 directions. I am Nicholas from Bogota. And today we have a starring wonderful guest. We have Catalina Fernandez Carter. She got a JD from Universidad de Chile, a master in international law from the University of Cambridge. And she's a lecturer in international law, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law at Universidad de Chile, Universidad Diego Portales and Universidad Alberto Hurtado. And currently she works as legal advisor at the Chilean Constitutional Convention. Catalina what a pleasure. Welcome to Latin American Directions. Sorry, thank you so much, Nicholas. It's a pleasure to be remotely in Hawaii. I'm trying to imagine the beaches, but well, that's the best I have for now. Absolutely, absolutely. And let's bring Santiago closer to Hawaii if you wish. So the last two years for Chile have been of amazing transformation and I would say and very interesting case of social transformation in our region. So let's provide our viewers a bit of context. I understand that this whole social transformation began in 2018 with an increase in the fare for the metro ticket. How do we go from the metro ticket increase to a new constitution and to the election of a very typical president as Gabriel Boric. Yes, that's a very good question indeed. So the situation in Chile it's a bit hard to summarize because as you mentioned everything happened very fast. So in October 2019 the secretary of transportation announces that the metro metro ticket will suffer an important and important race. And this started protest initially organized by students of like high school students who were protesting against this increase basically arguing that the life in Chile and in Santiago was too expensive and even transportation was unaffordable for a part of the citizens. And for some reason that sometimes it's hard to explain why precisely at this moment this student protest led to a massive gathering of people in the streets of Santiago and also the major cities of the country claiming not only for a reduced fare in the for the metro but more significantly a change in the way that the Chilean system worked the possibility for the country to recognize social rights to advance forward in some key areas such as education health pensions etc and all this at some moment became a constitutional matter and then if the protest started in October 2019 mid-November we already had an agreement at this congress to discuss a new constitution why well hard to explain maybe this was like the final drop but people were just fed up they didn't want to keep on suffering the inequalities that this Chilean society has we have often heard that Chile is some kind of example in the region because we are a prosperous country but still a very unequal one so in some way just a minimum change as the price of the metro created this movement for equality for real distribution of wealth and finding that the current Pinochet constitution which was established during the dictatorship was part of the reason why this country could not move forward it was quite quite a change in just a couple of weeks what happened absolutely and then my question would be why now because as you said this was the dictatorship constitution in the 90s late 80s early 90s there was a vote to remove the dictatorship and enter into a democracy and one would think maybe that was the time for a change in constitution so I don't know maybe this is a very hard question but why not then and yes now were there there were claims to and like some groups were asking for a constitutional change very early in the 90s so for those that are listening to this and are not very aware of the Chilean history the Pinochet dictatorship ended early 1990 March 1990 is the start of the democracy again when Pinochet hands over the power to President Elwing and very soon some groups started claiming that we had a constitution that was not legitimate because it was established during the dictatorship without any participation from the public and was subject to a referendum that was highly questionable so even though it was in some way there was an election a decision by the people to decide whether they wanted this new constitution drafted by the dictatorship this was an election which took place during gross violations of human rights so it was not a legitimate election but these movements in the early 90s and 2000s even were not really popular and in 2005 President Ricardo Lagos made some very significant amendments to the 1980 constitution even he tried to claim that this was a new constitution the 2005 constitution because some of the changes were quite substantial however this argument finally nobody actually understood this amendment as a new constitution and in the late I don't know in the last 10 years the idea that the constitution was somehow an obstacle to development became more and more evident because the constitution even though amended in 2005 still represented a specific economic model a specific role of the state which was not a very significant role I mean the 1980 constitution established a subsidiary role for the state and this did not allow for the state to be strong in the guarantee of social rights so several like academics and politicians started arguing that actually this was a problem of legitimacy but also that the constitution in practice did not allow for some significant changes and there are quite a few examples examples of legal reforms that were actually very popular and demanded by the public on areas as diverse as education and water sanitization that were not possible to modify because of the constitution because the constitutional court would then say this is not possible the constitution does not allow these changes, these improvements so in practice the 1980 constitution did not allow for some measures that were very much claimed by the citizenship and that is one of the reasons why finally on November 2019 after weeks of very massive protests we had a one million people protesting in Santiago around five people five million people living in Santiago so one out of five persons were in the protest this ended up in this discussion to change the constitution to allow for this progressive agenda that an important part of the population was asking for Right, right I think to understand this Catalina we should go back to the economic model in the previous constitution and the current soon to be previous constitution because I think what is behind all of this is an individual discontent with the situation of limitations that really affect the individual and family spectrum of people and Chile has been called the golden child of neoliberalism in Latin America, right it has been called the textbook example of how public restrained how freedom to the market and how privatization brings development and how this development does not impact or significantly impact or is shared by the individual citizen so I don't know if you can tell us a bit about how was the life of individual citizens within this model, right and why they feel so unhappy and they need to change the constitution because the model does not work for them even if Chile is doing better at the macro level than other countries right? Yes, I mean firstly it's important to recognize that Chile has experienced significant development in the last 20-30 years Chile has been able to reduce its poverty