Candlelit solidarity with the Chilean uprising

Submitted by Zac Muddle on 3 November, 2019 - 11:57 Author: Zack Muddle
around 50 people gathered, with signs

Photos: Rocío Almuna Morales
On Wednesday October 30, "Chilean students, academics and workers in Bristol" held a "Candelight gathering" in support of the general strike in Chile, on the same day. Around fifty people, mostly left-wingers of Chilean origin, gathered and chanted to show support for the strike's demands. This followed a similar sized demo a week prior.

Three demands that the Bristol demo was raising of the Chilean government were:

1. Against the military on the streets, the "state of constitutional exception" (martial law) and the restriction of civil, political and social liberties.

2. Change of the "current neoliberal political-economic model, which has created socioeconomic, gendered, racial and socioecological inequalities."

3. "[T]he replacement of Chile's current constitution written and enforced during Pinochet's dictatorship." The new constitution should come out "of a real collective" and participatory process.

They stressed internationalist perspectives. "Chile might seem a distant country, but the current uprising is the result of decades of neoliberal policies which only reproduce appalling inequalities. Chilean's struggles can be linked t worldwide struggles such as those in Ecuador, Lebanon or even here in the UK, which is suffering the slow privatisation of the NHS, and the closure of parliament."

The UK labour movement should take heed of this, and stand clearly and loudly in solidarity with the Chilean uprising.

More photos by Rocío Almuna Morales below

A photo of the vigil


A photo of the vigil


A photo of the vigil


A photo of the vigil


A photo of the vigil


A photo of the vigil

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