O
n ó z a r rza la
e fu la
triumphs & struggles for Chile’s emergent millenials a candid story of current events, political action and future direction
p a u l i n a
o l i v a r e s
INTRODUCTION Por la Razón o la Fuerza
PRESENT Dissent and discontent, citizens take the streets
PAST Pinochet: an uneven hand pushes progress by force
FUTURE So you wanna be a developed nation…but how?
APPENDICES Contributors Compiled Quotes Voices from Aysen What’s Chile Like? Sources & Further Reading
2
History teaches us that nations are constructed through the continued action of succesive generations. Nobody begins from zero. Children inherit the realities which their parents pass on to them. Each new government takes charge of a country handed over to it by the preceeding one.� —President Patricio Aylwin, 1990
3
por la razón o la fuerza It means by reason or by force, and it’s stamped on every Chilean coin. How fitting of its people for Chile to have such a motto. Chile and it’s people have gone through a huge transformation these past twenty years—out of authoritarianism into democracy, from isolation to globalization. I’m a patiperra. In Chilean, that’s a person who likes to walk the streets—literally like a dog. A wanderer. Someone who doesn’t stay at home often, someone whose burning curiosity leads them to places of which they’ve never even heard. Growing up in Santiago, I loved walking to el centro: watching the hustle of people and pigeons in Plaza de Armas, gawking to the sky through ornate façades down old narrow streets, or running into the one-man band spinning ‘round with bass drum and high-hat in tow. The country’s rich folkloric traditions were part of my everyday life. My grandparents, who raised me while my mother worked as an English teacher, instilled in me a love for the poetry of Neruda and Mistral, the music of Violeta Parra, and the flirtatious grace of the cueca.
Men playing chess at Plaza de Armas Diego Urbina Santiago 2011
4
I left Chile for the United States at age nine, joining close to a million Chilean patiperros spread all over the world. I have since visited many other countries, but there is something special about Chile: it’s a feeling in my belly when I get to Santiago, a silent understanding with others around me, a particular vernacular that drops syllables and shortens words. Chile es mi patria. Understanding of my native land went so far as it could at age nine— stitched together from memories of war heroes from elementary history classes, folkloric dancing from school holiday presentations, and villainous politicians from my grandfather’s gesticulations at the television screen left me with what I felt was a fairly complete picture of its customs and people. My nine-year-old picture of Chile, dated by eleven years abroad, is rosy, saturated by warm tones and sepia on its weathered edges. I created a beautiful vignette, scrupulously edited by the passage of time. Purely from lack of experience, nine-year-old Paulina had a basic understanding of Chile’s complex history and the established power structure that evolved prior to my youth. My knowledge certainly had a bias. My grandpa’s vocal disdain—putting it mildly—for Pinochet and his politics offered an in-depth but one-sided view of history. Since then, Chile has kept evolving, and quickly, too. Santiago is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Revenues are up and migrants are flocking from all of South America to get in on the riches. Chile, the their government says, is one of the most stable democracies in Latin America. Politicians and foreign economists boast of the country’s economic growth and brag of the country’s trade-friendly free-market economy. The slender nation has become a foreign investor’s paradise. How friendly is free-market friendly? Chile has more free trade agreements than any other nation. In the world. From this description, you’d think Chile was full of conservative capitalists—well, I found there’s a few really staunch ones, and they’re currently making bank. Yet most of Chile’s population actually aligns itself to the center-left of the political spectrum. We’ve recently joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an international economic organization of fairly wealthy countries focused on fostering continued market growth, and thus general improvement in standard of life, for the citizens in member countries. The OECD has ranked Chile country number 44 in the Human Development Index, which puts it within the top 25% of nations in the world and officially makes it the most developed nation in Latin America. What does the OECD mean by very high human development? The Human Development Index is a comparative measure of quality of life, education, literacy, life expectancy, and standards of living, especially in regards to children. Chile’s economy is growing by around 6% per year, wages are rising and unemployment is low. All in all, Chile’s looking good. Yet surveys of the population reveal social unrest. There seems to be a vital disconnect between the opinions of Chilean citizens and the satisfied, congratulatory speeches of President Sebastian Piñera and his ministers. 5
I do not, cannot and will not claim to be an expert on these matters. I won’t even claim to know what it’s really like to live them. An American education and the consequential indoctrination, however much I hate to admit it, changed my ties to my native country, or rather, combined with existing roots to create a hybrid cultural heritage. When people ask me what I consider myself, Chilean or American, I answer both, not fully able to decide one or the other. These, and other things, set me apart from peers in my generation. Ultimately, I am not at the mercy of Chilean Law. But that does not make my opinion invalid. Some may argue differently. Some may say my opinion is removed and irrelevant, delivered by computer from a cozy padded desk chair at my state-funded university’s historic campus. “What does she know? Her Spanish is fuzzy and foreign and her moves stiff while she dances the cueca. She wasn’t even here for the earthquake, any of them.” I’m painfully aware of these things. I stand as a privileged outsider with humble roots. It would be arrogant for me do otherwise. I’m ashamed that my Spanish diction, which I maneuvered gracefully at age nine, is reduced to conversational vocabulary. Abstract thoughts and theories are difficult to explain, and I become embarrassed when I fumble words in what’s supposed to be my native tongue. I fear being seen as foreigner with a false sense of entitlement or of my thoughts written off as a farce. I care about Chile too much for that. Like countless Chilean men and women before me, I am passionate and vocal about my beliefs. And I believe in the bounty of Chile and its people. This is my humble attempt to understand my heritage and assess Chile in a balanced light, discovering her virtues and unraveling her faults. What I don’t want to do is simply critique. No one likes the person who constantly complains but never labors to fix anything. To move this essay past the point of whining, I plan to determine the most pressing problems for the next generation of Chilean leadership through the study of the nation’s most heated news stories of the past year—student and regional protests. Then using the scope of recent history, I want to analyze how we got here and what the next step should be. These case studies underscore the disjunction between the government mouthpiece and the Chilean people, bringing to light the most significant problems for the upcoming generation: education, discrimination, and small concentration of large power.