levels during the 90s and 2000s and it experienced some significant growth especially when comparing it to some of its neighbors a more stable democracy a more stable economy as well especially compared to our immediate neighbors and this is not something that one should deny however this neoliberal model that was established by the 1980 constitution was established by force we cannot ignore that fact it was established by a military dictatorship that was killing and disappearing its citizens at the same time that it was drafting the constitution and very famously there is a letter between Milton Friedman who is like the main scholar that developed this neoliberalism and Margaret Thatcher and Margaret Thatcher who is of course not famous for being very progressive stated that the economic model that was established in Chile even though she considered it was positive it was impossible to establish in the UK because it was incompatible with basic guarantees of democracy and representation of people and several guarantees that the British population would not simply not accept so this was a model that was imposed by force that in a democratic country would not as Margaret Thatcher vividly explained it would not be possible to establish this model in a democratic country and how this model affected everyday's lives well as I was explaining the model implied that the state had a very limited role in the guarantee of social rights so very basic things that in other countries are considered totally acceptable and normal such as regulating basic requirements for education even private education or establishing for instance just to give one example there was one bill of law to impose additional requirements for school headmasters to make sure that they would be able to properly administer school and properly be aware of educational methods and that law was considered unconstitutional not against the constitution right it was considered that just establishing more requirements for school headmaster to make sure that he would or she would properly fulfill his or her role was incompatible with the basic idea of freedom of education which entailed basically that anyone could create a school without any requirements without any concern for the child's right to education which should be the primary concern of any state you should not be concerned with the business of creating a school but with how to guarantee a child's right to education so just a very basic not even a restriction just a very basic requirement for establishing a school or for managing a school that was considered contrary to the constitution and examples like this we have thousands of methods so it became quite impossible to imagine this neoliberal model recognizing basic guarantees as right to education with a reasonable level of good quality of education or again health or pension funds or etc so I think this model was really incompatible with the desires of the great majority of the population which wanted the country to move forward and maybe somehow follow the experiences of European countries that have developed good like the UK a good public health system which does not mean that we're about to turn into Venezuela which is of course always the myth that if we're changing the constitution if we have a left-wing government right now we're turning into Venezuela when what most of the population one was actually just a very good and strong public health care system as the one the UK has and no one would argue that the UK is a communist country right so I think those are like the basic ideas of how just guaranteeing politics was impossible and it was proven to be impossible under the current constitution right right and absolute need to change the rules of the game right otherwise you would not progress Catalina you offer a fantastic segue into our next topic that is the new president which also I find fascinating perhaps and a very interesting character right so letting American we have discussed this in previous shows is the dichotomy between the left and the right yeah and there's a fear an underlying fear of certain sectors and perhaps of significant sector of the population regarding the left right because of the experience that we've had in the region with Venezuela with Nicaragua to some extent Bolivia to some extent consequences in Argentina and so on so there's a big fear of the left right and not only of the left because of its social policies but also of the left we've had in Latin America that align somehow with authoritarian policies right that is not consubstantial to the left but that has been the case right in the midst of this we see a new character as Gabriel Boric that seems completely different that straight up criticize this left governments that has not even been done by other left leaders in the region such as Petro in Colombia for example who's shy of speaking against these governments and so on so that was a bit Gabriel Boric and how he's different from this left even being a leftist president right yeah so Gabriel Boric is as you said quite a character he does not really fit well into the classic stereotype of left wing Latin American politician even Chilean left wing politician but the first thing to say is that Chile is I would dare to say mostly a center left wing country we were ruled by the left wing the center left wing let's say from the end of the dictatorship for 20 years until Piñera arrived in his first government then we again had a left wing government a socialist government president Bachelet and then Piñera again so the last 30 years we have been mostly ruled by the left starting with the center left with the Christian democracy democratic party which is left wing in Chile center left and then by socialist president such as Lagos and Bachelet and they have already shown that the let's say the Chilean way the left wing in Chile is different from other left wing parties in Latin America both Lagos and Bachelet proved to be quite responsible presidents which had a left wing agenda but were also whose agenda was also compatible with basic ideas of growth of international relations of cooperation of free trade agreements etc right of course Gabriel Bordes is a bit different he would probably call himself left wing and not center left some of the previous presidents would say but he was a student leader first he was the president of his student federation in the University of Chile and then he was a member of congress one of the youngest ever he start he entered into congress with some of his colleagues from the student movement he was a member of congress for two periods and now suddenly and not really expected he won the presidency at the beginning we didn't even think he was going to get the necessary support to present his to present himself as a candidate because he first needed to get some some popular support and he is a very particular figure he acknowledges quite often that he makes mistakes he is very good at recognizing his previous mistakes he has a very let's say humble approach to politics he has no problem in admitting that he was when he was younger he maybe was more extreme than he is right now some people call say that he has moderated in a certain way especially for like during the presidential election he is in the government with the communist party which I know for some people may