By Carlos Aznárez , on February 20, 2020

The government has not been able to cope with the movement of these stubborn and brave people who for four months have not only gone out into the squares by the thousands, but have also changed their names to beautiful words like “Dignity” and “Revolution.” They have torn down monuments of conquerors and traitors who were their disciples.

They have suffered wounds to the eyes of many young people who had opened them up to look at their enemies. They have added thousands of rebels to the prisons and they have become furious with pain for their comrades murdered by those criminals in uniform, supporters of Pinochet, who are the Chilean carabineros. Along with the current constitution that comes from the period of the Pinochet dictatorship, so too does the fascist apparatus of repression.

Evidence shows that Chile’s dictatorial Piñera and his group of ministers and buffoons are increasingly surrounded by the anger of those who despise them for becoming ruthless and corrupt figures in a system that is falling apart. In order to avoid the fall, they are capable of resorting to killing  people in a thousand ways, be it by hunger, by misery or by a clean shot.

The same goes for the bourgeoisie of both the right and the left.  The former, like Piñera, are “murderers like Pinochet,” and the latter were the main supporters of capitalist and repressive governments (against the Mapuche people, the students and the workers) during the government of Lagos or Bachelet. They are the same ones who now agreed with Piñera on a constituent plebiscite that is empty of content, and not the one wanted by those who fight day by day on the front lines against oppression. Even if they make this lie effective, everything indicates that they are condemned to failure, since the rebellion is difficult to stop.

Four months are not a few months to be fighting the repressive madness of the police, even though some ominous people continue to announce, like crows, that “it will soon be over”. They are wrong and they will be wrong again. Chile woke up and all fears were lost. What sense would it make to renounce the freedom that the streets give to thousands of young people who are singing, dancing, fighting and responding to

whoever asks them that they are doing it for “dignity”?  But also for the others, for the old people with low pensions, for the 3,000 prisoners of today, who are very similar to those imprisoned by the Pinochet dictatorship in the Stadium. They are doing it for Commander Ramiro, buried alive in a prison of terror, and for Mauricio Fredes or the Neko Mora of the Colo Colo fans, who died because of the repression of the terrorist carabineros.  And without a doubt, for Víctor Jara, whose emblematic songs they sing in the middle of the barricade in the Alameda, just as they enjoy the feisty coherence of the rapper Anita Tijoux or the Bersuit playing from the balconies of radio Plaza de la Dignidad.

All these stories and experiences are incarnated in a wonderful movement of youth.  As always, the repression believes that it is dispersing them, intoxicating the air with its poison, but in its cowardice, it does not understand that this Revolt is unstoppable. By occupying their trenches again, with smiles, improvised rhythms, pots and pans and drums, the movement is showing the world that four months are nothing. What’s more, they serve to forebode that March is coming with great strength.

The myth of Chile as the shining and exceptional neoliberal model of the South has been shattered. The poverty and separation of wealth and the repression are there for all to see, thanks mostly to this vibrant movement that will not go away.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano