The Unmasked Young Protestors and Christ

I have been following the Transantiago fiasco in the capital city of Chile for the last two months. I ran across the following article today in the Santiago Times that I think you should read.

But here's what I want you to do...
Read the article through the lens of Scripture. If you were a missionary in Chile, how would you approach these young protesters? I have added emphasis (text in bold) to flag certain phrases for your contemplation.

My goal is two fold:
1. An exercise for you to think Biblically
2. Gain a better sense of how to pray for our family and ministry in Chile.
____________________________________

CHILE'S DISAFFECTED YOUTH TURN TO STREET VIOLENCE

Santiago does not see the gang warfare often associated with American or Brazilian cities, but the city’s streets are becoming increasingly violent. In May of 2006, widespread student protests rocked the city, and the government of newly elected Michelle Bachelet suffered its first major setback.

The street violence returned on the September 11 anniversary of the 1973 military coup led by Augusto Pinochet and also started up again shortly after the former dictator died in December of last year.

On March 29 of this year, protesters marked the Day of the Young Combatants, which commemorates the killing of two young brothers by police in 1985, by trashing stores and banks, and buses. Over 800 arrests were made and dozens of police were injured. Chile’s media was filled with pictures of burning tires, tear gas, and riot police, and the American Embassy urged its citizens to stay off the streets. To the world, a normally safe, business-orientated city looked like a war zone.

The current fiasco surrounding the Transantiago public transit overhaul, which made transportation miserable for millions of Santiago residents since February, is also creating a general discontent in the city. Bachelet is at an all-time low in the polls, and students, who started the new school year in March, have been threatening to reactivate their protests.

But Chile is not a poor, violent place, and the country boasts the freest and most successful economy in Latin America. While a large disparity still exists between the rich and the poor, Chile remains the only country that has met the UN’s Millennium Goal of drastically reducing extreme poverty. Problems do exist in the educational system, but Chile is full of opportunity, and the population is increasingly socially mobile.

The recent street violence has put most Chileans on edge and has also perplexed them. Most fail to understand what exactly the protesters are fighting for or why citizens of a free democracy express their discontent in the street and not in a ballot box.

Driving the trend is an increasingly disenfranchised youth, most of whom use the Internet to communicate and have no specific goals other than a shared resentment of society in general. A lax judicial system and increased media coverage are making the problem worse...

Jorge Lizama, a 19-year-old high school dropout, anarchist, and animal-rights activist, has emerged as a poster child in Chile’s current street struggles. He was arrested late last month for attacking the car of Justice Minister Gloria Chevesich during the March 29 protests and is also is accused of tossing a Molotov cocktail at the La Moneda Presidential Palace last year.

While Lizama is now described as a “young person outside of the system,” he had a normal upbringing. “We had a happy life,” said his mother, Juana Soza. “Jorge was happy. He played with his dog. He was a boy scout.”

Lizama’s problems began when his parents separated ten years ago. A student in a dilapidated public school, he was held back a year before he finally dropped out. Socially shy, he took to the Internet and came in contact with a group of vegans, extreme vegetarians who consume no animal products. His activism progressed as he came into contact with networks of animal-rights activists and other ecological causes.

Lizama finally came to feel at home with the many anarchist groups that operate in Chile. Using mostly the Internet to communicate, Chile’s anarchists are not organized, are without leaders, and have no hierarchy. The only thing that unites them is a shared discontent with society.

“These kids are hostile to the system, and they feel threatened and excluded,” said Roberto Méndez, the president of survey firm Adimark. “They take their anger out on anything that represents the system, such as the Transantiago, and they are most aggressive towards the left wing sectors of the governing Concertación coalition because they feel they sold out to the current model.”

One university professor who declined to be named for fear of reprisal said that radical youth had always been present in Chile. “Most intellectual currents that come to Latin American originate in France, and France is very ideological,” she said. “Whenever I see an unmasked protester and ask them why they are vandalizing, they simply say that they are against the system,” she continued. The professor also suggested that Bachelet was a much less foreboding character than former President Ricardo Lagos and easier to rebel against.

Some suggest that Chile’s media is also inciting the violence. After the March 29 protests, Interior Minister Belisario Velasco blamed several television programs for promoting the violence. “A lot of the content on TV was almost a call to violence,” he said in a conversation with Radio Cooperativa. Both print and television media gave widespread coverage to the impending protests, and on March 29, one channel broadcast the live looting of a grocery store in Santiago.

Chile’s legal system is also a problem. Prosecutors must not only prove that the accused committed a violent crime, but also that they intended to commit the crime. When apprehended, most minors are released to their parents as it is assumed that they are incapable of criminal intent. Many bands of youth organize their protests so that only minors commit violent acts to take advantage of the system.

But the free pass may soon be over. Bachelet will sign legislation in June removing the requirement to prove intent in crimes committed by youth, and she is also floating legislation to hold parents legally responsible for the crimes their children commit.

While Bachelet’s firm hand has been applauded by many, it may be too little or too late. Méndez said that Chile’s students are angrier this year than ever and that university students are now joining what were once high school protests. “The risk of another student conflict, one more powerful than last year, is extremely high,” he said. “Chile has changed since last year, and respect for authority has declined. As was the case before, the situation is preventable. But it remains to be seen if the government will take appropriate measures to deactivate the movement or if the situation will be allowed to turn into the third, and possibly fatal, crisis of Bachelet’s presidency.

By Nathan Crooks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
_______________________________

So how will you be praying for our family after reading and distilling this article?
We would love to hear from you.