Two Months and Counting
The Chilean Uprising has not let up, and with good reason.
Throughout the whole country the streets have been seized by waves of protests for almost two months now. How is it possible that such quantities of people could maintain such a level of commitment for so long? As declared in the early weeks of the outbreak, there is no going back to the previous “normalcy”. This continued commitment is especially notable in light of the appalling brutality inflicted on the protestors by the State security forces since the outbreak of social unrest.
It is pertinent to frame this as a human rights crisis rooted at the intersection of Chile’s neoliberal government and dictatorial institutional mechanisms. An extensive investigation by Amnesty International identifies the consistent and organised use of extreme force and torture by the State’s security forces as a deliberate “politics of dissuasion”. That is, that the official mandate in response to the manifestations is to inflict as much harm as possible, in order to repress and discourage those engaged. This mandate has categorically violated numerous human rights and international laws, including (but not limited to) the illegal use of lethal force, such as semi-automatic weapons and intentionally running over protestors; firing rubber bullets at the face, inflicting an unprecedented rate of irreversible eye trauma; using chemically infused water canons; unleashing excessive amounts of tear gas not only against protestors, but also around schools, hospitals and residential areas; attacking human rights observers and first aid medics while attempting to carry out their work and numerous reports of physical and sexual torture, including rape, have been filed by detainees.
All of this points to a grossly corrupt relationship between the security forces responsible and the system overseeing this ongoing menacing of civilians. Amnesty expresses that “The individual criminal responsibility of these incidents does not end with the trial of those who pull the trigger. To guarantee justice and that these incidents are not repeated implies sanctioning those superior authorities who, even with clear awareness of the crimes committed by the functionaries under their command, ordered and tolerated their commission day after day.”
One may cast a skeptical eye on media reports of plundering, the burning of supermarkets and metro facilities, the tangible rage of the crowds and insist that it is the protestors that are menacing what some call social “order”. But to do so would neglect to look further, at both the lengthly history of isolation and severe neglect from the political elites, as well as the multiplicity of creative forms in which the unrest is being manifested.
Neoliberalism: Being uprooted where it was implanted.
In an interview with The Clinic, Chilean historian Gabriel Salazar explains the origins of the situation in neoliberal political-economics “imposed by foreign intervention and through a Constitution in which citizens did not participate in. Therefore, the model was illegitimately born. It was perfected by the civil political class, the Concertación, which administered it better than Pinochet (the dictator) did. So a pressure pot was being created where there was a was a crisis of representation and of surplus value. Any spark was going to make a popular social protest explode. An increase in metro fare, for instance.” This model implemented an extreme level of privatisation, meaning that national resources and basic social services have been administered for the interests of profiting the few for more than 30 years. As a result, whilst the country has been praised for its robust rates of economic growth, the material reality is that social rights such as higher education, efficient health services, retirement pensions and an adequate minimum wage are privileges accessible to the few.
This is not the first instance of people have taken to the streets; in the past 20 years there have been a series of peaceful mass protests, mostly spearheaded by students. Yet the rigid political class paid them no mind and no significant reforms were brought about. Salazar comments that “Nobody took them seriously. Then, what has occurred these days is the cumulation of this transformative process of citizenship through an internal revolution and that now appears in the streets in a massive way.”
The response of the government to the October 18th uprising has been disastrous, insensitive, and short-sighted; overall indicative of their estrangement from the precarious reality that the majority of Chilean citizens live in. The State of Emergency triggered the vivid trauma of the dictatorial years, an era which still has neither answered nor apologised for its victims and survivors of torture. President Piñera’s discourse has been floundering, both seeking to demonise and criminalise the civil unrest whilst also attempting to insert himself in solidarity with the people. Upon realising that this is not a situation that would gradually die out, politicians wrote up with an Agreement for Peace and a New Constitution on November 15th. But this has not resolved anything, as it maintains crucial continuities with the current norm and excludes crucial reforms that the people are insisting on.
There is a term in Spanish that is not commonly applied in English: gatopardismo. It originates from the Italian novel Il Gatopardo (1958) which chronicles social shifts in Siciliy. In this narrative, the aristocrats accept the revolution of the unification of Italy in order to continue maintaining power. It is hence used in politics to refer to symbolic or superficial changes, whilst maintaining the same essential power structure.
This is critical to keep in mind when reading the fine print of the Agreement. It stipulates mechanisms for the formulation of the new constitution, such as a requisit 2/3 consensus, which gives a 34% minority the ability to veto initiatives of substantial reform. It completely leaves out the moral imperative of administering justice to the state agents responsible for the violations of human rights. It also dictates that only the political parties that sign the Agreement are able to form the Technical Commission, which would take charge of the whole process. This is implies a means that defeats the end, as it excludes non-signatory parties, forces the current government and the opposition to equivalent roles in the reforms and leaves out critical actors from the table. In short, it disregards the true imperative of the social movement.
