The Chilean Winter: Student Revolt

Ori­gin­ally bap­tised as the Chilean Winter, the stu­dent move­ment in Chile has demon­strated that it is far from being the con­sequence of a sea­sonal eman­cip­at­ing spirit. After four months of con­tinu­ous and massive protests for the estab­lish­ment of a fair and integ­rated edu­ca­tional sys­tem, the move­ment has achieved what no polit­ical party or polit­ical leader could in the last twenty years. It has placed at the centre of dis­cus­sion the need of struc­tural and pro­found trans­form­a­tions to an edu­ca­tional sys­tem cre­ated dur­ing the neo­lib­eral exper­i­ment of Augusto Pinochet. Fur­ther­more, it has put in ser­i­ous doubt the legit­im­acy of the whole insti­tu­tional appar­atus con­tained in a Con­sti­tu­tion draf­ted dur­ing the dic­tat­or­ship and which is still in force.

There are a num­ber of reas­ons that explain the strength and per­sever­ance of this move­ment. Per­haps the most rel­ev­ant is the fatigue of the insti­tu­tional sys­tem. The 1980 Con­sti­tu­tion set the found­a­tions of the Chilean polit­ical and eco­nom­ical insti­tu­tions. From a polit­ical per­spect­ive the Con­sti­tu­tion cre­ated a unique binom­inal elect­oral sys­tem which estab­lished the con­di­tions for an uneven dis­tri­bu­tion of par­lia­ment­ary seats between the two major polit­ical coali­tions. Since the recov­ery of demo­cracy in 1990, this dis­tri­bu­tion has not reflec­ted the real vote of the people. In prac­tical terms, the sys­tem has allowed right wing parties to con­trol half of the seats although their real vote has been little more than third of the electorate.

Fur­ther­more, the Con­sti­tu­tion intro­duced a per­verse mech­an­ism that placed incred­ibly high thresholds to amend the laws which form the core of the neo­lib­eral appar­atus. Among these laws is the law of edu­ca­tion. The quorum required to modify them can be as high as three fifths of the mem­bers of par­lia­ment. Con­sid­er­ing that the binom­inal elect­oral sys­tem makes it almost impossible for a polit­ical coali­tion to obtain such num­bers in the Par­lia­ment, the Con­sti­tu­tion has com­pletely sup­pressed the pos­sib­il­ity of amend­ing the sys­tem through insti­tu­tional chan­nels. This includes, of course, the law of education.

In other words, through the insti­tu­tional dead­lock imposed by Pinochet’s Con­sti­tu­tion, the neo­lib­eral machinery found a secure refuge. Since 1990 right wing parties have grot­esquely benefited from these rules; they have been con­sist­ently opposed to struc­tural trans­form­a­tions, not only of the edu­ca­tional sys­tem, but of any­thing which could erode the basis of what they so proudly defend. Through a fake rep­res­ent­a­tion in Par­lia­ment gained through a deeply flawed sys­tem, they have been able to impose their will and main­tain the status quo through­out the years.

Exper­i­ence has taught the stu­dent move­ment that the insti­tu­tional dead­lock can­not be opened through reg­u­lar insti­tu­tional chan­nels. Indeed, five years ago a sec­ond­ary school stu­dent move­ment called ‘the pen­guins’, after months of marches and protests was invited by the then social­ist gov­ern­ment to a round of nego­ti­ations. These nego­ti­ations came to noth­ing. As soon as the watered down bill came to par­lia­ment­ary dis­cus­sion any pos­sib­il­ity of reform was com­pletely lost.

Last week the gov­ern­ment ini­ti­ated a round of nego­ti­ations with the cur­rent stu­dent move­ment. This time, how­ever, stu­dents know that the only way these nego­ti­ations can find a proper course is by main­tain­ing marches, protests and an adequate use of force through­out the whole pro­cess. They know that insti­tu­tional mech­an­isms do not offer the guar­an­tees neces­sary to pro­duce the trans­form­a­tions they are legit­im­ately claim­ing for, so the pres­sure should remain in place until the very end. As they have asser­ted, they won’t stop their demands until they have been accom­plished, that is, to change a sys­tem which treats edu­ca­tion as a com­mod­ity, which has cre­ated the most expens­ive higher edu­ca­tion in the world (OECD) and which repro­duces, from the very begin­ning, the inequal­it­ies of a rot­ten eco­nomic state.

This is why in the last four months mil­lions of Chileans have decided to go on to the streets to express their dis­con­tent at a polit­ical class unable to provide adequate responses to these prob­lems. This is why nearly 80% of the pop­u­la­tion sup­ports the move­ment. This is why marches and protests will con­tinue; schools and uni­ver­sit­ies will main­tain their doors shut and many stu­dents may lose their aca­demic year. All this will con­tinue until the longed for trans­form­a­tions are achieved.

With the begin­ning of a new sea­son, the Chilean Winter has entered into a new stage of revolt.

This entry was posted on 5 October 2011 at 7:10 am and is filed under Human Rights, Radical Politics. Published under Creative Commons (CC) Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License: You are welcome to share and remix this content for non-commercial purposes. Kindly acknowledge and hyperlink the source.