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Chile's Commander Camila, The Student Who Can Shut Down a City
Camila Vallejo's call for better and cheaper education has seen student protests transform into a two-day nationwide shutdown
Not since the days of Zapatistas' Subcomandante Marcos has Latin America been so charmed by a rebel leader. This time, there is no ski mask, no pipe and no gun, just a silver nose ring.
Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo sits among a peace sign created from empty teargas canisters used by police against protesters. (Photograph: Roberto Candia/AP) Meet Commander Camila, a student leader in Chile who has become the face of a populist uprising that some analysts are calling the Chilean winter. Her press conferences can lead to the sacking of a minister. The street marches she leads shut down sections of the Chilean capital. She has the government on the run, and now even has police protection after receiving death threats.
Yet six months ago, no one had heard of Camila Vallejo, the 23-year-old spearheading an uprising that has shaken not only the presidency of the billionaire businessman Sebastián Piñera, but the entire Chilean political class. Opinion polls show that 26% of the public support Piñera and only 16% back his recently ousted Concertación coalition.
Wednesday saw the start of a two-day nationwide shutdown, as transport workers and other public-sector employees joined the burgeoning student movement in protest.
"There are huge levels of discontent," said Vallejo in a recent interview. "It is always the youth that make the first move … we don't have family commitments, this allows us to be freer. We took the first step, but we are no longer alone, the older generations are now joining this fight."
Elected as only the second female leader in the 105-year history of the University of Chile's student union, Vallejo, who is also a member of the Chilean Communist party, is the face of a movement the likes of which has not been seen since the last years of Augusto Pinochet in the 80s.
Hundreds of thousands of high-school and university students have refused to go to lessons since early June, calling for better and more affordable education and an end to a two-tier system that creates a few wealthy, elite colleges amid many underfunded public ones. Vallejo has organised several cacerolazos – protests in which participants bang pots and pans. Some demonstrations have turned violent.
"We don't want violence, our fight is not versus the police or to destroy commercial shops … our fight is to recover the right to education, on that we have been emphatic and clear," said Vallejo as she stood outside the presidential palace.
The government has rushed out a number of initiatives to try to head off protests, promising to amend Chile's constitution to include a guarantee of quality education and cutting interest rates on student loans from 6.4% to 2%. But the promise of an extra 1.9 trillion Chilean pesos (£2.5bn) in education spending has done little to quell the uprising. Few analysts believe the students will back down despite a heavy police presence at recent demonstrations.
As she spoke, Vallejo was surrounded by students laying out a huge peace sign made up of hundreds of empty teargas canisters that had been used against students.
"Here we have more than 50m pesos' worth of teargas bombs," said Vallejo. "Imagine how much was used on the regional or the national level? This is unacceptable, we want to reiterate our demand that we made to the minister of the interior that he step aside."
Tatiana Acuña, a government official in the ministry of culture, was recently fired for suggesting that the assassination of Vallejo would end the protests. On Tuesday, Chile's supreme court ordered police protection for the student leader.
Vallejo has become a cult figure – with odes on YouTube and predictions that her charisma may well catapult her into Chilean politics. "We are all in love with her," said the Bolivian vice-president, Álvaro García Linera.
At a recent gathering of Bolivian youth leaders he urged students to follow the example of the youth movements in the rest of South America. "You need to talk about what is happening in Argentina, Brazil or Chile, where there is a young and beautiful leader, who is leading the youth in a grand uprising," said García Linera.
Vallejo said on the subject of her looks: "You have to recognise that beauty can be a hook. It can be a compliment, they come to listen to me because of my appearance, but then I explain the ideas. A movement as historical as this cannot be summarised in such superficial terms.
"We do not want to improve the actual system; we want a profound change – to stop seeing education as a consumer good, to see education as a right where the state provides a guarantee.
"Why do we need education? To make profits. To make a business? Or to develop the country and have social integration and development? Those are the issues in dispute."
44 Comments so far
Show AllIt's safe to say that Ms Vallejo will not be Chile's representative in the Miss Universe contest, though she very well could be.
I'm going to make sure both my young adult sons read this piece as they wonder helplessly about the apparent lack of a viable future.
Where is our Ms. Vallejo? I'm not holding my breath.
Why not you? Why not all of us? Why wait?
+1
I like your attitude.
+1 you're absolutely right.
A lider its making for.a.strong social movement this its coming from ten years ago this is the final step camila and the others liders are representative what itsthe nacional feelings but right in america the young people must start ever the young are the engine.
Best wishes Camila.
What happened in Chile on 9/11/73 and 9/11/80 is now happening in the USA. Google September 11, 1973.
During Pinochet's rule, grade school and high school education was privatized. University enrollment was scaled back considerably and tuition went sky high. Only the wealthy could send their kids to school. Social/Liberal Arts type classes were eliminated and only technical and business classes were offered. Colleges and universities produced technocrats to fill jobs in the new free market economy. College was free in Chile prior to Pinochet. Nothing was free after Pinochet.
Education was one of the changes Pinochet brought about in Chile in his 17 year reign. During his reign the wealth of Chile became concentrated. The poor and middle class got poorer. In the end, the people took their country back and finally voted Pinochet out of office. Now Chile has a bourgeoisie democracy. Problem is the wealth is still concentrated and the people are poor with limited opportunity for education to better themselves. The ghost of Pinochet still rules Chile because the wealth that was stolen from the people has not been returned to the people.
Do you know if Pinochet's actions regarding education were based on advice given by Milton Friedman? I've heard a few Republicans saying that education should be privatized, and I'm guessing they're operating from the same playbook as Pinochet.
Right we call them the chicago boys , gansters with white collar
Yes. Nixon/Kissinger's plan was implemented by Friedman and the "Chicago Boys" who actually advised Pinochet. No one but Friedman's "Chicago Boys" could get near Pinochet. Friedman actually visited Chile at the time.
