Javiera González
December 9, 2013
“College Corridor” is the name of the hallway I am walking through as I hear all kind of conversations. They talk about the weekend, about their classes, but all I can think about are the presidential elections. I look at the people with an astonishing expression on my face, and also curiosity. My eyes are seeking for a hint of interest in their faces, but I find no trace of what’s on my mind.
As I continue walking in direction to the cafeteria, I get weird feelings. Incomprehension, gratitude and sadness are some of the feelings I can name. I think about what makes me different from them, what makes me want to be aware of what is happening in Chile. No concrete answer comes to my mind, but another thought does. I begin to remember when I started to become interested in political and social issues and I come to the conclusion that it wasn’t a moment, it was a process. It was a process that began by experiencing big amounts of sadness and later empathy.
One of the events that affected this process was being a volunteer to help Casa Grada, a home of orphan babies. I have been a volunteer for almost three years now and the way we help them is not only economically, but we are also constantly visiting them. Every time we leave the orphanage, I think about the helpless eyes of the babies and it turns into something…I have no words for it in English. In Spanish I am absorta, ensimismada. I felt very depressed and dissapointed because I couldn’t help more, I even felt useless. As time passed, I began to slowly realize that I could actually do more. Anguish left and happiness came to replace it. There was a way I could help them and it all had to begin with being conscious. As a 17-year-old I realize that I can’t do much, but I will eventually grow up. It all has to start by being aware of political and social issues in our country, so later on I can make transcendental changes.
Universidad Católica Logo
Being a student in an international school like Nido de Aguilas, makes you feel like being inside a bubble at times. This bubble separates you from Santiago and the rest of Chile in many ways. Most of the students are disconnected from what is happening outside this barrier, but I have one semester left inside it. I am planning on attending Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile when I graduate. There is only one semester left before graduation, so many things come to my mind regarding this. One of the topics that I constantly come across is being “awake”. I want to find out what exactly keeps our community in a dormant state of indifference from the rest of Chile, but first of all I will have to explore the current political and social situation in the country.
To begin with, the most important political events happening right now are the 2013 elections. This year, the elections are for president, senator, deputies and regional advisors. The first round was this past 17th of November, where the senator, deputies and regional advisors were defined, but the president for 2014 was not. No candidate had more than 50% of the total votes required to be elected president, therefore a second round will take place this 15th of December between the two candidates that had the majority of the votes.
Nine presidential candidates were presented on the first round of elections: Franco Parisi (Independent), Marcel Claude (Humanist Party), Ricardo Israel (PRI), Marco Enríquez-Ominami (PRO), Roxana Miranda (Equality Party), Michelle Bachelet (Nueva Mayoría),Evelyn Matthei (Alianza), Alfredo Sfeir (Ecologist Party) y Tomás Jocelyn-Holt (Independent).
Michelle Bachelet (Presidential Candidate)
The candidate that obtained the majority of the votes was Michelle Bachelet (former president from 2006-2010), with a total of 47%. Bachelet represents one of the two major political blocks known as “Nueva Mayoría”, which is made up by the following political parties: Partido Socialista de Chile (PS), Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Chile (PDC), Partido por la Democracia (PPD) y Partido Radical Socialdemócrata (PRSD), Partido Comunista de Chile (PCCh), Izquierda Ciudadana (IC), Movimiento Amplio Social (MAS). This big block of political parties is characterized for being liberal and progressive. On the other hand, the second most popular candidate was Evelyn Matthei, who received 25% of the total votes. Matthei represents the other big political block known as “Alianza por el cambio” which is made up of two political parties: Unión Demócrata Independiente and Renovación Nacional. This political block is known for having a more conservative posture, the actual president Sebastian Piñera belongs to it.
