Encuentro Santiago on the situation in Chile: "Love is stronger!"

What’s behind these manifestations of social discontent? What are you shouting in the streets? We can’t believe that we’ve understood it all already.
Initially, the protest was a reaction to the increase in price of public transport, to the precariousness of the minimum wage and health ... And then other requests were added that exceed the limits of social order, by a social movement that recognizes itself as legitimate and that, in many cases, has become increasingly attractive, but also uncontrollable, as well as violent and destructive.
The image of Santiago in flames, of thousands of children, young people, women and men who cry out and ask for justice, challenges us, forces us to look up and ask ourselves: to whom is this question addressed, which is so typical of the human? Who will be able to welcome this question on this dark night for Chile? All this discontent that originated from a system and a logic that does not look at the needs of people, from ineffective public policies that generate impotence - especially in the most vulnerable population - has brought to light the most important social crisis of recent years. So, will we waste this historic moment in the fog of recriminations?

1. Why is hatred and violence not the way?
Because they generate more fear, more confusion; because those who come out damaged, in the end, are always the weakest, because children grow up thinking that this path is the only option. The Santiago metro is perhaps the most unequivocal sign of social integration, of dialogue between the centre and the periphery. What have we done with it? What have we let happen to it and its workers and users? There are fifteen dead... Will their sacrifice be in vain?

2. Public authorities, the crisis and the fruits
The State has as its aim the defence and care of public order, but always with a view to build a common good and defend the rights of individuals. Now is the time to realistically and responsibly live up to the demands of justice and fairness. To ask for forgiveness and to start again means to enter into the crisis, and not only to manage it. This would ennoble the State, which is made to serve civil society. People expect a crisis that bears fruit. A crisis, to bear fruit, requires gestures, especially from those in power.

3. The human being needs a good!
What's under the rubble? Seeing people cleaning up the subway - perhaps the same people who participated in the protests - who defend schools, organize themselves to take care of their neighbourhoods, share food with neighbours, makes us understand that good is always a possibility for the person. We are able to recognize it beyond our mistakes and to adhere to the faces in which it expresses itself. Rebuilding and protesting can be the expression of the same good.

4. The urgency of a new look and dialogue with the other
Hatred and moaning is not an end in itself. "You are good for me" ...the other is the way of dialogue and self-criticism. What is at stake, in a context of distrust and recriminations, is the gaze of a free man who goes to meet the person (without labels), with his particular history, his desires and his sufferings, and that allows us to understand what changes and serves the man, the woman and the whole of society. Politics must necessarily start from here, creating dialogues and bridges between different men... without getting tired.
In this bitter but provocative hour, what awakens us and pushes us to build is our love for the history of our people, who have forged themselves by facing so many adversities in which hope has prevailed. "Love is stronger"...is marked upon our memory with fire: love for our neighbour, love for the common good, love for justice, for truth, love for the human being in his need and in his pain until it reaches everywhere... if we accept the challenge.

Encuentro Santiago