What is happening in Chile? Who lies, who speaks …

"Chile is the happy copy of Eden," says the national anthem sung by all Chileans from this nationalist school pedagogy that is imposed upon us as a heraldry of the nation, deepened by the Pinochet's dictatorship, a sort of mantra that brings us closer to a paradise that we have not seen for many decades. The famous Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz once said that the image of Chile was rather comfortable in infernal circles, that this country would be a direct rendezvous to Dante's hell. Between these two metaphorical places, paradise and hell, Chile continues to experience permanent disruption
and unresolved since the timorata of the agreed democracy that has not erased the social upheavals experienced for long decades.

Who are the students who rebelled?

Thursday 17 October in the morning students surprisingly they started a massive escape
at the Santiago Metro for the rise of 30 pesos has just been announced by the authorities. These students are children of the large population, young people from public schools that the Chilean education system has abandoned to make them part of the anti-poverty mechanism of the neoliberal system established by the political class 30 years ago, which they applied with more or fewer reforms as a successful and differentiated model in the region.

The President of Chile, Sebastian Piñera
A right-wing entrepreneur, during his second term, just said at an international forum two weeks ago that Chile was a prosperous island and without the social conflicts in the region. An ad that would be returned as a fateful trip without a return these days: Chile, the island that was advertising Piñera as if it were one of its successful businesses, began to sink no one in the Chilean political class has the capacity to contain or explain the ongoing social revolt.

Since Thursday, the public and social landscape of specific demand has been massive and national, becoming the inorganic catalyst of Chile's inequalities expressed in various unresolved issues: health, wages, education, public transport, social securityThese are all areas of Chilean life that do not coincide with the history of progress and well-being that the neoliberal model is so successful in and around Chile.

What triggered the protest?

The ineptitude, indifference and arrogance of the authorities had already begun with an irritating and clumsy story publicly launched for the users of Santiago's public transport system: Monkeberg, The Minister of Labor of President Piñera unpublished recommended to Santiago to get up earlier than usualthat is, they got up early to travel on the subway, recommendation use the cheapest price range from 7 am. The clumsiness of these declarations will remain a historical antecedent of the low sensitivity towards the poorest and most numerous population, users of the system, as well as impoverished middle layers. A day of subway escape had been turned into a social revolt that no one had imagined. The metro began to be progressively suspended for demonstrations that ultimately had the character of civil disobedience and what were violently repressed by the police
. In a few hours, the entire population of Santiago walked without the public transport filling Alameda, as if we were going to a big demonstration or if an earthquake had occurred. The disaster was not natural, but repressive and was increasingly extended with the government's response Friday, Oct. 18, stating that measures relating to the increase in the metro ticket would not change.

What do the media say?

Friday evening 18, Santiago burned. Subway stations, supermarkets have started to illuminate a historic night of revolt in different parts of the city. There are three dead Until now, all civilians.

In the light of day and with an open face, the population started protesting massive noise of caceloras which invaded the entire metropolitan area of ​​Greater Santiago and the sum of the rest of the country gradually. To deepen the conflict, much of the means of communication and the government they started to classify social protest as violent, vandalism, criminalization of the narrative of the demand, locate citizens as criminals. The alternative means and some recognized they turned away from this empty narrative who sees only the violence of their interests and hides the greatest of all, the violence of the model itself.

Days in a state of emergency

Today, Monday the 21st, at the moment when I am writing this chronicle of Barrio Bellas Artes in downtown Santiago, multitudes protest peacefully. the police run behind the people who repress As if the story came back. The army is in the street and helicopters fly over the city In search of the inner enemy. I write this column and I cry, I get nervous and write, the rage is combined with the utopian horizon that we fought in the 80s. three days in a state of emergency
declared by the political authorities, constitutional guarantees are suspended. All this repressive system is the idem of the constitution of 80 installed by the dictatorship of Pinochet and its civilians. The same sector of society that applies the same unique ways of governing again. The democracy we believe we have won dilutes our guarantees of protection when the poor without citizenship demand a new life. Democracy is a stolen story. The exceptional nature of the violence applied today to the crowd is a real policy, it has never been different. The exception is really the rule.

In many parts of the country we have a curfew, a dejavu that I never thought to live, I fought against the dictatorship of the 80s and what we live for my generation and the country today is shocking. Three hours ago, there was a mass demonstration on Plaza Italia in downtown Santiago, thousands of people, young people, women, gays, transvestites, lesbians, students, trans workers , fags, dissident activists, academics, teachers, artists, all possible communities who, with only caceloras in their hands, repeat a collective mantra: "Chile is awake". We do not know what will happen in the next few days. The government has given up the mandate to represent the sentiment of the country. Chile rises, the old people who shouted in the streets came back with a young face in a new cycle. Criticism of the model is transversal without the previous rhetoric. This overflowing of crowds that touch pots and invade the city raises again something so fundamental and primordial that the traditional policy abandoned by the pact with economic power: We want to live in dignity and not as slaves.

The Marica neighborhood or gay neighborhood of downtown Santiago has been lit by campfires and barricades in full night revolt. A crowd with thousands of eyes and mouths that move defiantly without fear of the army and the police. There is no leadership, no leadership, no representation. There are no party flags, this revolt only screams with rage and against abuse. Its strength is so brutal and incredibly inorganic that a strategy will seem to soothe this fury. But today we do not know. My banner in the demonstration of these days realizes the atmosphere with which I came back after 30 years against the dictatorship: MARICAS AGAINST CAPITALISM.