The factors of the epidemic in Chile | "I'm not …

Chile closes its fourth day of demonstrations without any clarity or any uncertainties surrounding the future of the social and political crisis opened since the end of last week. The speech of President Sebastián Piñera did not open the door to a change of scenery, which seems to be maintained over the next few hours.

The massive mobilization was marked by the police and military repression, with hundreds of detainees and baleados, and a clamor that became massive through the networks: "Piñera resigns".

What started with the rise of the metro crossing and which was followed by mass escapes (the jump of the turnstiles) has mutated to become something much bigger. Social demands have been installed in the debate and not only because of the rise of transport, which the government has finally decided to reverse. It concerns the restriction of individual freedoms, the order to deploy the military force and the fact that Sebastián Piñera declares himself in a state of war against a "powerful enemy".

Against who is the war? The historian Sergio Grez questions and responds: "Against the majority of the national population, against popular sectors, against accumulated social discontent".

But the president's response, far from easing mood, has continued to accumulate explosive elements, warns the researcher. On the political side, he adds that insulting statements by the executive have been heard. It was "the spark" that triggered everything.

"All the conditions for the fire were met, the meadow was dry and there was a lot of fuel accumulated. There are here lasting structural causes linked to the application of the most dogmatic neoliberal model. In addition to the political mismanagement of the government in crisis, "he says.

On these structural elements, Andrea Sato, a researcher specializing in current history, flexible work and precariousness issues of the Fundación Sol, provides an economic perspective.

"People who receive the minimum wage ($ 301,000) spend about 20% of their budget on transportation. In other words, they affect about a quarter of that salary. Today, maintaining life is unsustainable in Chile. 0.01% of the richest receive more than 500 million pesos per inhabitant, while half of the Chileans are around 500,000 pesos. We must consider that the minimum wage in Chile is the lowest in the OECD. But, furthermore, he points out that people are impoverished by debts of different types. One of them is the educational one.

To analyze the current scenario, he stressed, it is necessary to elucidate some key elements, those that cross the inequalities generated by the economic system and the way in which wealth is distributed.

"It's not 30 pesos, it's 30 years old"

The sociologist and academic of the University of Chile, Carlos Ruiz, relies on one of the slogans that we see today in the street, which is also the title of a new subject of Ana Tijoux: "There are 30 pesos, they are 30," to explain that the factors behind the social epidemic "did not start yesterday, did not come out of nowhere."

Remember that the latest protests against AFPs, or for women's rights and non-sexist education, have been very massive lately. "Chilean society has a long history of mobilization, and citizens have been exhausted for a long time," he said.

According to him, this has to do with "the level at which the reproduction of Chilean daily life is privatized, every problem becomes a commodity: old age, health, water, sanitation, l & # 39; education". A situation which, he warned, "has no parallel with any other experience in Latin America or the West in general".

It is also said that "in the name of liberal and commercial freedom, the individual has been removed from his sovereignty, control of his life". For him, it is a "paradox" because "in the name of commercial freedom, you are running out of freedom".

Ruiz emphasizes that "the daily life of Chilean has become a commodity" through a "dichotomy between state and market", which, according to him, is diluted because those who are on the market side are the same as those who are not. they are for the state ", which sums up in a" fierce capture of the state that has deepened and deepened in the governments of the transition ".

In addition, he states that there is a social pact that several sectors call "it would be new" because it never existed before in Chile: "For the first time, we could build it, but that implies that we were really building a consensus with society, because the 90s policy "On the Right and the Concertación" never took it into account, "he says, and he adds," We need to two scales of transformation policies, one with immediate elements and another with gradual processes for dismantling more complex structures ".

"His power is threatened"

Historian Sergio Grez emphasized that this is a continuation of the violence with which the ruling classes act when they see their hegemony threatened.

Under his gaze, it is a spontaneous popular social revolt that, until now, has no clearly defined political objectives. But this shows an accumulation of unsatisfied complaints over many years.

He also pointed out that there was a story before the coup of Pinochet civil-military status of thousands of people killed by massacres perpetrated by the state apparatus. "The ruling class before every popular demand which, according to them, threatens the bases of the system, reacts frequently by the merciless repression of the popular movements and peoples of origin. It's a constant in the history of Chile and I leave out the history of conquest and settlement where this foundational violence is established, "says Grez.

Source: The confusion