“Oh! You are from the United States!” the Chilean woman on the elevator exclaimed. “And you visit Chile? You know we had problems in October, yes?”
“Problems” is putting it lightly. I’m sure you heard about the protests in Santiago late last year. The spark that lit the flame was a 4% increase in public transit fares. (Fares in Santiago are the second highest in Latin America after São Paulo.)
But that was just a tiny symptom of a big income inequality disease in Chile. The country has the highest per capita GDP in South America, but 50% of people make less than $500/month. And the subway isn’t the only thing that’s expensive in Chile—prices are high across the board. Sean and I spent nearly $50USD on three days worth of food in suburban Santiago. That’s almost as much as we spent per week in pricy Boston!
Myriad other issues fueled the protests too—from broken public healthcare and pension systems to police brutality. I’m no expert, but you can read more here.
Sean and I were a little worried that the unrest would prevent us from visiting Chile. But after a few weeks the news reports tapered off, and we assumed that everything in Santiago was back to normal.
We were wrong.
A burned and defaced building in Santiago
The first thing we noticed when we arrived was the graffiti. Nearly every vertical surface was covered in crudely spray-painted messages. “Piñera asesino” (“President Piñera murderer”) was a popular one, as was “ACAB” (“all cops are bastards”). Another ubiquitous image were the bleeding eyes. Paper ones hung off trees and red paint dripped down the faces of statues—eerie reminders of the excessive force used in response to the unrest. (A number protesters have lost their eyes to rubber bullets fired by police; others have reported physical and sexual assault; some have been killed.) We were confused at first; Santiago has the highest standard of living of any Latin America capital, but the city we landed in seemed very rough and unkempt.
A statue in Santiago
“All of this graffiti is new,” our guide informed us at the beginning of our walking tour. “And it’s all related to the protests.” As our walk progressed, we saw countless other examples of a city upended.
A statue on a “grassy” knoll
Grass in public parks had been trampled to dust by tens of thousands of marching feet. Trash cans and benches had been ripped out of the ground and used by looters. Sidewalks had been broken apart and the hunks of concrete weaponized. Buildings had been burned and barriers had been hastily erected around monuments and government buildings to keep protesters at bay. Street signs and traffic lights had been torn down, and enterprising men and women stood at busy intersections directing traffic for tips.
A burned and boarded up church covered in protest messages
And nothing had been fixed because the protests are still very much ongoing. We passed a lady selling gas masks on the street and a young woman heading into a crowd carrying a huge shield. We saw two guys with cans of black spray paint beeline toward a blank spot on a building. We watched a bike rally stop traffic on a main thoroughfare. We looked on with other Chileans as a man got knocked down by a water cannon, stood up defiantly, and got knocked down again.
A small group of protesters gathering for an evening march
NGOs showed up in Santiago a couple of months ago to keep an eye on things, so Sean and I never felt unsafe while we were there. But we were also in town during summer break. Once students come back in March, the protests are expected to really ramp up again.
The silver lining to the whole mess is that the government has agreed to hold a referendum on a new constitution in April. But whether or not that will resolve things is anyone’s guess. Keep an eye on Chile, y’all, and keep hoping for the best.
Santiago at dusk
What’s the first thing you think of when I say Colombia? Cocaine? Pablo Escobar? Narcos? FARC? Terrorism? That’s fair. But what if I told you everything you thought you knew about the country is wrong?