seem unacceptable but this is actually not the first time the communist party has been in power in Chile during the Bachelet presidency the communist party was also in the government and nothing happened we didn't turn into Venezuela our communist party is quite different to other communist parties in the region so sometimes some of the myths that exist around this left wing and this attempt to compare it with other countries do not recognize the difference of every social movement and every country so Gaviel Bodic has been very critical of Venezuela calling it a dictatorship without any problem he has been extremely critical of Nicaragua even though Nicaragua was originally like an example for the Latin American left wing now for the Russian invasion to Ukraine he did not do what some left wing governments did like this somehow vague reference that this was NATO's fault on the contrary he was quite clear in supporting Ukraine and calling Russia's actions unacceptable under international law so I think he represents a new way a new style let's say a new approach in Latin American politics and also in Chile I think he's quite special even for Chile and that is why so many people relate even personally to him he's very liked people want to hug him like all these things that have I don't know never but maybe only with Michelle Bachelet happened before in Chile people want to know about his dog he's like a friendly approachable character and this is something quite new for Chilean politics and probably even for Latin American politics so that makes him reliable people actually think that he's trying to do the best that he can and of course this comes with a agenda that will be developed in the next few months he also even though he comes from the less traditional left wing he now started government with some of the parties that have ruled Chile for the last 20 to 30 years some of his ministers are socialists members of the socialist party that in Chile that shows a certain like say continuity with the previous governments that were also socialist so I would I would call people to to give Gabriel Boris an opportunity to stop assuming that just because he's left wing he's going to be the next Nicolás Maduro or whatever other example we find in the region he's very young he's from a new generation and he's responding to the specific situation in Chile he does not follow the traditional claims of other leftist leaders in the region so as for me I am very hopeful for this process of course one always has to be a little skeptical one has to wait to see what happens but I'm actually looking forward to see how this new generation of politicians not only him he comes along with the new secretaries of states which are very young as well gives this country let's say a new opportunity we don't know whether he will succeed or not but it was quite clear that this country needed a significant change and at least this generation is offering a change with stability at the same time with some continuity but trying to follow some of the progressive agenda that has been claimed by the population absolutely, absolutely I couldn't agree more with you I think it's going to be a very interesting experiment I also personally have a lot of hope I've said it in this show before that the left right categories are not anymore the primary categories to assess Latin American and even world politics I would do it first in the democratic authoritarian axis and then we can see the left and right so I think could be a very good example of a democratic open left government pro human rights as well pro human rights he has been quite clear that human rights everywhere are like his basic priority and that's also different from other left wing governments I would say absolutely, absolutely I couldn't agree more and I also have a lot of expectations Chile has been a model in the past in Latin American countries mine included I hope it could be a good example with this new government as well Catalina just to close a final reflection from your side so all of this started with very strong demonstrations right very violent demonstrations demonstrations are easily attacked and disqualified by certain sectors of the population that say that demonstrations and public outrage are a level of moderation with certain level of control and what we saw in Chile was very very strong very strong the images are shocking right and then we see we saw that in Colombia the same year and then last year we see it in Europe at the moment we see it in Russia against the invasions we saw it in the U.S. in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter I I would like to see you to know your views about this what would you say to these people that say that demonstrations that violent demonstrations do not lead to change and if you think that such transformation in Chile could have been achieved through more peaceful demonstrations or to less strong demonstrations or to control demonstrations well it's hard to tell we have had very massive demonstrations in the past as well which led to some change but of course not this constitutional change which probably is the most radical change we have experienced as a country one can never know whether peaceful demonstrations they were very massive so I think the number was also very important in pushing up politicians for this decision to agree on this constitutional process but of course there was violence and there were some fires and several metro stations were destroyed during the protests as well I do not support violent protests I think the basic human right is to a peaceful protest however I think it's always crucial to differentiate and realize that the group of population of people that use violence as a mean our minority and I think what was crucial in Chile and I would like this to be my final point is that luckily the politicians were able to see that we have a political problem we have this peaceful and violent protests we're going to give them an institutional solution which is a new constitution we could have ended with a coup d'etat with the military taking over but instead we opted we decided to have a legitimate process an institutional process and I think that is something to be valued because it could have been different maybe the military could have taken power again but then the politicians said no no there's an institutional way to solve these claims to give these people an answer and I think that's it some of what is unique of the Chilean experience and I think that was a good decision and I think that actually helped reducing the violence and giving more legitimacy to those that were protesting peacefully Absolutely I would just close with that with the importance of listening with the importance of going for the message instead of the means and don't let violence and disruption to be equated I think demonstrations should be disrupted and that does not mean violence and Catalina we will keep looking at Chile experiment I would say it would be a good it's a new hope perhaps in the horizon for the rest of Latin America Thank you very much Catalina this was Latin American Directions and see you everyone in two weeks Thank you Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii If you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the 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