Imagine for a minute if you will your metro station. Or your bus stop. Or your bike route. Where you leave your house, in your neighborhood, which you picked carefully because you liked it, felt good there, wanted to raise your puppies and plants in a place just like that.
And imagine what I walked out into this afternoon.
I left this morning’s march feeling excited, happy, positive. So many people, so much protest, so many creative signs and happy people. I wondered for a minute how the police didn’t get the songs and chants stuck in their heads. And although I knew it would end badly (it always does), I don’t think I understood how ugly it would really get.
Look at what I saw this morning.
And then look at what it turned into.
And I may be ignorant in a million and one ways, but let me just say this, in this article in the Christian Science Monitor where someone is quoted as saying that the upper class lives in a kind of apartheid, in a bubble, away from the rest of us, I felt resonance. Because no one from the government is ever going to have to walk on that patch of broken glass, crossing that street with the broken traffic light to go into that broken down metro whose sign barely stands.
Mostly right now I am sad. This is my neighborhood. I chose it because I liked it. And I’m sorry to see this movement turning into something it was never meant to be. And I wonder who’s going to sweep up this giant effing mess, in all senses of the word.
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oh and just so we’re clear, pics are copyrighted. No use without permission (which I reserve the right to grant or not). Thanks.
Great photos again Eileen.
It’s funny because I was just thinking today… why don’t they demonstrate in Providencia or Las Condes. The people they are trying to target would pay more attention when it’s THEIR property or area being destroyed.
Then again the destruction has nothing to do with the workers on strike or the students protesting. It’s just the stupid “encapuchados” that appear after every crowd gathering.
Thoroughly true. I wondered how they chose the routes that they’d be allowed to march on, and couldn’t help but notice they all stopped right outside my front door. But I can’t even imagine what kind of represion would happen if people tried to march in the upper burbs where the rich and famous play and live. At least they wouldn’t have a metro to destroy, and the only people who take the bus actually probably take it from down here to up there.
I’m more affected by this than I expected to be, surely. It will probably smart even more tomorrow when I have a meeting up in Las Condes. Contrast, anyone?
Thanks again for a great post (and great pics) and reminding me of the bubble I live in – very far from the real Santiago. Hugs
Everyone’s Santiago is real. I don’t mean to say that mine is more real than yours. But some people can be isolated in their own worlds/homes/comunas, and some have to participate. It’s up to you whether and how you participate. And I don’t blame anyone for wanting to live someplace “nice” (though I don’t know where you (or many of my readers) live!).
Excellent Eileen. And to think, it’s not even dark yet. I can only imagine what it’s all going to look like at midnight–and tomorrow morning.
and it IS sad… VERY sad. Even more than the barrio (and BTW, they almost ALWAYS protest in Providencia–as in Plaza Italia!) And while it churns my stomach to see what happens to a barrio, it sickens me to think that Chileans cannot protest in peace. Even though tens of thousands start out with the best of intentions, those relatively few always, always undermine the true intentions of a legitimate protest with mindless violence and destruction.
Very, very sad indeed…
Yeah, I feel strangely unsettled, which just shows how I’m really a writer, and not a journalist. I think a journalist could come in, snap, send their story and forget about it. But I can’t. I overheard an interview with two nineteen year olds on the street (cabros buenos), and they were saying, well, the problem with the protest is that you can’t control who participates, nor what happens. They seemed to accept it as the risk you run when you have a protest.
And yes, Plaza Italia is kind of Providencia, but it’s not the heart, more like a distant limb. The day you see people setting fires in front of Liguria (not that I propose it!) is the day I’ll feel like the protests have gotten to Providencia.
{{{{{HUGS}}}} to you and your neighbors.
Thanks, Michelle.
It’s the same at any protest anywhere in the world- the moronic muppets who turn up for nothing else than to cause trouble are the ones who get the headlines and the 99.9% of peaceful protesters are tainted by association and their legitimate cause is devalued or forgotten about.
I remember the G20 (I think it was) meeting in Mar del Plata a few years ago- the most idiotic thing I’ve ever seen was a rioter using a public telephone to make a call for a couple of minutes, before putting down the receiver and systematically smashing the thing up. It was almost funny.
