Chileans Schooled in the Art of Protest

Posted on Aug 21, 2011

Brittany Peterson

In Chile, where the average monthly minimum wage income falls $100 short of college tuition costs, students are continuing their winter of kiss-ins, marches and hunger strikes against private, for-profit education and demanding affordable state-run schools.

Little is available in the English-speaking media about the movement, which has brought together students, professors, families, neighbors and laborers in crowds of over 100,000 people. Thankfully, independent photojournalists like American Brittany Peterson are teaming up with media outlets like The Nation magazine to keep us informed.

See a brief introduction to the movement below, and follow Peterson’s tweets at @brittanykamalei. —ARK

The Nation:

... Chilean students are no longer willing to accept this state of affairs, and have taken over university campuses demanding accessible education for all of the country’s students. The students argue that the country has the resources to provide free public education for all Chileans, if only some of [the] policies of neoliberal privatization begun under dictator Augusto Pinochet are reversed.

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Chilean Student Movement from Brittany Peterson on Vimeo.

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