This group nostalgic for the years of Concertación’s reign, says: “Call for reflection in the constitutional debate”, as if in Chile there has been no reflection, particularly from 18 October 2019 onwards … Of course, there has been reflection on a collective and personal level. A process that has led us to mobilise, to organise, that has put us on the streets so many times, marching with thousands to repudiate and change this neoliberal order that the yellows call “the good”. Proof of this is that the right is withdrawing from La Moneda (congratulations) and today we have a constituent process underway, with its defects, its fine print, but at least a new Constitution is being written that will allow us to free ourselves from the locks of the dictator’s illegitimate constitution. Ah, as for the composition of the Congress, it is clear that it has not been enough, we still need more reflection, deliberation, participation, organisation, proposals and above all, more transformative social action.

By Marcelo Castillo Duvauchelle

They cunningly associate the ideals of social justice and deepening democracy with communism or a longing for the left of the 1960s. I, and many others, long for a just country, with real democracy, without being communist or having any aspiration to see policies of the past transferred to the present. Today’s world is very different, it is a different people, with other needs and sensitivities that are certainly not the property of any particular sector or colour, because they are transversal and are of community spirit. I am a humanist and what inspires me is an ideology that places not money, but the human being as a central value, which will reverse the scandalous levels of inequality. I am inspired by a project for a non-violent society where power is shared, and I am inspired by images of a future that is dear to me.

If we reach the point of discussing the political system, the structure of the state, the ownership and distribution of wealth, the gender asymmetry in the apparatus of power, the mercantile model of education, the miserable pensions and swindling of the AFPs, that the water issue is not drought, but looting, the injustice nestled in the judicial system and so on, if we reach this level of awareness, it is not the work of reactionaries or improvisers, it is because there has been reflection accompanied by common sense.

The yellow group says: “It is possible to do things well” … For whom?

For the defenders of the model of society inherited from Pinochet, which has made Chile a paradise for the economic groups that own the country, for the transnationals that steal our non-renewable natural resources, for the bankers, for the managers of the AFPs, Isapres, TAG, pharmacy chains, shops, supermarkets, fishing and forestry companies, transport and others. It is clear, well done to them. Yellow gentlemen, don’t be rascals.

They say: “To achieve the necessary changes without destroying what is good, to bet on a better future without thinking that we are starting from scratch” … tell that to the families who are indebted because of the debt:

  • Families who are indebted for a lot of years for a son or daughter to study a career at university or for the mere fact of signing a mortgage loan that doubles the real value of the house.
  • Families who live in sacrifice zones, who have been made precarious by the denial of something as basic as water.
  • Families who have lost a family member due to lack of timely health care or inability to pay for treatment.
  • Families who suffer the departure of their children to the big cities, as their territories remain endemically neglected by the central government.

Well, we could go on mentioning examples of violation of the rights of individuals and families, but I think we are already understanding where this appendix of the right wing comes from, what their interests are, what their model of man and society is, their yellow conception of modernity and where they want to continue taking us.

The point is that WE HAVE TO BUILD THE NEW CHILE, THAT IS GOOD FOR ALL. It is not utopia, it is possible, but it is important to remember that these are not times to “take the stage” and leave this gigantic challenge in the hands of the incoming government or the Constitutional Convention, such a multicoloured construction is the task of all of us who inhabit this corner of the planet.

Marcelo Castillo Duvauchelle, Teacher, Humanist, Member of the Movement for the Refoundation of the Trade Union and Pedagogy. Co-founder of Diálogo Educativo Latinoamericano.

Reference:

Note Bío Bío Chile electronic newspaper, available at: https://www.biobiochile.cl/biobiotv/programas/radiograma-biobiotv/2022/02/21/amarillos-por-chile-llaman-a-la-reflexion-en-el-debate-constitucional-no-es-necesario-partir-de-0.shtml