we all knew weren’t true and that were followed by day after day of demonstrations, one of which drew over a million people.

Photo: Guido Coppa

Despite this, at the time this article was written in early November, the government still hadn’t listened, and according to data from the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office, more than 23 people had died. Who will be their voice now? I know that more will rise up, but we can never replace those who have died.

I’m reminded of Salvador Allende’s last speech: “Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Others will overcome this grey and bitter moment in which treason has prevailed. Know that, sooner rather than later, grand avenues will open up again, where free people will pass on their way to a better society.”

It was never about the 30 pesos. It’s about the 30 years that have passed with a constitution written in the dictatorship, 30 years of an economic model that was supposed to “save” Chile from being another Cuba and instead bring it to development, 30 years of a compromised democracy.

So, even though it’s uncomfortable for many, spring comes all the same—Chile woke up! History belongs to all of us.