This article by Heidi Tinsman originally appeared in English on The Abusable Past Web page for Radical History Review (https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/?p=3520). Angela Vergara translated it into Spanish for North American Congress on Latin America (https://nacla.org/news/2019/11/19/la-democracia-chilena-las-protestas-y-las-herencias-de-la-dictadura). I decided to translate the article back into English for practice. All errors are mine. I came up with the title--it's a modified and expanded version of the original title.

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Chilean democracy: Protests and the dictatorship’s legacies
In Chile, the debate on democracy’s meaning doesn’t just continue, but also opens up
opportunities for significant changes.
By Heidi Tinsman (North American Congress on Latin America; November 19, 2019;
https://nacla.org/news/2019/11/19/la-democracia-chilena-las-protestas-y-las-herencias-de-la-
dictadura). This article was originally published in English on The Abusable Past:
https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/?p=3520
Translator’s note: This article by Heidi Tinsman originally appeared in English on The
Abusable Past Web page for Radical History Review. Angela Vergara translated it into Spanish
for North American Congress on Latin America. I decided to translate the article back into
English for practice.
On Friday, October 25, 2019, nearly 1.5 million people congregated in the primary thoroughfare
of Santiago to defend democracy. In a country with just 18 million inhabitants, this
demonstration was the biggest in Chile’s history and, by proportion, the whole world. The march
took place after a week of demonstrations throughout the country in protest against the
declaration of a state of emergency and the deployment of armed forces to put an end to the fires
and lootings which began on October 17th in response to the increase in transit fares. For the first
time since the end of General Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship (1973-1990), a
democratic government resorted to the military to repress a civil protest. For Chileans, the
imposition of a curfew conjured the worst days of the dictatorship. Upon declaring, “We’re at
war against a powerful enemy”, Sebastián Piñera repeated the words of General Pinochet himself
after September 11, 1973, that Chile was at “war” against “the Marxist enemy”. More severe
have been the mass detentions of demonstrators, the widespread usage of rubber bullets and even
military-grade munitions, and documented cases of torture, including sexual abuses. The ten-day
state of emergency resulted in 4,000 detained, 1,000 injured persons (especially gunshots), 20
deaths, and over 8,000 formal charges of human rights violations.
This wasn’t a military coup d'état or a repeat of September 11, 1973, but rather a profound
questioning of the type of democracy which has existed in Chile since 1990. This time, a
democratically elected president (Piñera) called in the military. The military didn’t act out of its
own accord against a democratically elected president ([Salvador] Allende). Since the beginning,
citizens contested the implementation of a state of emergency and considered it [a case of the
government acting beyond its limits], mobilizing amongst themselves to protect civil rights. One
of the reasons for which detailed reports of human rights abuses exist is that now there are
formal legal processes for the reporting and investigation of said accusations. Assorted military
and police personnel face formal accusations. Chilean democracy demonstrated its strength more
so than its fragility when the protests, intense but immensely peaceful, spread throughout
Chile—middle class, humble, and even upper class neighborhoods—to condemn the
government’s action and redefine political debate. Placards and etchings that proclaimed, “We’re
not at war! Chile woke up!” and “It’s not for 30 pesos but for 30 years” demonstrate the
legitimacy of popular discontent against the failings of the last 30 years of democratic

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government. [For] each night of the curfew, the people showed up at windows and sidewalks to
beat on [pots and pans]—a traditional way of protest known as the cacerolazo
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacerolazo). The symbolism of the cacerolazo as a form of protest
against the military’s presence on the streets was evident. Pinochet always emphasized that
women had organized huge cacerolazos against Allende’s government and, through these
protests, “they implored for the intervention of [the armed forces]” to rescue the country. Now,
the cacerolazos came forth to defend democracy and make the political system responsible for its
failures.
The indignation that exists today in Chile is in part the result of the dictatorship’s historical
legacy and the political classes’ opposition to the resolution of these problems. The protests are,
in effect, about the last “30 years” of democratic government but also about the 17 years of a
military dictatorship that established the terms under which that democracy was built. One of the
most important legacies is the economic system. Under Pinochet, Chile became one of the most
privatized economies of the world. What’s now commonly referred to as “capitalist
globalization” or “neoliberalism” first happened and with great profundity at the national level in
authoritarian Chile. Since the mid-1970s, public firms were sold off and national industrial and
agricultural protections were eliminated. The social welfare state wound up in ruins when
education, healthcare, housing, social security, and the pensions system became privatized. In the
last 30 years, the governments (generally center-left coalitions) have kept this super-privatized
system practically intact and with minimal state regulations. As a result, a few economic groups
and foreign businesses [concentrate wealth amongst themselves] and maintain monopoly control
over electricity, telecommunications, water, and gasoline. Even copper mining, one of the sectors
that wasn’t privatized under Pinochet, is being subcontracted all the more to multinational firms.
Today, the majority of Chileans finance their pension funds and health insurance through
individual savings accounts administered by private funds (AFP/Administradoras de Fondos de
Pensiones/”Pension Fund Administrators” and ISAPRES/Instituciones de Salud
Previsional/”Precautionary Healthcare Institutions”), but neither employers nor the government
financially contribute. The freeways, ports, parks, transportation, and a large part of the
education system are not completely public but instead are in private [-sector] hands or are
privately administrated and result in prohibitive expenses for the population. The detonator for
last October’s protests was the increase of the transit fare because nearly half of Santiago’s
population spends 10% or more of their income on “public transportation”.
The international image of 21st century Chile as an “oasis of prosperity” was built on the old
premise that the dictatorship created an “economic miracle” that distinguishes Chilean modernity
from the chaos of other Latin American countries. This chauvinist exaggeration obscures a much
more complex reality, marked by deep inequalities and the systematic destruction of the public
sector. It’s not that “nothing has changed” in Chile since the end of the dictatorship. When
Pinochet gave up power, nearly half of the population lived in conditions of extreme poverty.
Today, less than 20% live beneath the poverty line and less than 10% in conditions of extreme
poverty. In rural as well as urban areas, the [socioeconomic classes of modest means], including
most of the indigenous populations, have improved access to food, housing, education, and
healthcare than during the years of the dictatorship and their children generally have better jobs.

