Scott: How does the system of representation function for students in Chile? --- Felipe:
Ok, there, we must make a distinction. The Chilean student movement is divided between
high-school and college. There are two organizations that tie the high-school movement.
One is the ACES (Coordinating Assembly of Secondary [high-school] Students), and the other
is CONES (National Coordinator of Secondary [high-school] Students). These two
organizations have their own models of representation and structure. At the university
level, the movement is unified by CONFECH (Confederation of Students of Chile) which
gathers student federations of different universities. Usually it gathers the more
traditional universities, basically the ones that existed before 1981 which is when the
dictatorship generates a new law for universities, and during last year, a series of
private universities (that emerged after 1981 and did not have an official organization)
have been incorporated.
So these federations have to make annual choices on directions and objectives in a
democratic manner without the intervention from the authorities of the university so that
that there is transparency and respect for the autonomy of the student body at the time of
choosing their leaders. It basically functions like that.
Scott: And with 2011, how were the students agitated? For example: Was it a spontaneous
fight or were there joint campaigns from different groups? Was it just some groups? How
did it happen?
Felipe: I think that the mobilization of 2011 can be classified as many things except
spontaneous. But not because political groups had been doing specific work that was
dedicated to make this happen, but because the objective circumstances of the country, in
general, were the conditions that made students come out en masse to protest. On the one
hand, there was the combination of the end of a withdrawal produced both by the defeat of
the high-school movement in 2006 and the university withdrawal after the mobilization of
2005. Both 2005 and 2006 were very intense years for mobilizations, and then both defeats
(and movements) converge in 2008, when a new law for education is approved. 2009 marks the
lowest point in mobilizations and then in 2010, we start seeing important signals that the
movement is waking up and that the circumstances are generating a more active student
movement, more mobilized, etc. Similarly, combined with the fact that in 2005, after the
signing of the defeat of the student movement and the creation of equity loans, the first
generation of students entering with those credit loans is graduating in year 2011. That
means that all the damage and all the debt that accumulates from the year 2006 with the
new credit loans explodes in 2011 in examples like the indebtedness of the CAE (the equity
loans from the state), the indebtedness of other credits that were borne out of this new
system of financing like the CORFO credit which had an interest rate of 8% and allowed
family assets to be confiscated from students, expropriated as part of payment, etc. All
this produced an environment that for anyone, it implied a social explosion. At the same
time, the country was generating a mobilization; there were mass demonstrations in the
Magellan?s area in the far south, just at the beginning of this year there were massive
demonstrations on the issue of power plants, the environmental issue and so on, so there
was an atmosphere that allowed you to predict that 2011 was going to be a powerful
mobilization. No one imagined it would be so strong, but overall we could see it coming.
And within that environment, the different organizations tried to fulfill their roles.
During that time, the leftist organizations of every stripe and every color, tried to
position themselves, and to come up with certain guidelines as the year developed.
Scott: There was a period where FEL was small, and a period where FEL grew and become very
large. What changed? Was it only the objective situation, or were there different strategies?
Felipe: I think the most crucial thing for the growth of FEL and for the strengthening of
the national organization was its political maturity. At first, the FEL was an
organization that had very few policy plans. Proposals toward the student movement emerged
in a complicated context in 2003, there was a whole mobilization against the financing
laws, the new framework laws that were being implemented, and overall, the financing issue
that explodes in 2005 from which forms this powerful movement that finishes with the
agreement between the heads of the student movement and the ministry of education to
create the state run Cr?dito con Aval, the entry of banks to the finance system, etc.
Faced with these situations, the FEL begins to slowly start building the framework for its
political line, its proposal to education and the funding issue and all that somehow
congeals in 2011. The mobilization catches us with an organization that is starting to
grow along the heightening of the student movement and we see high school students go onto
college, and these students come with a history of struggle and mobilization already, and
they?re interested on the left and that also allows us to accumulate part of the whole
process. The year 2011 forces the organization to throw the muddle, to understand that
anarchism can not remain a sum of values, a sum of words of good upbringing or books that
were written 140 years ago, nor moral principles, nor ethical ones. Anarchism has to be a
policy, and without it being a political policy, it dies. And faced with this dilemma,
luckily the organization opted for political discussion, for the creation of concrete
proposals to give to the movement, understanding that we are not fighting for the
revolution but for the specific conditions that accumulate towards a project of the
working class, and that has allowed us to grow and consolidate as a national structure and
also carve out a place among the leftist organizations.
Scott: In the press, we hear only about the big issues in the student struggle such as
free education, privatization, and debt. Are there other smaller fights, where the FEL
participates or other students are involved (for example if classes are canceled or
similar things)?
