Chile’s Student Rebels: Views From The Trenches
Radio Toma, loosely translated as “Occupation Radio,” broadcasts non-stop information about the protests being staged in front of the University of Chile’s main building – literally a stone’s throw away from the Presidential Palace of La Moneda. Since June 10, students have occupied the beautiful neoclassical 19th Century campus as the protests have continued to intensify around their one demand – to dismantle the market-based approach of the Chilean educational system, something they have scornfully come to label “Pinochet’s education.”
“We just distrust the political class,” one of the students in front of Radio Toma told me. But even when the political establishment tried to discredit their protests, students’ responses turned out to be well-organized. They are fully cognizant of their role in trying to overhaul not only the educational system, but the tense democratic framework put in place by the Pinochet regime as well.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow, Ph.D. Student in Economics, and Panamanian Journalist Eloy Fisher.
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