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These advances are due, in part, to social policies which democratic governments implemented.
Nevertheless, these policies have basically focused on increasing salaries and expanding credit
so that the population can satisfy its social needs through existing market mechanisms. What’s
more, social policies have neither contributed to a slowdown of inequality nor the creation of a
public social security network. Chile currently spends less money per citizen in benefits or public
services than any other member country of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (the OECD which brings together capitalist democracies) and occupies one of the
last places in the world in terms of income distribution.
The dictatorship left behind another important legacy of a political nature. The military wrote
and enacted the [current constitution in force] in 1980 with the explicit proposition of
institutionalizing the regime’s economic model and destroying the historic power of left-wing
political parties and social movements. The constitution remains in force. Acceptance of the
constitution was a condition for the return to democracy during the end of the 1980s. Democratic
forces used the plebiscite which the constitution stipulated—[a] plebiscite which sought to
extend the military regime—to defeat Pinochet and call for free elections. But the constitution of
1980 defined the terms for electing the National Congress and guaranteed that the military and
right-wing political parties had disproportionate participation in legislative power and, in this
way, could easily block reforms. Throughout the last 30 years, many of the more anti-democratic
aspects of the constitution have been reformed or abolished. But the constitution still limits
congressional power and easily authorizes the suspension of civil rights via martial law [“Estado
de Sitio”, which literally means “state of siege”] and state of emergency, as Piñera did in the past
month of October. Perhaps one of the worst and deepest consequences of the 1980 constitution
has been the sustained loss of public trust in the political system and in the ability of its
representatives to approve legislation which fulfill the population’s demands. Just 46% of
Chileans voted in the previous elections and only a third of young people under 30 years of age
did so. With notable exceptions, most political parties are led by inner circles which have done
little to expand and empower new generations of leaders.
Chileans are tired of electoral politics but they’re not politically apathetic. Popular discontent
isn’t anything new. Although the size of the October 2019 protest surprised the international
community, mass mobilizations and condemnations of inequality have deep roots in Chilean
political culture and have acquired greater visibility during the last decade. Between 2006 and
2012, secondary school and university students led multitudinous protests throughout the country
against the privatization of public education and the university credit system. During the
“penguin revolution” (an allusion to the white-and-black school uniform), hundreds of thousands
youths mobilized and occupied academic premises, making it so that the first governmental
administration of Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) approves some reforms to reduce costs of
education (it’s thus not by coincidence that students started the protests in October). In May
2018, hundreds of thousands of women, LGBT activists, and sympathizers occupied Santiago’s
streets and the main universities to protest against violence and sexual assault and demand the
legalization of abortion. Women with naked torsos and ski masks (a nod to Russia’s Pussy Riot)
occupied the campus of the conservative Catholic University for the first time since the anti-
Pinochet protests. In the south, Mapuche communities keep fighting the presence of forestry

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companies on indigenous lands, condemn the use of dictatorship-era laws to repress them, and
demand that the government recognizes the indigenous peoples’ rights to autonomy. The
multicolored Mapuche banner, with a cultrún/kultrun (a traditional Mapuche drum) that
represents the land, now flutters together with the Chilean flag at all the protests and marches
and it is especially important for the environmentalist movement.
The debate on the meaning of democracy doesn’t only continue but also opens up opportunities
for significant changes. In front of the massive size of the protests and the international attention
received, it’s difficult for political leaders to quietly return to their habitual activities or keep on
transmitting an image of prosperity to the world. Recognizing this impossibility, Piñera cancelled
the November 2019 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit and the December 2019 United
Nations Climate Change Conference. These two gatherings were meant to strengthen the
country’s international image. Chile would stand out better as a world leader if its representatives
and political parties show that they can respond to citizens’ demands for greater equity and deep
structural reforms. Already, some legislation has been proposed to increase solidarity-based
pensions and taxes and to guarantee a monthly minimal income. Furthermore, a part of the
National Congress favors the idea of calling together a Constituent Assembly which would write
a new constitution to finally replace the one written by the dictatorship. Civil society is more
active than ever [and] distinct political projects are discussed. There are creative expressions of
solidarity. There is indignation… but also hope. It’s an opportunity for democracy to work.