6
present
‘Die for Education’ Diego Urbina Santiago 2011
Dissent and discontent, citizens take the streets The youth in Chile are not happy with their education. And they’re letting the world hear all about it. The Arab Spring began a worldwide stirring against inequality of the status quo, and inspired university and high school student protesters took to the streets in May 2011. Students went on strike and began to occupy many public schools, particularly within Santiago. The public school system was at standstill for more than six months. Public demonstrations continued, and their numbers grew. Leadership quickly emerged from student ranks after a few weeks of predominantly peaceful protest. The national confederation of student unions, Confech, presented itself as a unified front to the government and the media. Speaking as the collective student voice, president Camilla Vallejo openly presented their qualms at a national press conference. 7
National Srike at Universidad de Chile Diego Urbina Santiago 2011
They want education to be cheaper, and they want it to be better. At the core, they want an end to the socioeconomic inequalities found within and perpetuated by the education system. Government response was pretty slow. The students got pretty creative. Taking inspiration from French protests of the 1960s, student organizations have staged pretty unconventional ways to get their point across, like kiss-ins and zombie invasions outside the presidential palace and mass cacerolazos inside their homes. In a cacerolazo, people grab pots, pans and whatever else they can and bang on them to make as much noise as possible. The idea is an old one, but with the power of Twitter, student leaders are able to call students to action at the click of a button, the noise multiplied through the world wide web. Mix the power to communicate freely with some dissent and you get the largest protests since the end of the Pinochet regime, gatherings upwards of 200,000 people with signs and shouts prepared for the occasion. Vallejo, leader of the student government, says the current education system was created to perpetuate class inequality. Julio Maturana, a fifth year engineering student at the University of Chile, says that “in reality, the rich are 4000 families. The poor are millions.� 8
Why were Chile’s students complaining? The government originally didn’t get the big buzz. In real terms, students were doing better than ever. Chilean universities and technical colleges boast an enrollment of 1.1 million students, which equals around 45 % of the 18-to-24 yearold population. More remarkably, over 70% of these are first generation students. Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chile ranked among the top five Latin American universities in 2011—number 2 and number 4 respectively—according to education consultants Quacquarelli Symonds. Although drop out rate is high, DuocUC has proven successful; the technical college and professional institute established by the Catholic University of Chile has a 9 out of 10 graduate work placement rate. So at least kids get to go to college. This kind of access was unprecedented 20 years ago. But they are not happy about the cost. Chilean technical schools, colleges and universities have the highest tuition fees among OECD member countries along with the lowest federal expenditure. Students are borrowing and paying large amounts, but their return on investment is very uncertain. Sadly quality and price do not go hand in hand in Chilean education. And it all begins in elementary school. Chile’s current educational system is a unique beast not found anywhere else in the world. Right before he made his way out of office, Augusto Pinochet privatized the previously gratuitous school system, putting in place a voucher system instead in which public schools are the responsibility of municipalities instead of the whole state. It’s kind of similar to what Bush tried to implement in No Child Left Behind, in that the school voucher system gives the parents the choice of any school for their children. The government then gives the school a sum of money towards the kids’ schooling. These measures were meant to foster competition within the school system, but instead, they’ve legitimized a system of education by socioeconomic status. Private schools add more money to their coffers by requiring matriculation and tuition fees. Higher funds attract better teachers, maintain better campuses and provide more opportunities for their student bodies. When I lived in Chile, I went to the Academia de Humanidades Padres Dominicos, a private Catholic school located in Santiago’s Recoleta neighborhood. Me and a bunch of other five year olds had to take an aptitude test to be accepted for matriculation, and after enrolled, tuition cost $100,000 pesos per month. Even though my mom only made $300,000 pesos a month, she insisted on private enrollment, which I really didn’t understand at the time. My classmates were similarly positioned in the socioeconomic spectrum, on the middle to lower-middle side of things. We wore uniforms every day, which had to be purchased from specific, semi-pricey stores. Two class failures meant expulsion, and I remember having to study really hard for tests even in second and third grade. My schooling must have been pretty 9
