[In the 2000s and 2010s Chileans began resolving the Crisis of
Representation through protest, song, and dance. Recent political
setbacks do not detract from this. ]
[[link removed]]

LESSONS FROM ONE UNEQUAL SOCIETY TO ANOTHER  
[[link removed]]


 

Liam Crisan
December 18, 2023
Inequality.org
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ In the 2000s and 2010s Chileans began resolving the Crisis of
Representation through protest, song, and dance. Recent political
setbacks do not detract from this. _

Protest in 2019 that led to the first vote for a new constitution
(Shutterstock),

 

This past Sunday, Chileans voted once again on a new constitution,
opting to reject — for the second time in two years — an attempt
at constitutional revision. Rejecting a highly conservative text,
voters chose to keep the dictatorship-era constitution for the time
being. A political saga that began amid immense hope has now devolved
into a dismal disarray that’s left countless Chileans tired and
frustrated.

Here in the United States, we face an equally bleak political outlook.
According to a recent Pew Research Center report
[[link removed]],
25 percent of U.S. adults feel that neither of the nation’s two
major parties represents them adequately enough. Some 63 percent of
Americans express little to no confidence in the future of our
political system.

Both the United States and Chile, in other words, find themselves at
the center of what we can call a “Crisis of Representation,” a
growing disconnect between citizens and the institutions that claim to
represent them.

This crisis has spared few countries. In 2019, major pro-democracy
mass mobilizations erupted in nearly half — 44 percent — of the
world’s nations, an all-time high
[[link removed]] that
surpassed previous records set during the fall of the USSR and the
Arab Spring. People all over the world are demanding dignity and
democracy. People all over the world feel that their voices are going
unheard.

The U.S. and Chile share other links as well. Chile, according to
the U.S. Department of State
[[link removed]], rates as “one of
the United States’ strongest partners in Latin America.” Our
countries have maintained diplomatic relations for over two centuries
and share proud, longstanding democratic traditions.

Yet this relationship has not always been positive. To say merely that
the U.S. has “meddled” in Chilean politics would amount to a gross
understatement. The CIA and Nixon administration stood behind
the “first 9/11,” [[link removed]] the
September 1973 military coup that violently uprooted Chile’s then
143-year-old democracy. The U.S. would go on to prop up dictator
Augusto Pinochet’s regime for nearly two more decades — 17 years
of rape, torture, and murder.

[Credit: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Chile / Wikimedia
Commons (CC BY 2.0 CL)]

Kissinger and Pinochet. Photo: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de
Chile

The Pinochet years essentially birthed what we now call
“neoliberalism.” The conservative U.S. economist Milton Friedman
and his disciples used the captive Chile as a testing ground for our
world’s now-dominant right-wing economic ideology. Under
Pinochet’s neoliberalism, inequality deepened and worker power
dwindled. Chileans found themselves forced to operate as consumers not
citizens.

Since Pinochet’s ousting by plebiscite in 1990, the neoliberal
economic model has continued to constrain Chilean democracy, just as
neoliberalism has in the United States and many other countries
across the globe
[[link removed]].
Today, the U.S. and Chile rank among the world’s most unequal
nations.

Even so, according to Freedom House, Chile has been getting
[[link removed]] _more _democratic
since 2020, with one of the highest rankings of any democracy in the
world: 94. The United States has only become
[[link removed]] _less _democratic,
with an 83 ranking. Here in the United States, we clearly have a lot
to learn from the recent Chilean political experience.

Twenty-first-century Chile has been a progressive success story.
Starting in the mid-2000s, three cycles of protest changed everything.
Chile’s 2006 Penguin Revolution
[[link removed]],
2011 Chilean Winter
[[link removed]],
and 2019 Social Explosion
[[link removed]] each
began with student protests and developed into mass movements. Each
cycle grew larger than the last, forcing politicians to pay ever
greater attention to the widely shared popular demands.

Before Sunday’s election, I spoke with two 31-year-olds, the
psychologist Gustavo Ignacio Mancilla Andrade and the professor Jose
Luis Escalona Muñoz, about their experiences as student leaders in
the Valparaíso region.

“2006 made us realize that change was possible,” Jose told me.
“2011 was chaotic at first, but soon we became highly organized. We
got to the point where we were all speaking the same language, all
calling for education to be recognized as a human right.”

