Barcelona, Santiago de Chile, but also London, Hong Kong and other outbreaks around the world: 2019, especially in recent months, is the year of major street protests, for various reasons. In the East, in the former British colony, the violent clashes of recent weeks have been triggered by bill (later withdrawn) for extradition of fugitives to countries where there is no extradition agreement, including China.
In Europe, on the other hand, independentism has gone and is in fashion, or on the contrary the opposition to it: while a Barcelona hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets against the convictions of autonomist leaders (a movement has also been created on the net, Democratic Tsunami, supported among others by the most famous Catalan in the world, Pep Guardiola), on the contrary in England, while the Parliament debates Brexit, to take to the streets are those who would like to put an end to the push and pull and rejoin the European Union. Or, at the most, to express themselves through a new referendum.
The newest and most violent situation has instead exploded in Chile, where clashes between demonstrators and the police have already caused 3 dead and 200 million damage only for the 80 devastated and burned metro stations. There were 308 arrests, 156 injured policemen and ten other civilians hospitalised. In that case the reason for the protests is less ideological and more practical: the increase in the cost of living.
In recent years Chile has been considered the new locomotive of South America and is now considered its second economic power: in 2018, at the beginning of the mandate of the conservative president Sebastian Piñeira (in his second term after that from 2010 to 2014), GDP grew by 4%, investments by 6,1%, exports by 4,9%, and the unemployment rate was still at 7%, almost comparable to that of the EU average.
Although growth forecasts are still very good for 2019 and 2020, what in 2014 was the South American country with the highest purchasing power, 66th in the world ahead of Argentina (Italy was 40th), finds itself in the streets for this very reason: the cost of living. The culprit seems to be Piñeira himself, who has raised the price of some public services such as the subway: in 2007 a ticket cost 420 pesos, today 800 with the mockery of a further increase to 830 during peak hours (i.e. the one involving workers.
The result is that the government is unable to handle this revolt, led by the youth, but supported in the end by the majority of the population: the president has suspended the tariff increase but in the meantime suspended personal freedoms (it hasn't happened since the days of the Pinochet dictatorship), declaring a state of emergency throughout the country and delegating the crisis directly to the army. Citizens are thus forced to stay at home and will not be able to go out between 9 in the evening and 7 in the morning. Who will be forced to do so, will have to have a special authorization.