good, because when I moved halfway through fourth grade, I was ahead of the fifth grade curriculum in South Carolina. But by the time I left, fees were at $130,000 per month, and they’ve only kept rising. Public schools are funded by vouchers. Problem is, these vouchers are not enough to adequately cover the cost of running public schools. And the quality suffers. Poorer parents without the income for private tuition have no choice but to send their kids to mediocre public schools. Students complain of bad facilities, low lighting and cold classrooms. Most damaging about the lack of funds is that in many cases, they do not receive the necessary training to achieve competitive scores on the Prueba de Seleccion Universitaria (PSU), Chile’s university entrance exam. University acceptance hinges largely on these scores. Tuition fees for both traditional and newer private institutions end up between $700-$1000 per month. I should probably mention that a typical Chilean university career takes around six and a half years to complete, though I have no idea why it’s so long when university students in England can finish in three years and the US students in four. University of Chile, the Catholic University of Chile, and other traditional universities are the largest, most competitive and most pretigious. Students at these universities receive loans at an interest rate of 2% per year. Employers view these degrees above those of newer private institutions, though, so the 2 percent interest is worth it But loans for newer institutions have been locked at 5.8 percent since they were introduced in 2006. Students from poorer districts, even with competitive PSU scores for their region, still rank so-so on a national level and are often turned away from the top universities. Here, the poor end up paying double: first to get a mediocre elementary education then higher loan interest rates because they weren’t up to par. Students pile on the grants and government-loans, which even then only cover 70 to 80 percent of fees, so then they get more private loans. Before the kids get halfway through college, they’re already significantly in debt. Not only are the kids indebted for education, but their parents, too: tuition accounts for around 40 percent of expenses in a regular household. But what else are students going to do? College degrees are standard fare if you want to have a—hopefully comfortable—career, and after all, education is an investment. We grew up with our parents telling us that if we worked hard and went to college, the jobs would abound...right? Sadly, supply and demand is at work in Chile, and not in the students’ favor. The growing number of college graduates since democratization makes them individually less valuable and individually less likely to find high paying jobs—which becomes a problem when the debt collectors come calling. For the most part, the protests have remained peaceful, if annoyingly inconvenient. But small groups have gone rogue, looting businesses, setting cars on fire, and performing other not-so-nice acts. Last time I went to 10
“You blessed our ruin, you blessed opression, you blessed your money, you blessed the biggest bastard.” Diego Urbina Santiago
Chile in September, scenes of these acts painted a largely vindictive picture of the protests on the evening news. I somehow never heard about kiss-ins or drum circles or other friendly demonstrations. It can’t be denied is that in situations like this, there’s always that small group trying to start something. And when they start it, you better believe Chilean police are right there to stop it Every few weeks, police raided schools that had been student seized, and arrested the students within them. Police are widely known to use water cannons and tear gas when dealing with protesters, and sometimes it’s definitely warranted. But not all the time, particularly with unarmed groups. The Inter American Commission on Human Rights actually denounced the Carabineros for Disproportionate Use of Force. But I didn’t hear about the police’s violence at all last time I visited Chile. I guess it may not really be news for the Chilean people. After privatization, education became big business, and it was the people with money to invest who got the most out of for-profit private education. 11
Many of those people are politicians, and they come from both main coalitions. Easier to see then why educational reform has taken so long to make its way through the senate. It’s now been almost a full year since the protests began. What have the students achieved? Well according to Al Jazeera, what the students really want is “a free, quality education.” The government says free higher education is not the answer, and honestly, neither do I. As much as I hate to admit it, this demand kind of makes me laugh. I never heard of free and quality going hand in hand. It’s actually quite the opposite: excellence costs money. But it doesn’t have to cost nearly as much. Most importantly, the school system should be fair and offer balanced opportunities across socioeconomic backgrounds. Chile—now, after the protests began—spends 7 percent of GDP on education, which is more than the average for countries in the Organisation for Economic Growth and Development (OECD). Yet though we spend more, Chilean children still lag behind other OECD nations’ reading scores, and depending on socioeconomic status, the gap grows as children progress through school. It’s not about throwing money at the problem. It’s about restructuring a flawed system to foster happy teachers and well-schooled students across the board. Protest fever spreads. The students came out on the heels of other Chilean protesters wishing to stop the $3.2 billion HydroAysen project, which would place five hydroelectric power plants across multiple protected national parks and Mapuche reservations—with or without local consent. This region, remotely tucked into the Patagonia, is one of the poorest in the nation. The people of Aysen rose up this past March and soon found common ground with the student movement. The Aysen protesters feel that the nation is too lengthy for centrally-mandated, generalized legislation and that the governemtn should take into account the feelings and desires of the local population. Some demonstrators got rowdy and blocked a major highway. The government responded with swift police occupation. As if they didn’t have enough to complain about, you know, with five potential super damns messing up their ecosystems. The protesters say that the violence was not a problem until police occupied the town. Feelings of camaraderie with the student movement expand much farther than Aysen. Two-thirds of Chileans reject the country’s current economic model, nearly the same amount that supported the student movement last October. In an unofficial plebiscite presented to congress by the teachers union, about 90 percent of Chileans who voted were in favor of free education, end to for-profit education, and constitutional reform. These protests show the deep divide present in Chilean government. Oligopolies and cartels are slow to legislate against their own interests, and like everywhere else in the world, money talks. The HydroAysen project would leave 90 percent percent of all Chilean energy assets in the hands of two companies, one which isn’t even Chilean. The Chilean government wants Chile to be officially “developed” by 2018. 12