So, with the redundancy of politics-as-usual in the midst of this uprising, what is this movement aiming for?
A manifestation with 21st century dimensions.
In understanding the aims of the movement lies the need to understand the particular nature of the movement. “Revolution” is probably one of the most historically saturated words after the turbulence of the 20th century, and so using it in a contemporary context can result in a loss of specificity.
Rodrigo Karmy Bolton describes the particularity of the Chilean uprising as “a revolution exempt from the philosophy of history”. What does that mean? It refers to the fact that the phenomenon of Revolution is informed and understood by certain models established throughout history. He elaborates how “The Russian Revolution of 1917 followed the paradigm of the French Revolution, which constituted the modern pretext under which all possible revolutions were understood. In other words, the French Revolution acquired a “normative” sense, by which its paradigm was able to bring emancipation to all people.”
But what makes this situation exempt from this paradigm? Most notably, it is not spearheaded by a single leader or representative party. This is an anomaly especially in the Latin American context, where social change is typically led by caudillos — charismatic leaders that rally the masses under a personality cult tied into revolutionary ideals. Leaders turned into cultural-political mythology such as Castro, Chavez, Evo, Lula and Perón. Instead, this revolution came forth like a tide, a citizens’ collective which does not need a caudillo mouthpiece to articulate their visions for a better society. Indeed, Salazar confirms that “this time the enemy is the political class. The people do not want any of it: not a line for the right, nor for the left nor the centre…All of this is new…It must be thought of in terms of itself. It is no longer fitting to recollect old models. The ideology of the Cold War does not work here.”
Indeed, a distinct egalitarian and anonymous character is evident in the symbols which have emerged as definitive of the manifestations. One of the most prevalent is Negro Matapacos (Black Cop Killer), a dog who became famous for participating in the 2011 protests and for attacking the Carabineros who violently confronted the students.
“La Primera Linea”(The Front Line) has also gained recognition as the ‘David against Goliath’ of the manifestations, referring to the masked protestors in direct contact with the water canons, teargas and firing range of the Carabineros. They often form street barricades and launch stones and Molotovs in order to keep the security forces from disrupting the crowds of thousands of passive protestors. For this they have been recognised as essential to sustaining the movement. Despite Piñera’s attempt to ban the use of masks, the “right to anonymity” has been emphasised in retaliation to the State’s attempt to encroach on individual privacy. In line with this, street performance collective Complejo Conejo has been actively giving out balaclavas to protect the identity of protestors.
Without a doubt one of the most impactful expressions of this movement has been the anthem and dance by feminist performance collective LasTesis. ‘El Violador en Tu Camino’, which translates to ‘A Rapist in Your Path’, has not only given momentum to the feminist prerogative of the Chilean movement, but has also been recognised internationally as a universal “call-out” of the systemic abuse of women — with which the State is not only complicit, but has always empowered up to today.
Angela Erpel writes that “In this context, where the television is bogged down by private finance, where it insists daily on showing vandalisms, looting and destruction, feminists have proposed collective spectacle as resistance.” LasTesis was inspired by the works of Argentinian feminist anthropologist and activist Rita Segato. In an interview with BBC Mundo she expresses that “I love that this has gone beyond the control of typical media. I see it circulated the planet with its own feet, evading all filters, all the selectivity of conventional channels.”
She also unpacks the potency of this spectacle according to her perspective on abuse against women: “The violator is the moral subject par excellence and the violation is moralising , that is, it puts the woman in her place… it tells her: more than a person, you are a body…Those who rape are the authority…. Rape is not founded in sexual desire, it is not the uncontrolled and necessitated male libido. It is not this because it isn’t even a sexual act: it is an act of power, of domination, it is a political act.” This moralising authority also ties into the ‘masculine mandate’ which also harms men everywhere; it “implicates violence, cruelty, lack of sensitivity, empathy, solidarity and companionship towards women… this continues to cause internal tension in many men, not to be able to feel or express tenderness.”
Segato states that “masculine and patriarchal coded politics is arriving to a point of inflection for its great failure, because it has not managed in any moment or in any way to transform history by taking the route of the State, we have not arrived at a world with more wellbeing for more people through the typical means that has always been the means of the State, politics in the hands of men.”
So although the destructive manifestations of this social instability may unsettle or provoke anxiety for some, it is accompanied by distinctly creative manifestations that are putting forth new values and new norms: consensus over authority, respecting those who truly protect the people, anonymity as subordination and aim over ego and freedom from patriarchal hierarchy. In sum, as can be seen on many graffitied walls and signs: Hasta que la dignidad se haga costumbre — until dignity is made the norm.
What’s To Come…
What are the necessary steps to take towards making this broad goal attainable through concrete, material changes? Representative elective politics has been proven an incompatible means towards policy reform in this context. As Carlos Durán Migliardi observes, “the outburst of social rebellion in all of Chile from the 18th of October constitutes an event in the rigorous sense of the word: an event which fractured the knowledge available up to now in the political arena, in the intellectual world and in media devices.”
