Red October in Chile

Here in Santiago, we have recently seen a week of massive upheaval referred to by protesters as “Chile woke up.” What began as a student strike in which dissidents took the Metro without paying, eventually expanded into looting supermarkets and setting public buildings on fire. The unrest spread throughout Chile in less than 24 hours.

The Government—overwhelmed—was forced to send soldiers into the street and take control. One million people gathered in the central square of the capitol, Santiago. That’s 1/7 of the city’s total population. They had no leader, no particular manifesto, only a shared general discontent with the current political and social system. Significantly, this is a country showing numeric growth in macroeconomic terms, but in everyday life that development seems not to reach anyone. Or at least only a very few. The right-wing government is comprised of those elites who have benefitted from economic growth.

These are the facts on the ground.

Read the rest over at American Mind.

Image by Carlos Figueroa via Wikimedia.