Social outburst that led to the concentration of more than a million people on a central street in Santiago de Chile. Photo: futuro.cl
The 1973 coup against President Salvador Allende not only thwarted the deep aspirations of the Chilean people, but also opened the doors to a series of economic and political reforms that turned the country into a test tube for neoliberalism. In decades of dictatorship and democracy, neoliberal structures deepened, the privatization and dehumanization of the state apparatus increased and inequality between all strata of this society increased.
The transition to democracy in 1990 left many of the old power structures of the dictatorship intact. The country’s economy remained in the hands of the same local elites and transnational interests. So the change was purely cosmetic, leaving intact the structures of the deep state that had created and nurtured the dictatorship.
Neoliberalism privatized key sectors and services and deliberately promoted a fully individualistic conscience in which the subject ignores the fate of the rest of society. The prosperity, evident in the flourishing of businesses and the modern and growing urbanization of the main cities, served as a facade to hide the deep flaws and injustices that have deepened over the years and through the lack of coherent public Measures will be aggravated there response.
Violence as a culture within the armed forces remained intact. The old logic of the enemy who must be destroyed in order to maintain order and the stability of trade. The right to sell anything, even rights, even health and education. The good order of the oligarchy must be maintained and the enemy must be crushed and crushed with all the strength necessary.
It is therefore not surprising that these accumulations give rise to subterranean currents of dissatisfaction, which clamor to the fore at moments of aggravation of social contradictions. This happened in 2019, when a small economic surge (30 pesos in the price of the subway ticket) triggered a deep wave of discontent and social unrest that led more than a million people to crowd a central Santiago street de Chile concentrated .
About the reality of this recent social upheaval in Chile and its protagonists is the documentary My Imaginary Country (2022) by director Patricio Guzmán, a seasoned chronicler of recent Chilean history, from his emblematic documentary series La batalla de Chile (1975). The documentary, which recently premiered in Cuba at the 43rd Festival of New Latin American Cinema, covers with a firm and experienced pulse, through impressive images and exclusively female testimonies, the reality of the last social outburst in the South American country up to the moment from the Triumph is given the choice of Gabriel Boric.
The optimism for the future with which the material concludes contrasts with the relative backflow implied by the defeat of the new constitution in September 2022 and the inadequacies of the Boric government, which have led to the deep societal Didn’t meet expectations embodied. Nevertheless, the material is an interesting testimony of a more recent time.
The photography and the selection of testimonies are undoubtedly among the fundamental achievements, however, it lacks depth to explain and understand a process as complex as the 2019 protests. The structures of inequality that have moved millions are not fully understood Chileans exposed to take to the streets and face the brutality of the carabineros. To leave hundreds of eyes, dozens of lives to defend their right to a better land.
Although it was not a partisan mobilization or for very clear political purposes, there were conscious demands. Claims range from demands for the most immediate material situation to questions of the current economic and social order and the resulting claim to change it. Feminist struggles played an important role in the protests. All of this social dissatisfaction was channeled into a consensus for a new constitution that would surpass the old constitution that is still in effect and inherited from the dictatorship.
These young people are part of a generation that has matured in struggle. Chilean students have been fighting for their most basic rights for years, as have key sections of the working class. These struggles have matured the consciousness of an entire generation, and police brutality in successive administrations has cemented the realization that something is wrong with the Deep State that needs to be changed.
The Constituent Assembly was a popular victory across the board, while also being a tool ultimately in the service of the ruling classes, as it channeled popular protest into a formal and legal process that had profoundly subversive implications for the current order. . Without detracting even one iota from the immense value of this democratic process, the new constitution alone will not change reality or the established powers. In the end, if it is finally approved, it can be a way to change everything so that nothing changes. Apart from the fact that a more inclusive Magna Carta undoubtedly means formal progress for broad sections of Chilean society that needs to be recognised, legitimized and made visible.
In addition, the negotiation process implied by the new constitution, which already experienced a first setback in September 2022, can imply important concessions in order to reach the required majority, which not only can undermine the original spirit of the protests, but they are also deeply demobilizing , because the effervescence of the active forces is replaced by the procedural errors themselves by the not so clear and dynamic process of political negotiation, by the hustle and bustle of the big corporate media and their permanent strategy of misinformation and confusion, the process and magnified by the same means. All of this weakens the ability of important sectors to see behind the smoke screens. And it is the same forces that voted for a new constitution that will later vote against a particular project, based on sometimes unfounded prejudice.
Through his own vital experience, Guzmán brings contemporary Chilean reality into dialogue with the past, particularly with the hopes raised by Salvador Allende’s government of popular unity that the military crushed. Perhaps the most questionable aspect of the documentary is the conclusion of the material with a speech by Boric in which he is in some ways homologated with the immense figure of Allende, something the current president’s political practice seeks to deny.
What is clear after reviewing the material is that there is a revolutionary Chile that is fed up with neoliberal and oligarchic Chile. A Chile that is fed up with the life contempt of the law enforcement agencies and the economic model. A Chile that is heir to the era of hope that began after Allende’s triumph and that could not stifle the violent oppression of years of dictatorship and fill the inadequacies of later democracy. A Chile that, when it erupts, is not spared from excesses, precisely because of the plurality of forces that compose it, but whose essence is transparent and promising.
This revolutionary Chile, which has renewed itself from generation to generation and has measured its mighty strength in struggle, is a source of deep expectations and aspirations. It will reach its full dimension when the clear notion that overcoming prevailing injustice is possible only by overcoming the economic model that generates that injustice and the political classes that support it is established and fully disseminated.
Guzmán is rightly hopeful about this process of popular revolt. The Chilean people, the most beautiful in the heart of Chile, have awakened, and when people wake up and take to the streets to fight for their rights, miracles inevitably occur.