Chilean protest

The Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera, has motives to ask himself exactly what is going on. The macroeconomic data remains buoyant: Chile, with per capita income of over 10,000 euros ? a Latin American record ? is not suffering the crisis that the First World is currently embroiled in. But despite that, the nation is restless, the president's popularity is plummeting in the polls and students have spent weeks on the streets demanding free, quality public schooling. The student leaders are threatening to demand that a referendum be held ? a plebiscite, as they are calling it ? so that the general public backs them up, something that they are very likely to do. For a government of the learned right, as Piñera's strives to be, the protests are a disaster.

Last Tuesday, a demonstration by many different sections of society ? not just students ? got out onto the streets of Santiago. The number of people there ranged from the official figures offered by the mayor's office, around 40,000, to the 150,000 claimed by the organizers. Whatever the number, the protests were intense in the Chilean capital. So much so, according to Interior Ministry sources, that at the end of the march hooded gangs set fire to cars, destroyed bus stops, which they then used as barricades, and engaged in stand-offs with the police ? there were reportedly 300 arrests and dozens of injured. Those disturbances were used by the same sources to accuse the students of being incapable to control the protests, which is nearly the same as calling on them just to study. This is somewhat questionable, because no protests, no matter how civilized they are, can be fully protected from unscrupulous elements taking advantage.

The movement has some very concrete demands: that the state take control of teaching at all levels, and does not leave part of it under municipal control, as is currently the case; and, that private schools are banned from operating for profit. The demands made by the youth in Chile not only have an element of justice to them, but also have real basis in fact. A high-quality and free public schooling system, compatible with initiatives of the private sector, is the best guarantee for a prosperous nation in democracy. If the numbers allow for such a thing right now, why not respond to everything that is realistic among those demands?