[News] October 18, 2019: a provisional balance

[FNX Magokiler]

It is time to recognize, without ambiguities or relativizations, that the country had been dragging long and deep social tensions, accumulated by decades of political dysfunction and serious institutional deficiencies. An equation was exhausted in which effort is not perceived in accordance with income, and the promise of integration via credit and consumption does not express equivalence with the mechanisms of recognition and representation. A consistent balance cannot be proposed without establishing the magmatic and aggregative character of these antecedents as a baseline.

The four years that have passed since October 2019 seem to have been necessary to begin to establish a balance, even if provisional, regarding one of the most controversial and difficult to interpret events that we have experienced in our recent past. There is a need to objectify the view, so that all the political and social actors involved can refer to an analysis that allows us to navigate in times of polarization. I share some criteria that I believe are unavoidable.

It is time to recognize, without ambiguities or relativizations, that the country had been dragging long and deep social tensions, accumulated by decades of political dysfunction and serious institutional deficiencies. An equation was exhausted in which effort is not perceived in accordance with income, and the promise of integration via credit and consumption does not express equivalence with the mechanisms of recognition and representation. A consistent balance cannot be proposed without establishing the magmatic and aggregative character of these antecedents as a baseline.

Without this initial diagnosis, backed by the most solid academic studies and consensus in the social sciences, the very cause of the outbreak is denigrated, among the most bizarre conspiracy theories or exculpatory attempts, such as the "coup d'état" hypothesis. unconventional” that former President Piñera proposes to us.

 

 

Although this is the necessary starting point, it is not enough to assess the entire phenomenon. There is no room for any form of essentialist debate. The distinction between “understanding” – explaining problems or issues unrelated to oneself – and “comprehending” – interpreting dynamics in which one is an interested party – must be reviewed. Although October cannot be understood without the subjectivity of the shortcomings and the sense of accumulated abuse, this is not enough to understand all the dynamics that were unleashed.

A monocausal simplification of the diagnosis can lead to hiding other variables, motivations and forces that played a relevant role: the role of the drug trafficker behind the scenes, the fetishization and aestheticization of social violence, the gregarious and motley character of the crowds, the thoughtless sense of the drives generated from the emotivist and impulsive discourses that accompanied the demonstrations.

Of course, this diagnosis is not complete without establishing the inescapable responsibility of the Government of Sebastián Piñera, which can be blamed for countless errors in the political preparation of the crisis. Mistakes that led to the spark of the process, then led to escalating the conflict and, finally, made it chronic. At the bottom of this dynamic lay an attempt to evade its growing failures, deny its confusion and, why not say it, an evident bad faith in trying to resolve through repressive means a process that required self-criticism and prudence.

 

https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/opinion/columnas/2023/09/26/el-18-de-octubre-de-2019-un-balance-provisional/