That will not happen while it remains the most unequal country in the OECD and one of the most unequal in the world. Tax policies favor the rich. They have for a while. Since 2000, capital gains taxes have been abolished. President Sebastian Piñera is one of the richest people in the world and one of the five richest in all of Chile. Fiscally conservative folks (say, like Milton Friedman) believe taxes infringe on personal freedom, because no citizen should be forced to pay for something they don’t want. But let me tell you, they’re paying it anyway. They’re paying it by living in a country with social unrest, one in which they’re afraid to cross the street, one in which citizens and peers become nothing but a threat.
Carabineros de Chile or “Los Pacos” Diego Urbina Santiago 2011
13
past
Public Domain
Pinochet: an uneven hand pushes progress by force
14
LOOK AT THAT NICE OLD MAN. If you don’t recognize that handsome schnozz, I mean face, let me introduce you. Dear reader, meet Augusto Pinochet, Chilean dictator from 1973 to 1990. On September 11, 1973, this right-wing general used his powers as commander-in-chief of the armed forces to stage a coup d’etat against the Marxist government of Salvador Allende. Seven days before Chile’s independence day, Pinochet’s forces opened fire against La Moneda, the presidential palace, raiding the building and kidnapping any man or woman with ties to the leftist government. Allende apparently killed himself that morning. Apparently. But this good ol’ boy couldn’t have done it alone. Thank goodness Richard Nixon and the Central Intelligence Agency were so eager to help! America was scared. Richard Nixon, in particular, was scared. And why wouldn’t he be? The threat of nuclear attack and revolution can put people on edge. There were bad people in the world in the 70s, and those people were called Communists. Worse yet, they were spreading. Russia and Cuba posed enough of a threat to American security without anyone else joining them, so when Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger found Dr. Salvador Allende’s Socialist movement gathering momentum in Chile, they resolved to stop him from gaining power. Nixon felt direct US involvement overstepped the boundaries of propriety—how polite—yet remained fully willing to fund opposition forces within the country itself. And that’s how Augusto Pinochet became America’s agent in Latin America, Chile’s first dictator and self-appointed president. Well, Pinochet didn’t quite understand what he was getting himself into. Chile’s economic situation was not the best, and his, ahem, strong hand going into government had a pretty immediate negative impact on industry. Diagnosis: hyperinflation. Once again, Pinochet looked North for help. Milton Friedman, economics professor at University of Chicago and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner, loved himself some free markets. He and his econ buddies had always wanted to come up with an economic plan—you know, while hanging around the office one day—and actually implement it. Sure it was controversial for Milton to help a dictator accused of crimes against humanity, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Was he expected to let the Chilean economy die? A group of 30 Chilean economists shipped off to Illinois to study under Friedman in the 1960s. They learned all about free market economies, national privatization and deregulation of industry. Friedman preached tariffs hampered the economy, because they kept prices high and competitive foreign industry out. He also believed taxes infringed personal freedom, because no citizen should be forced to pay for something they don’t want to pay for. Friedman felt that this laissez faire method was the only way for a market to achieve its full potential. The Chileans became Friedman’s would-be disciples and were dubbed the Chicago Boys. 15
Rally for ‘Desaparecidos’ during Pinochet’s senate trials Reuters Santiago 2004
“Don’t stop searching for me.” Anniversary of the Coup EFE/Felipe Trueba Santiago
16
When the Chicago Boys got back home, Pinochet plopped the broken Chilean economy in their laps and let them go wild. Legislation flowed quickly and directly from the government to help assert the policies. Pinochet called their new policies neoliberalism. He said it was a technocracy, a new system where expert technocrats replaced temperamental politicians. The main tenets of neoliberalism are privatization and decentralization. The Chicago Boys went straight to work slashing government spending, sharply reducing the money supply and selling nationalized enterprises. They deregulated the market and lifted international trade barriers. They sold two national banks and privatized senior pensions. Decentralization, they said, would “bring decision-making to the people.” It would liberate the economy by transferring power to regions and localities through delegation of responsibilities to the municipal sphere, especially public health and education. This was the great Chilean bureaucratization. But in reality decentralization didn’t click very well with an authoritarian regime, and free-market economies were easier to establish centrally, anyway. So even after adding on more politicians throughout the nation, legislation came from Santiago. These strategies would become Ronald Reagan’s economic campaign platforms. Pretty sure Ronald Reagan—being the posterchild for low taxes and trickle-down economics and upstanding Republicans everywhere—is as conservative as one gets, which makes the Chicago Boys’ economic action plans pretty much a right-wing dream come true. Reagan’s presidency from 1981 to 1989 marked the Golden Age of the GOP in the United States and like any dedicated opportunist, Pinochet