Evelyn Matthei (Presidential Candidate)
After having a clear scenario of the current political situation in Chile, I decided to get answers by sending emails to educated people on this subject. I sent four emails, with short interviews, to political science teachers of Universidad Católica. After waiting for about a month, I had no replies. This was surprising and disappointing, because despite how busy these teachers might be, I thought they would be interested on replying an interview from a concerned school student. I refocused and slightly changed the path of my investigation; I decided to get a student point of view.
“I have not seen any of the presidential candidates near our community,” said Galit Korol, a 17-year-old, Nido de Aguilas student. Galit Korol is a Chilean student, who has attended Nido de Aguilas throughout her whole school life. She is very disappointed, because she has never been able to physically see any of the presidential candidates or listen to their proposals. At the same time, she admits that she feels “somehow excluded from Chilean politics, but it is because I am not very involved in them. I know some stuff about politics but I can say that I do not feel confident enough when talking about it, due to the small amount of information I know.” Could this be an educational problem as well?
Another big topic that should be considered is the social condition in Chile. “Social condition or situation,” is a very broad term that could be divided in infinite subtopics (health, jobs, education, etc), but the topic of major interest to my age group would probably be the educational movements. Ever since June of 2011, university students with a lot of social support have been organizing massive movements to fight for quality,
Students Protesting for an Equal Education
public, free and not lucrative education. There are about 60 universities in Chile, in which 25 are “traditional” and the rest are in hands of private owners. In 1974, before the neoliberal system was implemented in Chile, 8 “traditional” universities existed, which received 86.2% of their budget from
the government. Later, in 2010, three decades after the neoliberal system was applied in Chile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, “traditional” universities only got 17% of their budget from the government.
Private universities were created in 1981, during Pinochet’s dictatorship and the almost inexistent system of regulation has made creating universities a very good business. The monthly tuition for the majority of the private universities is higher than 400 US dollars. Parents and students have to live indebted in order to receive education. At this point, no one can deny that college education is a privilege and that it has a cost impossible to cover by more than 20% of the population. The minimum wage in Chile, is around 420 US dollars (210.00 Chilean pesos).
These facts are the reason why so many educational movements have been created, protesting constantly for a common ideal, which is a fair education. The biggest movement is known as “FECH” (Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile), created on 1906, by the students of Universidad de Chile (one of the only state universities left). They are the ones who organize protests and reach out for people to participate. The actual president of FECH is a medicine student called Melissa Sepúlveda. Most of the protests take place downtown, on the avenue called “Alameda”, very far from our educational community (about an hour away by bus).
Massive protest in front of “La Moneda”
In relation to our community, I interviewed Jun Hee Lee to connect social movements to us. Jun Hee Lee is an 18-year-old, Korean, Nido de Aguilas student, who has lived around 9 years in Chile. He entered Nido de Aguilas on 8th grade, after attending a Chilean school called SEK for a couple of years. I asked him if he was aware of the educational movements and he replied that he watches news about them on TV. Television is a massive media that somehow keeps us informed, but Jun has never been able to experience being part of these movements in real life. Yet, he confessed that he would not like to be involved in them.
After a brief journey through recent political and social situations in Chile, many new factors appeared concerning my research. There are several conditions that limit our participation or communication with politics and social aspects of our country. My first thought was indifference. I thought indifference was the reason why people in my community were not interested on what’s happening outside our bubble. It is true it is our responsibility to be informed and try to participate, but at the same time I figured out that we are excluded, which contributes even more to the formation of this barrier between us. Politicians don’t reach out to us, presidential candidates don’t get involved with our community actively. No one has ever seen them around our neighborhood trying to get their proposals across. The same happens with social movements, the leaders of these movements don’t call us to participate. While doing this investigation, I sent an email to one of the leaders and he never replied. This only shows their indifference to us and how careless they are on our opinion. At the same time, I believe we are still not very well informed. It could be an educational problem that they don’t really teach us about all these issues at school. Chile is the country we live in and it is our duty to know what is happening in it. All the political and social changes that will occur will eventually have an impact on us, we have to let our voice be heard as well. It is time for us to be awake.
Creative Writing 