Despite being, probably, upper middle class in Chile (although I do live in Santiago Centro when I’m in town), I am completely in favour of the student protests and the strike. It’s really good to see Chileans wake from their collective slumber, understand that they live in a democracy and exercise their democratic right to protest and participate in their own society. And I’m not surprised it’s the students leading the way. This is the first generation to have been born since the end of the dictatorship- they have no residual societal fear and they’re making their voices heard. This will lead to a stronger society, although one that will no doubt strike fear into a certain, small segment of it.
One thing I can’t understand is how anyone can be against offering free, quality education to children. It’s the same incomprehension I feel when Americans say they’re against social healthcare. How can anyone not be in favour of free education and free healthcare for all? I actually think that once the education protests are over, Chileans will move on to healthcare. I kind of hope so, actually…
Apologies for the rambling comentario..!
your rambling comentario is welcome any time. I also don’t understand how people can deny children education, unless they’re purposely trying to keep them down. Let’s hope this thing ends well, though at the moment I can’t even imagine what that would look like.
Thanks for speaking up!
I can’t imagine that anyone could possibly oppose better education (or healthcare for that matter), but I wonder what they understand by “free.” Nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it, and that generally means taxes. Countries that offer free education and healthcare have very high tax rates. Chile’s rate is amazingly low, all things considered. I admit that because I’ve been away for a large part of this process, I am not completely up on the arguments, but I’d like to know what is proposed to pay for these (much needed) changes?
Well, for one thing, Chile could tax multinationals at much higher rates for mining copper and other minerals. Also, universities have exploded in recent years (numbers), and they are graduating tons of students with little hope of finding jobs in what they studied and what they owe tens of thousands for dollars for. Surely the government should be involved in that in some way.
As most of my readers know, the education system is just one of the many ways that the system in Chile ensures limited social mobility. I (as many) believe that the money is there, but that it is not being channeled into the right programs. I’m not sure exactly what the change should look like, but I’m pretty sure that its current incarnation only benefits the people that need few benefits to begin with.
That picture of the couple kissing with the riot cops in the background TOOK MY BREATH AWAY.
Also, this isn’t meant to be all “me me me” but I remember the WTO riots and how awful they made me feel when it went black. And I’m sorry if you feel even the tiniest bit like that.
really? wow! thanks.
Also, yeah, it probably feels a bit like that, except we have no idea what might happen next.
There’s good and bad peeps all over.
Talca protested, haven’t heard an official number count but 8-10,000 was estimated. It was loud, strong, huge, peaceful, inpiring. After I saw a TV broadcast of Santiago’s [regular] end of protest happenings…triste
http://www.redmaule.com/masiva-y-pacifica-marcha-reune-a-trabajadores-y-estudiantes-de-talca
I saw this on your FB, mandita, and I was so happy to see reports from regiones. I need to get out to regiones much more. So much more to Chile than Santiago, and our fancy argentine mozzarella. Miss you!
When asked, Talquinos say that their protets are ‘pacifica’. So they go into them with that attitude. And it doen’t diminish their enthusiasm or fuerza AT ALL. In fact it gave a much more inclusive feel to the whole event. In Stgo everyone knows how the manifestaciones are going to end, more or less. This results in me, personally, not wanting to front up although I am very much wanting to support the cause. Here in Talca it was easy to participate actively and to feel safe doing so….Santiago no es Chile!
oh, and southern cheese heading north soon
how do we inculcate people in Santiago with that attitude? I have to tell the story of the woman suspected of being a police informant. I have never seen such yelling in my life (in Chile). Have a safe trip home!
Vandalism has no place in this fight. I agree with Matt. It only undermines the cause. And I agree with Margaret that education isn’t “free.” Someone will be paying for it. And I agree with you, Eileen. I’m not sure what the change should look like and, sometimes, I wonder if the leaders of this fight do either.
and yet we know to expect it (vandalism). I really hope there can be a solution, and not just a blithe slide into normalcy that boils up again three years from now. Thanks for joining in!