wanted in on the sweet money making action. They probably phrased it something more like “national economic growth and development.” Pinochet was a complex man. Both a dictator and lover of capitalism, he was all about efficiency and pragmatism, and he wanted the Chilean economy to peak. According to Chicago Boy and Augusto’s friend Rolf Luders, Friedman explained to Pinochet point blank that the free economy he wanted would eventually require the dictator to give up power. Personal freedom would follow economic freedom, but Pinochet was willing to give up his power for the cause. Well, sorta. Right before economic liberty reached it’s fullest expression in the 1980s, Augusto set about remaking the Chilean constitution. The new constitution made Pinochet president for eight years, and scheduled a plebiscite for reelection after the term. He made himself senator for life and created nine non-elected senatorial seats, four of which had to be filled by former military or police officers. The president lost the right to dismiss the commander-in-chief of the military or the chief of police, and before he left office in 1989, Pinochet made it law that he would be the commander-in-chief until 1998. Too many political parties resulted in too many runoffs, he said, so 17
the binomial system was established, in which only two candidates per position are allowed on the ballot. This created a fake two-party system that has forced political parties to create coalitions for seats ever since, though these alliances are mainly strategic and basically weak. The constitution required a two-thirds majority for any proposed amendments, but coincidentally, the binomial system made it very difficult to achieve such a majority. Just in case Pinochet wasn’t reelected, he rigged the constitution so the right would always retain influence on the government. Two years of constitutionally mandated transition followed. As the country got ready for democracy, Pinochet made sure to set a few more things to his taste. Voter registration was made elective, but once enrolled, a voter was legally obligated to cast a ballot. Registered voters who failed to show received a stiff fine. Schools, which until 1973 had been the responsibility of the state, were either privatized or became the sole responsibility of each municipality and the voucher system was put in place. Slowly, as economic freedom brought Chile economic prosperity in the mid 80s, the Chilean people gained political liberty. Censorship loosened up a bit and opposition was slightly more allowed to exist. And when the plebiscite came around in 1988, people were allowed to speak up for the first time in a while, and the country voted a resounding “no” for another term of Pinochet. Augusto Pinochet left Chile with a crazy mess of ethical and constitutional legacies, but he and the Chicago Boys are largely credited for Chile’s current economic successes by the likes of the Hoover Institute and Wall Street Journal. Cultural liberty bloomed with the establishment of democracy in 1990 under the leadership of Concertación President Patricio Aylwin. It was only nautral for cultural liberty to follow political liberty. Between 1985 and 1995, Chile’e economy grew by a significant 5-6 percent per year. Gross national income ballooned. Poverty numbers went down. It must have been Pinochet. Pardon my cynicism. True, the Chicago Boys’ economic policies are undoubtedly the starting point for many of Chile’s most impressive financial successes. Since then, the practice of open borders has continued in centre-left coalition governments, resulting in growth of exports and the integration of Chile into the world economy. But at what cost? And who paid the price? My grandpa Nicolás was born in southern Chile, in a little town called Negrete in 1936. He found math and language too easy at his countryside high school, so he dropped out altogether. At the time schooling was not necessary for employment, so he found job as a stock boy at Savory Ice Cream company. Years went by, and after much hard work, the stock boy turned truck driver turned manager. After years of squirreling away savings, my grandpa withdrew his pension and bought a plot of farmland in the outskirts of town. His 18
biggest dream was to build a farmhouse on his own land, where he could one day retire and have a vegetable garden. His dreams didn’t get that far, though, because when he was arrested by Pinochet’s men in 1973, the newly legitimate government froze all his assets and divided them amongst the highest officials. My grandpa’s whole live savings, stolen in a second. This fraudulent transaction happened to thousands of others, too. And this was among the less horrible things Pinochet did during his dictatorship. I say my grandpa was “arrested.” Technically, he was. But the circumstances appear a whole lot more like kidnapping. Police showed up at the factory soon after the coup. They brought along the names of people who had My grandparents at their 50th anniversary Personal Santiago 2011 previously shown leftist or Marxist leanings. They called them out, covered their eyes, stuffed them in a police wagon, and that was that. My grandpa was put up with thousands of others in Santiago’s National Stadium. Thousands more were taken to makeshift prisons all over the country. The prisoners were regularly interrogated, tortured and barely fed. They got a blanket and that’s it. Important or influential prisoners were separated and sent to higher security facilities like Villa Grimaldi. Most of these never returned. What was my grandpa’s great crime? He was president of his labor union. Luckily, or maybe by divine provenance, my grandpa was released. They kept my grandpa in the stadium for three months. The whole time, my grandma had no idea where he’d been. Pinochet was not polite enough to tell people he’d kidnapped and was torturing their family members. For years, people simply disappeared. Strict curfews were imposed and the press heavily censored. My grandma visited the morgues and hospitals daily, looking for any sign of my grandpa’s whereabouts. Without my grandpa’s income, she and her three girls were left with nothing.