In response to this crisis of incompatibility, we see what Bolton refers to as constitutional commitment being cast as “revolution” in an entirely novel way… “Its means are not concerned with “seizing State power” but rather, maybe, of re-imagining its own formation.” This re-casting of constitutional commitment is evident in the people’s demands not only for a new constitution, but also that this is created through a Constituent Assembly. In this way, the new constitution would be forged by a more direct democratic mechanism and hence better reflect the diversity of interests within the nation.
The Constituent Assembly differs from the Constituent Convention in that it is informed by a wider variety of voices, and participation is not exclusive to politicians — it is born from horizontal dialogue amongst citizens (1). This is necessary in order to achieve a dignified society, because the differing realities along intersections of class, gender, ethnicity, age and geography must be represented. Policies must account for the plurality of challenges that affect different citizens, a process which can be facilitated by plebiscites, town hall meetings and unions. The pursuit of this process is the less explosive and more long-term expression of the Chilean manifestations, and will be contested tooth-and-nail by the political elite who cling to institutional defences. Nothing is certain. But it is a process that has already been initiated — certainly in spirit — at the level of the street and on digital platforms. Politics is happing from the ground up, and determined to bring forth significant transformation. After thirty years of being shut out of significant participation, Chileans won’t be losing stamina any time soon in the pursuit of undoing the dictatorial legacy and re-imagining 21st century social formations.
Beyond Chile.
As an end note to this summary — although I thoroughly believe that social movements cannot be generalised beyond their specific historical and cultural context — I would like to suggest that some major elements that spurred this uprising can be recognised in socio-political dilemmas in most parts of the world.
Alia Trabucco Zerán comments that “this attempt of criminalisation however, does not exclusively point to the articulation, that is to say, the current political moment as a stage of “disorder”, but rather it intends to also dissuade and punish future social movements, classifying as “public disorder” acts of civil disobedience, which will have to multiply themselves in the face of the climate emergency which is already present in Chilean territory.”
I do not think it’s necessary to point out the common factor in this equation. The climate emergency has been one of the most globally discussed topics this past year. The tone of the discourse is only increasingly urgent. Yet symbolic solutions offered up in the face of a very tangible crisis have turned out hollow. How could one take seriously the grandeur awarded to the “achievement” of the Paris Accords when the situation has only worsened since then? I’ll admit to feeling bitter about that moment of false promise.
Neoliberalism has a particularly strong bearing in Chile, but this model dictates international governance with the unregulated extraction of natural resources in order to sustain a limitless cycle of excessive productivity. It has installed itself as the seemingly natural structure of our reality — the next major recession is regarded with the same sense of inevitability as the hurricane season. Yet it is an artificial set of norms, consciously designed by man not so long ago as the means to untether profiteering from checks and balances.
It is increasingly evident that electoral representative democracy is incapable of reigning in the unprecedented levels of exploitation that is offsetting our ecosystems. The tension built up with growing mass awareness of approaching a ‘tipping point’ and the lack of correspondence to significant changes by the international business and political class suggests a similar scenario of a pressure pot on the point of boiling over. What else could be expected when it seems we’ll soon be up to our knees with rising sea levels while watching industry leaders jet off on a yacht fleet?
It may not present itself as a sudden or spectacular eruption, but as Zerán points out, civil disobedience will necessarily manifest with more frequency as our environments continue to destabilise. What’s currently going on in Chile may be seen as informative for movements elsewhere: the potential in alternative civil formations, and the reactions against this. It demonstrates the need to look critically on what is being classified as criminal — is it criminal or is it inconveniently confrontational? The coming years will likely attest the degree of commitment of many States to the values of human rights. Meanwhile, we may be sold a rhetoric of hysteria as old pillars start to quiver, but as power dies out it counts on fear to sustain and justify itself. But fear and hysteria lack direction, and with the impetus to do something breathing down our necks, it’s time to shift the focus from the podiums to the much wider and rounded kitchen table.
This summary was informed by the following reports:
(1) Asamblea por el Pacto Social
Chile: Política deliberada para dañar a manifestantes apunta a responsabilidad de mando (Amnistía Internacional)
El pueblo quiere un nuevo régimen (Rodrigo Karmy Bolton)
Acuerdo por la paz y nueva constitución en Chile: ¿Convención o asamblea? (Carolina Bruna)
La Dislocación: el Frente Amplio y el 18-O (Carlos Durán Migliardi)
Destitución, primera línea y potencia plebeya (Mauro Salazar Jaque)
El Otro Orden (Alia Trabucco Zerán)
Reflexiones sobre la provocación feminista de las performances callejeras en el estallido social (Ángela Erpel)
Crónica sobre la “Primera Línea” de las manifestaciones: Una batalla de David contra Goliat (Camilo Cáceres)
El camino para una Nueva Constitución: comentarios críticos al proyecto de Reforma Constitucional (Òscar Cornejo y Sofía Brito)