I talked to a couple of pro-vandal demonstrators today (as I usually do). One said the aggression was justified because the cops weren’t letting people walk past La Moneda. I said, ok, and do you think they will change their minds because they are being pelted with bottles? The other said it was important to raise cops’ consciousness. I pretended to slug him in the cheek and as he got a very angry look on his face I asked, when I do that, do you really feel like changing your opinion? Or do you just want to hit me back? I then suggested that consciousness-raising is more effective through conversation and other person-to-person contact. Then a paint-filled bottle hit the ground by us and we moved on to our respective tasks.
your respective tasks being photographing the mayhem and causing it? I admire your tenacity in talking to the encapuchados. I think I’m too emotional to do it without getting angry at them. And they respond poorly to anger, as has been shown.
Thanks for weighing in, and giving a perspective most of the rest of us are unlikely to experience.
Amazing photographs, beautiful…and sad. My daughter wanted to march with her friends here in La Serena, but I wasn’t comfortable sending her alone, (I had to stay with my youngest). Her friends said it was “bakan”. I wish we could have gone, things are usually quieter here compared to Santiago.
I grew up in the US then moved to the UK where I finished hight school and went to university. I was among the last group of students to get paid grants (to live) as well as paid tuition. Now students in the UK have to pay, like in the US. However, I think when the universities were free, they only allowed students with high marks, which generally came from well off families who could afford to send their children to school. (School-leaving age was 16, and you went to work, unless your family would support you for two more years of school before university).
So even though the education was free, it wasn’t really free for all.
I don’t know what the solution is but having experienced free education and free health care it definitely gives you a peace of mind.
And I am sorry you have had to see places you love being destroyed.
Thanks for telling more about your story. Education was and is costly in the states, but attainable on some level for a broader segment there than here, I think. I’m sure as a parent you had to decide whether to let your daughter go, and that that wasn’t an easy decision, but ultimately, you want her to be safe.
Thanks for dropping in and commenting. I hope tomorrow things look better, but I fear it will be quite a while before things actually look better.
Wow. Powerful photos. Intense.
(And good disclaimer 😉 )
Thanks Leslie, prefer not to leave it up to chance. Things look a little better this morning (less debris), but I was up in Las Condes today and it all looked perfect. hard not to feel slighted.
I saw footage of yesterday’s violence on the news this morning and felt this same sadness. Even though it’s not happening outside my front door, it just really disappoints me that people who are determined to cause violence insist on taking out their aggression on the city that’s supposed to be their home and doing it in a way that messes up a good message of reasonable protest.
It’s all ours, Santiago, all of it. You have every bit as much ownership over downtown as I do over Ñuñoa or any other place. It’s ours. And we don’t want to see it get destroyed. Sorry you felt sad as well. I guess we are just city-loving humans. “good message of reasonable protest” indeed.
Next bloguera meetup sometime soon, I hope. Maybe aim for Sept?
Nice photos… I’ve been pretty obsessed with the student movement and marched on more than one or two occasions, even leading my students. The number of marchers reached 40,000 on the 25th, an amazing number down here in Concepcion. All the same, we also have our problems with encapuchados and sadly it can not all be blamed on flaites (which is anyway a shockingly classist response for a leftist movement); there is a segment of students, a minority but still a segment, that believes in a somewhat primitive analysis that “police = state power = enemy” and that repression must be resisted violently. I’ve seen their posters and graffiti “La lucha ahora es con capucha” and it’s not only wrong ethically, but also tactically unintelligent, since violence could turn the tables on their current high level of public support. Anyway, it’s been a very interesting 3-4 months but the movement might be dying down and reaching a solution soon; far less than the original goals but still something.
Actually, some protests do end without vandalism, and sometimes protests that do end with it, don’t do in all places where people are protesting (sadly, most destruction ends up localized in that part of the Alameda).
Also, most people who are up for free education knows that it’s paid with taxes, but the thing is, taxes for minig corporations, transnational companies, and normal companies are awfully low in Chile. And so are them for high income groups too (at least the ones that are owners of companies), it is ridiculous how the people who have the highest income in the country aren’t the ones paying the most taxes.
Personally, I wouldn’t care about having high taxes (when I go out of university, I’m a student right now) if it means having an overall higher quality of life (like the countries with high taxes and wellfare state do), there is always the solidarity feeling a society should have, and the search for the common good.
I’m sure the healthcare problem will explode after the education one, but I think pension system will explode first.