19
“I Love Pinochet” Brad Horrigan 2006
Fans weep after Pinochet’s passing David Lillo 2006
20
APP/Marcelo Hernandez 2006
My grandpa made his rage at the injustice loudly known. Once a socialist always a socialist, right? I grew up with my grandparents in a house abundantly decorated by ‘No’ stickers referencing the 1988 plebiscite that removed Pinochet from power. Yet my father’s side of the family loves Pinochet. My dad’s dad even has a poster of his face in his shoe-making workshop. Pinochet’s policies benefitted the firm at which he worked, and grandpa Luis got pretty wealthy. My dad and his brothers were welldressed and privately schooled—at Academica de Humanidades like me—and go away for the summer to their beachfront house in El Quisco. An economic downturn drove the firm to bankruptcy in the 80s and my grandpa lost most of his assets, but he remained a faithful Pinochet fan. Just like many other youths in my generation, my family alliances are divided. While his policies opened the doors to entrepreneurs, they also enabled and sustained a runaway income disparity that continues to plague the country. To many, Pinochet brought opportunity and capital, relief from the ruinous policies of Allende. To many others, Pinochet brought torture, theft and misery. To this day, the deceased general remains a strongly polarizing force in Chilean society.
But these are not excuses for lack of action.
Thousands are still missing. We cannot forget the horrible tragedies, lest it happen again. But those radical neoliberal policies did have a positive long-term impact on the Chilean economy. And we have to give credit where credit is due. The millennial generation born after 1990 is the first generation born into a democratic Chile. Pinochet’s presence, however, has lingered far too long. And we don’t care why anymore. Things just needs to change. It is time for us to overcome the differences in of our past. It is time for us to come together. We are the birth of a new Chile. We want the legal framework to reflect the free, democratic, developed nation we say we are. We’re willing to work with the government to find new solutions for Chile, if they’re willing to work with us, too.
21
future So you wanna be a developed nation…but how?
Pass a no discrimination law covering gender, income, race, sexual orientation, or handicap. I don’t feel like I should have to defend this, but I do, because this law has been getting pushed back for seven years. The brutal beating of 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio by Neonazi hooligans on March 3 left the country in horror and shock. The four 20-somethings cut swastikas into his flesh, cut him with broken bottles and even sliced a piece off his ear. People took to the streets again demanding justice, but marches for equality proved fruitless until Daniel’s death in late March. Public outcry pressured Piñera to pressure his ministers, and the bill was approved the same day and explicitly includes protection for sexual orientation and gender identity. The Catholic church voiced their discontent, March for Equality Diego Urbina 2011 as they fear the law will threaten religious freedom and harm marriage or some other irrelevant thing. Though the passage of this law is monumental, the coverage is limited. The anti-discriminatory proposal is limited to only vulnerable minorities and included possible “restrictions or exclusions” for exercise other constitutional rights, which is both unnecessary and counterproductive. Anti-discrimination laws should be put up to the international standard. To hell with the Catholic church. 22
Remove the binomial system Thankfully, some of the constitutional vestiges of Pinochet’s regime are finally being removed. Voter registration was made universal and voting non-mandatory in January of 2012. Prior practices significantly disadvantaged the young and the poor, since they had the most to lose if their vote happened to go missing. Now everyone’s welcome at the polls, but binomial legislation continues to create a right-wing bias in elections, crowding out smaller radical parties. The Chilean government remains largely centralized, with the majority of power resting in the hands of the president and ministers. Of course they don’t want to change the system that put them in place. By having an almost protected status, the main political parties have gotten real comfortable. According to Chile in the Nineties, a book of sociological research published by the Chilean government in 2000, “parties have had severe difficulties in opening themselves up to society and becoming receptive to its needs and opinions. Surveys show a gulf of separation and alienation between the parties and the population, along with an image of ‘self-barricading’ by parties with respect to the subjects they address and the initiatives they undertake.” These political parties have remained largely the same since pre-1973. This. Is. Dumb. How y’all gonna legislate when you ain’t even understand the people and their problems?! Piñera currently has an approval rating of 29 percent—thank you students—and his party, the Alliance for Change, is doing even worse at 24 percent. But the other largest party, the Concertación is only at 21 percent. By the time presidential elections roll around a year from now, the country will be hurting for a new leader, but from where? The Communist party has remained fairly insignificant since Pinochet but is making a comeback through openly communist student leaders like Camila Vallejo. The young communists, however, are not nearly as inflexible as their counterparts. After all, we’ve been raised in a state of compromise. Removal of the binomial system would open up the polls to candidates that would have previously been marginalized. I say it’s about time to get some fresh faces in the Chilean congress.