First thing they did was deregulate the banks. Free trade was the ideology that was used as cover for the robbery that made most Chileans poor. Chile's wealth either left the country or went to make the wealthy really wealthy.
This is the same model that is being used on the world today - US included. Pinochet privatized schools, broke the unions, let industries go to hell through free trade, demonized and disappeared socialists. All in the name of nationalism, moral values and to stop the spread of the communist menace. Fear was their tactic.
Under Pinochet wages plummeted. There were one hundred people for every job. All this started to stop democratically elected socialist Allende from taking wealth from the halves. Nixon/Kissinger undermined Allende's three years in office the same way Castro was neutralized/isolated. There were shortages of everything and no international financing. Half the people supported Pinochet. Chile was "A Nation of Enemies" divided against itself.
People on the left demonize Friedman and his free trade economics. Just remember Friedman's economic policies worked. His whole idea was to concentrate wealth. To create a New Plutocracy in the world. A New World Order. Not just to maintain order vs. disorder. To create and maintain a pecking order and to permanently defend the pecking order.
Friedman's economic policies are reversing the New Deal and the very Enlightenment itself. The plan is to take the world back to Plato's Republic. A small number of patriarchs own most everything. Under them, the military/police are next in the pecking order. They live very well. Their purpose is to guard the wealth of the few from all threats foreign and domestic. At the bottom of the pyramid, "We the People" are on our own. The Plutocracy only needs so many butchers, bakers and candle stick makers. Plan on fending for yourself. No one is coming along.
All of this yet no one mentions the coup d 'tat of Allende? A democratically elected leader for the people I might add.
Google: "September 11, 1973"
Very cool. This is what young people should be doing the world over. And they look really good doing it.
A beautiful Communist! Yes!
FINALLY!!
Not to take anything away from this brave, wonderful girl, but it shows that the public gravitates toward youth and beauty, the rest is secondary. High paid Republican strategists seem to realize this, while Progressive Democrats are still stuck on the message alone. For progressives to win political battles they may need to win beauty contests.
It is depressing that style always seems to trump content. Unfortunately the two most progressive members of CONgress, Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders, aren't exactly gonna make females wet their knickers. Now if D.K.'s wife were to run for office....
The folks at RT seem to have taken that message to heart. Every time I watch something from there, it's an attractive, young women hosting.
Shut up
Martyrs never die.
If they kill her they'll make her immortal.
I'm sad to say you're likely right. She's threatening billionaires.
Viva.
That is a decision already made when we choose to break step. What is life without dignity?
Ultimately, all of us everywhere around the planet who are suffering from the predations of those in power are in this together.
Thank you Common Dreams for news from Chile about Camila Vallejo and the protest movement there.
I hadn't known of her before. Great to see inspiring, talented leadership emerge.
A very self-assured militant and a great speaker (watch the videos on YouTube).
For more on the Chilean student movement, try http://lo-de-alla.org/category/chile.
Viva Vallejo!!!
"..calling for better and more affordable education and an end to a two-tier system that creates a few wealthy, elite colleges amid many underfunded public ones...The government has rushed out a number of initiatives to try to head off protests, promising to amend Chile's constitution to include a guarantee of quality education and cutting interest rates on student loans from 6.4% to 2%."
U.S. Student Loan Rates:
http://www.direct.ed.gov/calc.html
" The interest rate for new subsidized and unsubsidized loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2006, is a fixed 6.80%, with the exceptions for subsidized undergraduate loans {based on financial need] noted in the table below. The interest rate for PLUS loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2006, is a fixed 7.90%."
I guess the Chilean students don't have enough i-phones and x-boxes to keep them busy.
I'll put her poster on my wall!!
"The government has rushed out a number of initiatives to try to head off protests, promising to amend Chile's constitution to include a guarantee of quality education and cutting interest rates on student loans from 6.4% to 2%."
The rich and powerful are quick to make promises. Remember how everything was going to be OK if the banks got bailed out?
Well its not that its a tricky discurse they say 2% but really the state pay to the banks 6% then till its bussines for the banks and the highschool the main idea its pass fromm cities.to private bussines
A modern day Joan of Arc.
If she can rally the "people", I don't care what she looks like.
It appears that Chile just might have a "free press" as well. Here most would never hear of her. dh
Yes you right its not just students its a lot of people behi.d them gove them support till working class mediums caps and the weird stuff some hig class believe it or not its 80% behibd them
Wow.... I can't believe someone is actually talking like this.... shunning the references to her looks and coming up with such a great response.... Un believeable... and demanding higher education as a right and asking what it is for...profit? or development....FANTASTIC.....
As this article and several posted comments makes clear that a wide range of status quo advocates prefer the age-old strategy of some form of comment or attack on the person as a means towards belittling the argument, nevertheless internally the article makes clear in spades that the Chilean Camila Vallejo is the duly "Elected... leader... of the University of Chile's student union... (and the undeniable) face of a movement the likes (ie, size, scale and effective determination) of which has not been seen since the last years of Augusto Pinochet in the 80s"!
Hats off to Camila, the Chilean students and wider Chilean public including their supreme court for drawing a line in the sand, so far and no further regarding illigitimate government action and CD for drawing this article to our attention.
And say what you will about the civilian level of Chilean politics, in both Canada and the USA when prominent people suggested Wikileaks spokesperson in a similar attack on the person and be assassinated, by stark contrast, at least in Chile "Chile's supreme court ordered police protection for the student leader"!!!
Now if only we In Canada, USA, UK... with much less risk would take peaceful and democratically effective steps to stop vote-splits which empower our thick-eared to gain and maintain undemocratic control of our respective governments.
What a great article! Thanks CD!