WELCOME TO ‘THE CHILEAN STRUGGLE’.
Over the last couple of years, we have seen consistent uprisings from the general populations of countries all around the world, demanding that something be done about increasing inequality, corruption, and injustice. In October 2019, the streets of Santiago, Chile, were filled with millions of Chileans protesting against these same issues. What do all these countries have in common, you might ask? Severe neoliberal privatisation and liberalisation programs.
But protest is not new to the country. Chile has been in a constant state of unrest ever since the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973, which was superseded by a neoliberal, military dictatorship, followed by Presidents who promised that the free market would liberate decades of turmoil. In each and every step along the way, Chileans have spoken up against these political administrations, and the harm that their privatisation programs had caused their countries. For decades, students have risen in anger against increasingly expensive education and transportation. Feminists have raised their voices against exploitative gender wage gaps and oppressive abortion policies. Indigenous peoples have stood firm against the land grabbing, genocides and displacement.
You might therefore refer to October 2019 the last straw. When the government increased metro transportation costs by 30 pesos, the Chilean people, as a collective, in the name of their respective movements as well as in the name of their country as a whole, took a against the extractive institutions that are their governing bodies.
The aim of this project is to bring to light the struggles of the Chilean people over the past few decades, emphasising that ‘it’s not 30 pesos. it’s 30 years.’ We will take you through a number of different movements, though reminding you that they all stand against the same thing; the exclusionary tactics of the neoliberal regime.