23
Labor to offer quality public education through high school. Alleviate scarcity and lower price of higher education by opening state funded community and technical colleges throughout the country’s 13 regions, and in the process, give the country’s most disadvantaged populations the knowledge to aid themselves. Programs like Duoc are incredibly successful, especially for the bottom socioeconomic levels. Why not expand them? Technical schools provide working knowledge, not just lofty humanist principles. Higher education cannot be fixed alone: it must develop from the bottom up. Without the proper elementary education, students cannot be prepared for college. Without effective, prepared teachers, students aren’t going anywhere. Education is a human right, and if Chile wants to call itself a developed nation, it’s got some major improvements to make. A newly released report by Lance Lochner at the Centre for Human Capital and Productivity at the University of Western Ontario asserts that “education can reduce crime, improve health, lower mortality, and increase political participation.” If people have the opportunity, they choose something much different than a life of streets and crime. According to Latinobarometro, Chileans feel education was the most important problem of 2011. The current educational system is the fundamental building block for the nation’s runaway income disparity and inequality. People are tired of their interests being sold out to foreign investors. Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but is the government even listening? I guess they better be, they’ve certainly been warned. Change will eventually happen. Either by reason or by force.
24
appendix
DIEGO URBINA
CONTRIBUTOR
Diego is a journalism student at Universidad Diego Portales. I met him in elementary school at Academia de Humanidades, and thanks to the glory that is the internet, we have remained friends since. Who would’ve thought we’d both become journalists? Through photography, Diego hopes to offer a truthful portrayal both breaking news and and everyday life. He is pictured above in Santiago’s General Cemetery. 25
collected quotes “The combination of lower-than-epected income and higher-than-expected debt is explosive.” — Andrés Velasco, former finance minister “History teaches us that nations are constructed through the continued action of succesive generations. Nobody begins from zero. Children inherit the realities which their parents pass on to them. Each new government takes charge of a country handed over to it by the preceeding one.” —President Patricio Aylwin, 1990, the first official year of Chile’s democracy. “It is our urgent task to construct, with the spiritual strength of the nation, a common democratic foundation.” —President Eduardo Frei, 1994 “We are many more than the six capitalists in Chile.” —Ivan Fuentes, Aysen movement spokesman “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” —Malcolm X “Become maladjusted to injustice.” —Dr. Cornell West Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros Learning humanizes character and does not permit it to be cruel. —Motto, University of South Carolina
26
Voices from Aysen Spoken by Ivan Fuentes, spokesman for Aysen Movement Press conference in Santiago, March 2012 A group of over 20 representatives from Aysen went to meet with vice president to plea for the release of 22 people arrested for protests and to discuss a way for peaceful resolution. The group was arrested under a terrorism law and included wives, fishermen, and students. The president convieniently left for Spain before they arrived in Santiago. We must say that for us it’s an honor to be here. First off, the first feeling we have is thankfulness. We wanted to express it like this, directly, to all the social organizations. To all those who feel the feeling of maná, the feeling of cardumen (togetherness, like a school of fish), that necessity to come together. That is what makes us bigger. We from Patagonia have said, “Let’s bring back the word sintonia [harmony].” We’ve been working on this for a while. Truth is, tuning in to each other is really important so that later we can achieve harmony with others, the ones who hold the power, the ones who have the say. Because we are not in tune, that harmony’s been lost. At least that’s how we feel it. The truth is that this harmony should be recovered, recovered in the good of Chile. We want it to be understood like this. We want Chile to understand it like this. From the most humble sentiment of the Patagonia, for us to say that we must recover this harmony. Let’s see. Why do the poor have to hate the rich? And why do the rich distance themselves from the poor? Is it not the case that we need each other? We need the capital. We welcome the capital to Chile! We welcome the capital to the Patagonia, and we’ve been saying that for a while. But with respect for two things: With respect for the environment, and when I speak of the environment I speak not only of leaves. I speak of the air, of the rivers, of the waterhen I speak of the locals I speak of people who live simply, in the last corners of the Patagonia and in the last corners of the countryside. We say, respect to the locals! When this is produced, of course there is societal peace. And when there is societal peace, we all make money. All of Chile makes money. Why do we keep losing peace? I hope not to get too longwinded, but the truth is that we begin to lose societal peace when we become insensitive to the suffering of others, when we distance ourselves from others’ necessities, and when making money is the most important simply for me. And 27
