BY SOPHIE SOLOWAY ’23
Global news has been dominated for weeks by stories of citizen-led uprisings that are changing history in various countries. While each of these movements have important individual messages, many analysts view the spike in these actions as representative of a larger trend.
Chile
When Chilean president Sebastián Piñera announced early this month that Santiago subway fares would rise by $0.04, protests began almost immediately. The movement started when university students called for a fare evasion; arrests of these protestors sparked further outrage, growing until Piñera declared a state of national emergency by the end of the week.
According to the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), Chileans working for minimum wage would have to spend an estimated 21 percent of their salary on transportation after the increase. However, according to many protestors, the fare hike was simply the final straw in a long-building resistance against Chilean policies perpetuating harsh poverty for its citizens. Despite having a reputation as one of the most stable, prosperous Latin American countries, Chileans cite expensive education, health care and pensions, paired with low incomes.
The preliminary protests were met with little support from political officials. In addition to calling a national emergency, Piñera instituted a curfew.
“[This] was the first curfew since the dictatorship,” Susannah Lickus ’20, who studied abroad in Chile last year, said. “It brought up a lot of emotional and traumatic memories. I’ve talked with my friends and continue to see photos and videos on Facebook and Instagram about protest details, information about what is happening in Chile and people’s opinions about what they hope to see in the future.”
“I can tell that there is this exciting and powerful momentum to make positive change and to create a better Chile,” Lickus said.
On Saturday, Oct. 26, President Piñera called for national ministers to resign in an effort to reorganize his cabinets. However, protests continue, marking a widespread sentiment of the need for radical changes.
Ecuador
Just before the Chilean protests, Ecuadorian demonstrations ceased at the sight of promised policy change. There are parallels beyond timing and hopes of victory between the two movements.
“Both movements in Ecuador and Chile are protesting against neoliberal policies sponsored by the IMF: privatizations of services, inaccessible health and education costs and social inequalities,” Mount Holyoke politics professor Cora Fernandez Anderson said. “They were triggered by specific measures — raise of subway fare in Chile, elimination of fuel subsidies in Ecuador — but these were the triggers to protest the larger economic model.”
Ecuadorian protests were largely led by indigenous individuals and groups calling for changes to President Moreno’s plans to cut fuel subsidies. The loss of this subsidy would effectively double diesel prices and raise gas prices by about 30 percent. The sanction has fiscally benefited banks and multinational corporations, according to the NACLA.
On Oct. 3, several indigenous groups, joined by transportation workers and students, marched in the nation’s capital of Quito. Hours later, President Moreno announced a state of emergency and 19 Ecuadorian protestors were arrested, according to the BBC. As demonstrations continued, demands grew, reflecting widely held disdain for income inequality in Ecuador. Indigenous organizers have encouraged and led these protests, stating that their own marginalized, poor and rural communities are those that are always hit hardest by such governmental decisions.
Protests grew for 12 days until Moreno published a presidential decree reinstating the demanded fuel subsidies. Many questions remain regarding not only the implementation of this specific legislation, but also the protestors’ calls for more radical change to widespread poverty.
“The protests were not only about specific fuel subsidies but about a larger comprehensive austerity plan,” Anderson said. “This has not been changed, and a departure from this will imply major restructuring of the current economic plan, and this doesn’t seem to be happening.”
Ecuadorian citizen leaders still await permanent legislative changes, hoping that the government will work toward more equitable solutions.
Haiti
Haiti has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the Western Hemisphere, according to the World Bank. With unemployment at an all-time high, a disappearing middle class, stagnant agricultural prowess and fuel shortages, Haitian protests are rising.
According to the NACLA and a Haitian Senate commission, President Moïse and other government officials have reportedly embezzled and misused approximately $2 billion meant for hurricane relief funds, leaving countless homes half-built and unusable. An estimated 42 percent of Haitians struggle toattain clean drinking water.
While protests in Haiti have been ongoing for months, they grew larger when a prominent Haitain journalist, Néhémie Joseph, was found dead in his car on Oct. 10. Joseph often wrote about political corruption and his murder was met with accusations of government involvement. Haiti has reported that an investigation is underway, but little information has been shared with the public.
Lebanon
On Oct. 17, Lebanese protests began when the government announced a new tax on WhatsApp, an app widely used for free communication. Tensions have been mounting in the country due to unstable electric supply, a growing cost of living and decreasing incomes and rates of employment.
Demonstrators’ demands range from the restoration of free social apps to large-scale revolution and new leadership. Lebanon’s president, Michael Aoun, has yet to respond to calls for his resignation. Meanwhile, clashes between a Lebanese pro-Syrian bloc, Hezbollah, and mass protesters on Oct. 27 have incited threats of civil war from both sides, according to Al Jazeera.
The vast participation in this conflict reflects not only the citizen report and a newfound unity within religious and political sects. Participants — made up of approximately one quarter of Lebanon’s total population — are Shiite, Sunni and Christian, demonstrating a combination that has not previously been reflected in the country’s protests. On Oct. 27, protesters created a mass human chain spanning 105 miles to reflect this solidarity.
Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, announced his resignation on Oct. 29. Pending President Aoun’s agreement, the country may soon have the opportunity to form a new government.
Anderson notes that Chile’s resurgence of Pinochet-era activism may be telling of the country’s resistance to recent returns to right-wing leadership and policy.
“This is the supposed success story of neoliberalism, first introduced by the Pinochet dictatorship. [Chile] was the first country in the world to experiment with this economic model,” Anderson said. “Since 1990 with the transition to democracy, the political regime changed but most of the economic reforms were left intact. As protestors were saying, these days, it is not about the 30 pesos — the increase of the subway fare — it’s about the last 30 years: about the lack of change brought by democracy, about the increasing social injustice and inequality that democracy was not able to address. The privatization of health and education done by Pinochet is still in place.”