The nationwide student strike has reached a new level, with students taking over two PUCV (my university) buildings today. One toma is still in effect against a building right next to the one where I have all of my classes. The gates are all closed and the students have shoved chairs and tables into the gate, so that the legs block the gates from being opened. Who knows how long classes in that building will be held up. I´m just wondering why they didn´t do the toma on the building where I still have to go to my Spanish class. I do have a presentation today, so I guess it will be good to get that out of the way in case we get locked out of the building for a while. I also received an email from ISA (my program) about an unauthorized vigilante toma against another one of the buildings in Valparaiso. I have no word about other tomas affecting other universities, but I imagine that there will be or have been some.
OK, off to class!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
El Paro
Just when the semester was beginning to settle into a rhythm, the routine was once again interrupted. This time, the culprit was a cite-wide student strike (paro) to protest in the streets.
Here´s the story. Students here, from colegio (middle and high school) to universitaro (college) get cards that allow them to get discounted rates on the buses. For example, most buses charge 430 pesos (about $1) for a standard ticket between Valpo and Vina, but students can ride for 130 pesos, or 150 if they attend a private school. This policy has been in place for some time, and it has always angered the companies that run the buses (all of the city buses are privately owned and operated). It´s also a little bit inefficient, since it encourages bus drivers to favor non-student passengers over students, but that has little practical effect (there are a lot of students, so discrimination isn´t a practical policy, plus the government stepped in to subsidize companies for picking up students). Anyway, over the history of this law, student passenger benefits have only been extended, especially with regards to the hours in which they are operable. It used to be that you could only get discount rates during regular school hours. Now I can get a discount every day (including Sunday) and until 10 or 11 at night.
Anyway, the bus companies want to raise their rates, including the student rates. For its part, the national government has so far refused to increase student subsidies to cover the amount of the price increase. In response, students accross the city are skipping class this week to take to the streets and get water and tear gas sprayed at them by the police (many of them learned crowd control in the Pinochet era and the police haven´t become any less brutal at suppressing dissenters). I cannot participate in the protests or the Chilean government might exercise its right to deport me. To obtain a student visa I had to sign away my right to attempt to influence domestic Chilean politics.
Even if I could join the protest, I would not. I think it´s really cool that people here are so willing to take to the streets. And it implies a certain level of faith in democracy that their first response is to petition the government for aid. Yet, in this case I think the students are acting not only in their own interest, but counter to the interests of others. Like everywhere else, the kids who stay in school the longest, and therefore benefit the most from the discounts, are generally from the middle and upper classes. This is especially true at the university level. Since the student discounts are offset by government subsidies and increased standard rates, the discount policy takes money from the average Chilean (through taxes and bus fare) and hands it over to students, but especially those students who come from families of above average wealth. I doubt the income redistribution is large enough to be at all significant, but any government sponsored redistribution in favor of the wealthy makes me want to throw up. I also don´t like promoting the perverse notion that using the political process to further your own interest (rather than the community´s interest) is in any way compatible with a healthy democracy. But don´t get me wrong, I´m not accusing Chileans of being unique in this holding this attitude. As Americans we are all about complaining about the low quality of government programs, but that doesn´t stop us from demanding tax cuts that further starve programs like education. We just might be the kings of perverse democracy.
Here´s the story. Students here, from colegio (middle and high school) to universitaro (college) get cards that allow them to get discounted rates on the buses. For example, most buses charge 430 pesos (about $1) for a standard ticket between Valpo and Vina, but students can ride for 130 pesos, or 150 if they attend a private school. This policy has been in place for some time, and it has always angered the companies that run the buses (all of the city buses are privately owned and operated). It´s also a little bit inefficient, since it encourages bus drivers to favor non-student passengers over students, but that has little practical effect (there are a lot of students, so discrimination isn´t a practical policy, plus the government stepped in to subsidize companies for picking up students). Anyway, over the history of this law, student passenger benefits have only been extended, especially with regards to the hours in which they are operable. It used to be that you could only get discount rates during regular school hours. Now I can get a discount every day (including Sunday) and until 10 or 11 at night.
Anyway, the bus companies want to raise their rates, including the student rates. For its part, the national government has so far refused to increase student subsidies to cover the amount of the price increase. In response, students accross the city are skipping class this week to take to the streets and get water and tear gas sprayed at them by the police (many of them learned crowd control in the Pinochet era and the police haven´t become any less brutal at suppressing dissenters). I cannot participate in the protests or the Chilean government might exercise its right to deport me. To obtain a student visa I had to sign away my right to attempt to influence domestic Chilean politics.
Even if I could join the protest, I would not. I think it´s really cool that people here are so willing to take to the streets. And it implies a certain level of faith in democracy that their first response is to petition the government for aid. Yet, in this case I think the students are acting not only in their own interest, but counter to the interests of others. Like everywhere else, the kids who stay in school the longest, and therefore benefit the most from the discounts, are generally from the middle and upper classes. This is especially true at the university level. Since the student discounts are offset by government subsidies and increased standard rates, the discount policy takes money from the average Chilean (through taxes and bus fare) and hands it over to students, but especially those students who come from families of above average wealth. I doubt the income redistribution is large enough to be at all significant, but any government sponsored redistribution in favor of the wealthy makes me want to throw up. I also don´t like promoting the perverse notion that using the political process to further your own interest (rather than the community´s interest) is in any way compatible with a healthy democracy. But don´t get me wrong, I´m not accusing Chileans of being unique in this holding this attitude. As Americans we are all about complaining about the low quality of government programs, but that doesn´t stop us from demanding tax cuts that further starve programs like education. We just might be the kings of perverse democracy.
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