30 years
On October 19, 2019, President Piñera annulled the increase that took the Santiago metro ticket from $800 to $830. It was late. This increase had unleashed an unprecedented rebellion, which deepened under the slogan “It’s not $30, it’s 30 years.” Not even the State of Emergency and the presence of the Army in the streets could dissuade the masses. By then, Marco Antonio Sepulveda Gallardo he was in Stockholm visiting his son. “I immediately undertook the trip back to Santiago. I went home, took my camera and went outside. Of course, I did not have that vision that I have today of what happened, but I already felt that it was something very strong, ”he tells Ámbito.
Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Plaza Italia – now renamed “Plaza Dignidad” – against the social situation in the country. Sepúlveda Gallardo says that “the military abused, they did what they wanted. It was very dangerous.” Already in the marches, he understood that he had to do something about it and that his role there was going to be important: “At the end of October I went out into the street and experienced very complex situations. There I said ‘I have to document it’. It took me a couple of days to figure out what I wanted to document, because there were so many people doing different things.”
“I ran into these young people, women and men, who were there holding back the police forces so that they do not advance and break up the great march that was in the square. I lived that and I found it impressive. There was a lot of violence by the police. These young people used shields made from different things they picked up from the street to defend themselves against the pellets fired by Carabineros. Also from the tear gas, which was fired at the body and not at 45°, as the protocol says. So you saw people fall who at first did not wear masks or goggles to protect their eyes. That was impressive; That’s when I realized that I wanted to document that. What happened there, not on the march, but there, ”he relates.
His experience among those who tried to contain the police advance was not gratuitous. Throughout the days, the photographer received the punishment of the forces. Three pellets, attacks with tear gas grenades and bullet wounds produced marks on his body that he retains to this day. In this regard, he comments: “It brought back memories of the military coup in 1973, but I was 12 years old at the time. The big difference that there was is that now you saw young people who believe in democracy, in freedom, and they were not afraid.
Those young people who dazzled Sepúlveda Gallardo called themselves first line and they did not have defined leaderships, something that surprised the local political class. “Carabineros took young detainees from the Front Line. Some are even still imprisoned today, without trial. Prisoners fell and new ones appeared, the replacement was immediate. The police were crazy because that was maintained over time. There was no one to direct these young people. It was spontaneous, spontaneous leaders arose from there. That did not guarantee that the next time they would be the same, so the police did not know who to arrest. The same politicians. Luckily there was no leader, because if there had been, they would have killed him by now”, details the interviewee.
In the beginning, the situation not only took the government by surprise, but also the entire Chilean political system. The author opines: “Chilean traditional political parties abandoned us in the street. They all knew what was going on. People were on the streets from Arica to Punta Arenas, throughout Chile. In all the big cities there was a front line. All the politicians knew what was happening. The problem was that all these parties, except I would say the Communist Party – I am not a communist, but that is what I saw – distanced themselves from what was happening”.
period document
It is estimated that between the start of the outbreak, in October 2019, and March 2020, there were at least 34 deaths at the hands of the Chilean security forces. The rebellion had two major consequences: the call for a Constitutional Convention, which is currently drafting a new Constitution to be plebiscitated on September 4, and the subsequent victory in 2021 of the young Gabriel Boric, who broke with the hegemony of the traditional parties after 30 years.
Over time, Sepúlveda Gallardo began to compile all the images he had taken in that violent October, in addition to the videos he uploaded to his YouTube channel. He thought of holding an exhibition, but his friend and photography teacher, Carlos Monsalve, convinced him that a book was better and introduced him to the designer Patricio Rueda: “I had already been working on the material. I told them that I wanted to do the book and that I needed help. We started planning how we were going to present it. The book is separated into sections, also according to what is initially written, which talks about what the first line was and how it was constituted”.
“Building the story, we came to the conclusion that I was the protagonist. We wondered how we made it look like that. With Patricio we began to work on the subject and decided to use small photos, where the tip of my camera appeared, which were going to be distributed throughout the book in a reasonable way, so that it would be understood that I was the protagonist; the one who told what was happening”, add. The author had already been working on the text together with the journalist Marco Fajardo, from El Mostrador. Later, he contacted three publishers and, although two showed interest, only Eight Books guaranteed him to be able to present it in October 2021, when the second anniversary of the outbreak would be celebrated. It was a race against time: there were only two months left.
The photographer comments that in the printing house where the book was produced there was a “right-wing publishing house called Antártica”. “They saw the book,” he explains, “they called the publisher and said ‘we want that book on our shelves.’ They must have seen that the book was going to sell.” Finally, having beaten time, the book was presented on October 23, 2021, two years after the rebellion. Thus was born an essential document about those days that not only marked a break in the life of its author, but also in the history of Chile.
“I can’t complain, the book is doing very well. On October 27 I went to Stockholm to present it. I presented it in three places and also in Berlin. I left Stockholm on October 27, 2019 and returned two years later with a book under my arm. It was spectacular. It is the first time that I write a book, this was something very interesting. I vindicate with this book these young people from the Front Line who are the ones who generated the result of the changes we are experiencing”, analyzes Sepúlveda. “Primera Línea Chile” was published in Spanish and English and consists of 242 pages.
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caution and hope
But beyond the work, How does one side related to the world of finance and the other dedicated to barricade photography coexist in a person? “Internal coexistence is not at all controversial. As an economist, I lived the economic model of the Nordic countries, a Keynesian model. The model we have in Chile is neoliberal; wild neo-liberal. I do not share how the economy of a country is carried out like this. The neoliberal model consolidated economic power in a few; It greatly increased the economic power of a few. They have sucked the blood out of the countries and that is not what we want. It doesn’t work for us,” he replies.
Regarding the process that leads Gabriel Boric Since his inauguration last March, the economist claims to have expectations, although not full confidence: “Are there going to be any things left over from the old model? Yes, I have no doubts. We have been using this model for 40 years, the Chilean people carry this model in their DNA. It is impossible to remove it completely, but there must be important changes in social rights. That is what we expect from Boric. The program that he has, strictly speaking, is social democratic. It vindicates the social rights of the peoples in the countries where we need a better quality of life. These are basic things.”
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On this point, he analyzes: “It happened with the Concertación, with the socialists, that big capital co-opts everything. That is the great fear I have. If they can resist as Front Line and hold their ground. Of course, there must be negotiations, but never losing the line. It is all to be seen. Let’s see how the hand comes. The right in Chile has been working since the convention for the new Constitution began. The issue against the Boric government has already started. Let’s see how weak they can be and how much resistance they can generate. If Boric asks the people for help, the people will take to the streets. If it’s going to be like the Coalition, which said ‘let’s leave this in the hands of the experts’, we’re wrong”.
Although the events of 2019 surprised the world by their magnitude, scholars of Chilean politics knew that something like this would happen sooner or later. Upon returning to the country in 1996, Sepúlveda Gallardo found an absolutely stratified society: “The social castes that exist in Chile do not mix. You have to have money to mingle. I saw how big corporations abused people. I saw that and said ‘hey, this is going to burst’. It was a tremendous abuse, especially to the most vulnerable; They are the ones who pay the highest interest, they are the ones who pay the most, those who have a poor diet. It is 80% of the population. The time came and this blew up.”
On Saturday, May 7 and Sunday, May 8, the economist and photographer will present “Primera Línea Chile” at the Buenos Aires Book Fair.
Source: Ambito
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