For the last three months, Chilean high school and college students have
led a pacific social uprising demanding free, quality education for
all. The government of right-wing president Sebastian Piñera has been
unable to suppress the exploding force of the student movement. Up to
500,000 people have participated in rallies throughout the country with
close to 80% of the population supporting the movement.
Chile’s
educational system is governed by neoliberal free market policies put
in place by the Pinochet dictatorship and left unchanged by
democratically-elected administrations since 1990. Students are
demanding the end of this unjust system that reaps profits for private
entrepreneurs and financial institutions, burdens students and families
with debt, devalues the teaching profession, and effectively excludes
those who cannot pay.
Showing remarkable organization,
creativity and power of debate, tens of thousands of students are
holding rallies almost weekly. They have taken over the principal
universities and dozens of high schools around the country. They have
not backed down despite rampant police brutality and escalating
repressive violence. Some are participating in hunger strikes. The
student movement has transformed national consciousness by naming the
unnamable, thinking the unthinkable, and challenging the entire
political class for maintaining the neoliberal order left by the
Pinochet dictatorship.
Students are also provoking a political
earthquake by demanding a new constitution, more democratic political
institutions, and other structural changes–demands echoed by unions,
professional associations, and other civil society and social justice
organizations.