We can see the power of these mobilizations in the policy changes they
helped trigger, everything from landmark education reforms
[[link removed]] to
a national plebiscite
[[link removed]]. Each
cycle’s expressive intensity correlated with its impact. Each time
Chileans took to the street, they sang louder
[[link removed]] and danced harder
[[link removed]]. The more their voices
resonated, the harder they became to ignore.

“The Dance of Those Left Behind,” Jose explains, “has been an
important protest song since the 1980s. It represents the deep
inequalities of our education system. Any public school student in
Chile can relate.”

“The arts kept the movement alive,” Gustavo explains. “If you
march every day, you reach less people. If you adopt creative tactics,
you draw people in. For this reason, you can trace the evolution of
Chilean social movements just by looking at how protesters sing.”

Through protest, song, and dance, Chileans had begun resolving the
Crisis of Representation.

The 2019 anti-inequality mobilizations turned out to be the largest in
Chilean history. Millions flooded the streets to demand new forms of
political representation.

“Pandora’s box is now wide open,” as Franco-Chilean historian
and sommelier Francisca Herrera Crisan
[[link removed]] put
it at the time, “letting the ghosts of the past escape, finally
forcing us to face them. In pain, certainly, but also in the hope set
free from the box: that of a people rediscovering themselves.”

Only a worldwide virus, notes the psychologist Gustavo, proved strong
enough to slow that opening. Even so, Chile’s then president, the
right-wing Sebastián Piñera, would soon concede to protester demands
and announce a plebiscite to determine the fate of Pinochet’s
constitution. In October 2020, 78 percent of Chileans voted to scrap
the document, initiating a new and historic constitutional drafting
process.

By early 2022, the future looked bright. A new constitution was taking
shape, and Chile had just inaugurated its youngest president ever: the
36-year-old Gabriel Boric Font, a former student leader elected on an
ambitious reform platform. Boric’s election signaled a new direction
for Chile. He represented the voice of the young and the dispossessed.

[Gabriel Boric addresses his closing campaign event. Photo: Twitter/
Gabriel Boric"]

Gabriel Boric addresses his closing campaign event. Photo: Twitter/
Gabriel Boric

But that hope soon dissipated. Assorted scandals plagued the
constitutional assembly, and, after a concerted disinformation
campaign, an overwhelming majority of voters rejected the assembly’s
draft constitution. Chile’s far right used this political blunder to
seize control of the constitution’s second drafting assembly.

In the meantime, Boric has faced strong political headwinds.
Inheriting a deeply polarized country, he has found it difficult to
build the broad coalitions necessary to pursue crucial reforms.

The story doesn’t end here.

The only way past the Crisis of Representation turns out to be through
it, and in Chile the gears for change are still turning. Recent
political setbacks have not detracted from Chile’s inspiring
victories in deepening democratic engagement.

“These movements served as an important cultural catalyst,”
explains the professor Jose. “They made us realize that it was
possible to protest and demand a better future.”

Pushback, of course, will always come. Newton’s third law promises
that. But if we look at the long trend, we’ll see it traces a
positive trajectory. The social process initiated in 2019 has not run
its course. The struggle remains alive, now more than ever.

During periods of demobilization, we must pause to regroup — using
the lull in momentum as a chance to learn from the past and envision
the future. This is the natural rhythm of change, the ebb and flow of
progress.

I leave you with the last words of President Salvador Allende,
delivered while defending Chile’s presidential palace from the
conspirators of the 1973 coup:

“Neither crime nor force can delay social processes,” said
Allende. “History is ours and it is made by the people.”

“Go forward,” he assured, “knowing that, sooner rather than
later, the great avenues through which free men pass to build a better
society will open once again. Long live Chile! Long live the people!
Long live the workers!”

_Liam Crisan is an Inequality.org next leader.  You can follow him on
Twitter @LiamCrisan._

_Inequality.org has been tracking inequality-related news and views
for nearly two decades. A project of the Institute for Policy Studies
since 2011, our site aims to provide information and insights for
readers ranging from educators and journalists to activists and policy
makers._

_If you would like to support and help expand our work, please
consider making a donation. Thank you!  DONATE
[[link removed]]_

* Chile
[[link removed]]
* democracy
[[link removed]]
* neo-liberalism
[[link removed]]
* protests
[[link removed]]
* Music
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]