Felipe: Well, that?s a whole topic. On the one hand, there?s the issues that are
structural, as in structural models of the Chilean education, and on the other, there?s
the concrete interaction of this educational structure within the institutions themselves.
It is impossible to separate the internal conflicts, the curriculums of our careers, the
precarious conditions, the lack of economic resources within each college or career, the
educational policy of the ministry of education, and finally the role of the state and the
unlimited power of the private corporations within the educational system, in that
context. Every college and every career has small struggles, they have local claims, but
what really matters and where you actually define the future of education, is not in these
struggles, but rather the struggles around structural issues. Nothing matters if you lose
the national struggle, that is to say, you can postpone the effects of structural policy,
but not forever. There?s no simple solution to a problem that affects all universities
equally.
Scott: What happened with the struggles of 2011, and which battles are present now?
Felipe: Well, 2012 is characterized by the student movement having to confront that the
conflict of 2011 isn?t over. There is neither an agreement nor is there a complete defeat.
What eventually happens is that the student movement returns to school without
acknowledging a defeat and handing over the summer holidays as a kind of ceasefire. And in
2011, during the first semester until July what the movement tries to accomplish is to
retake the demands of the previous year, in the context that the government, the state,
and the political parties have control over the political initiative through reforms like
the tax reform, through austerity measures like the ministry?s educational
proposals?Basically what it seeks ultimately is to try to disarm this rephrasing of the
student movement after the impasse of the summer. And while that proves to be difficult
during the first semester, right now, in this precise moment in August, we can see
high-school students trying to appropriate their struggle; there?s already dozens of
high-schools taken all throughout the country, and we hope to see different universities
generating mobilizations soon, we want the last half of August and the first half of
September to allow us to see a much stronger movement than the one we've seen this year.
Scott: How will the elections affect the student struggle? Because October?s coming soon...
Felipe: Sure, there are local elections coming now, and the reading we get is that the
parties of the more reformist left who bet on this path of municipal elections, and next
year?s presidential and parliamentary elections, what they want is to package the demands
of the student movement toward institutionalization?strengthening their own political
alternative as a tool for conflict resolution. We think that this is an illusion that is
often created in any electoral path especially with the big parties like the democratic
one and so on, who are largely responsible for the current situation. So then, neither the
state nor the political party system deliver basic conditions to the social movement or to
the student movement in particular, to be able to see them as a solution. So, of course,
it all presents a problem because the idea that the elections are part of the solution
will be presented with great force and from many sectors, so there we have to see how we
are able to maneuver and prevent the social movement from being co-opted.
Scott: What relations and exchanges are there between the student movement and other
struggles in Chile, such as workers, households, etc.?
Felipe: Look, I think starting from 2011 with the series of fights that I already
described, the regional conflicts that develop both in Magallanes, as in Ays?n, in the
northern mining areas, the environmental struggles, the student struggles, and the
different trade union struggles and mobilizations taking place, allowed us to understand
one thing: Chile is a country deeply dependent on the capitalist periphery of the world,
and a place where resources are highly concentrated in a few hands, in a few families. The
responsible ones for the environmental conflicts with thermal or hydro plants, the poor
working conditions, the low wages, and the extreme privatization that we already have with
the education system, with the debt problem, and having to pay quadruple the cost of rent,
are all the same culprits. They are the same entrepreneurs, they are the same faces, and
the same holdings?national or international, repeated again and again. So, the enemy is
finally clear. And it?s not a matter of values, not a matter of uniting the different
causes due to some metaphysical reason, it is a concrete thing. We face an economic,
political, and social system that is concrete, that has concrete and real expressions in
our daily lives, and which deeply intersects the different spheres of our lives. In that
sense, the student movement as well as other struggles have been slowly trying to
understand this reality and trying to articulate in some way or another a political
alternative to deal with these facts. That is a long and very difficult process in a
country that is just recovering from the defeats suffered by the popular movement, which
is just rebuilding its organizations after the defeats of the years '88 and '73, when fear
reigned massively even until 2011, and where social organizations are really disarmed
still. But we have seen some pretty encouraging signs, some union sectors such as the
miners or longshoremen where libertarians have a pretty important position, have organized
sympathy strikes paralyzing labor [inaudible] which is something not seen since the days
of popular unity. So there are some encouraging signs that are positive though very
isolated at the moment, but they still allow us to believe that it is possible to move
towards a reconstruction of the popular movement and they also allows us to slowly build a
political alternative.
Scott: Ok, perfect. Thanks.
Translated by M?nica Kostas.
Bron : a-infos-en@ainfos.ca