tomorrow I change my car and buy another, newest model, and the day after tomorrow another one comes out and I change it purely because I simply want to change it’s color. In that world, where the objective is simply making money and not simply living well—because living well is living in a peaceful society, living in a harmonious society. That’s living well. Living well is not just having money. We want all of Chile to know, the great capitalists to know, that there is a better way to live well. Pay your nanny well, pay your worker well, pay your people well, pay the miners well, pay the farmers well, pay the fishermen well, and then yes, there are less young people in the streets. Then yes, there are less youth that commit harm. Then yes, life is better for everyone. So yes, you can have money and live a tranquil life. But in a stage where a few make a lot, and lots of others keep suffering, what happens? You have to put four fences on your house, and you have to buy Rottweiler dogs, and you have to protect yourself. That is not life. So we want the state of Chile, who is definitely the father of all Chileans, the one who has to deal the money, to create more brotherly policies, more egalitarian policies. But that which is said in different speeches, we truthfully want it to be done. Because two things exist: a conscience, and when we speak of conscience we hear “I love this land that gave me life and I will fight for its people and its future.” We hear that all the time don’t we? We have to have the discourse of conscience, but we must have both conscience and law. Chilean law must be fixed. Chilean law must be renovated.
28
what’s Chile like? Condensed facts from the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook • Name: Republica de Chile (picture flag) • Coordinates: 30 00 S 72 00 W • Population: 17,067,369 • Neighbors: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru • Natural borders: atacama desert N, Pacific ocean W, Antarctica S, Andes E • Size: 756,102 sq km (slightly smaller than twice the size of Montana) • Coast: 6,339 km • Climate: temperate desert up north, Mediterranean in the middle, cool and damp in the south • Natural resources: copper, timber, iron ore, nitrates, precious metals, molybdenum (mostly alloyed with steel to make stronger and more heat resistant), hydro power • Environmental issues: “widespread deforestation and mining threaten natural resources; air pollution from industrial and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage.” • Natural hazards: Severe earthquakes, active volcanism, tsunamis • Ethnic groups: White & white-Amerindian 95.4%, Mapuche 4%, other indigenous groups 0.06% • Religions: Roman catholic 70%, Evangelical 15.1%, Jehovah’s Witnesses 1.1%, other Christian 1%, other 4.6%, none 8.3% (from 2002 census) • Age structure: 0-14 years: 22.3% (male 1,928,210/ female 1,840,839)Number • 44 on the OECD’s 2011 human development index. “Very High Human Development.” Officially the most developed country in South America.
29
sources & further reading General History Toloza, Christian, and Eugenio Lahera eds. Chile In the Nineties. Santiago, Chile: Presidency of the Republic of Chile and Dolman Ediciones, 2000. Skidmore, Thomas E., and Peter H. Smith eds. Modern Latin America. “Chile: Socialism, Repression, and Democracy.” 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pinochet & the Chicago Boys “Chile: The Pinochet Years.” The Center for Justice & Accountability. http://www.cja.org/article.php?list=type&type=196 Becker, Gary. “What Latin America Owes the Chicago Boys.” Hoover Digest. Hoover Institute. 30 October 1997. http://www.hoover. org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7743 Sorman, Guy. “Cheers for Chile’s Chicago Boys.” City Journal. Vol. 18, No. 1. Winter 2008. http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_sndchile.html Kangas, Steve. “Chile: The Laboratory Test.” A Critique of the Chicago School of Economics” http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Lchichile.htm Klein, Naomi. “Milton Friedman did not save Chile.” The Guardian. 3 March 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ cifamerica/2010/mar/03/chile-earthquake Krugman, Paul. “Fantasies of the Chigago Boys.” New York Times. 3 March 2010. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/ fantasies-of-the-chicago-boys/ Chilean constitution “Chile’s new constitution: Untying the knot.” The Economist. 21 October 2004. http://www.economist.com/node/3320682?story_ id=3320682 “Chile’s electoral system: bye-bye binomial?” The Economist. 22 February 2012. http://www.economist.com/blogs/ americasview/2012/02/chiles-electoral-system
30