Between pots and pans: Why ‘cacerolazos’ exist

On Aug. 4 a massive protest against for-profit education was expected. The government and the Santiago municipality communicated

A protest scene from Machuca, a Chilean film set during the Pinochet dictatorship

that this protest was not authorized because they wanted to assure the population’s security and because the students had rejected the minister’s proposal presented one day before.

On Aug. 3, the government delivered a proposal called “21 puntos,” but the suggested reform measures did not convince the students. They rejected it immediately and confirmed the protest convoked by the student leaders that Thursday.

This point is where repression started; at 10:30 p.m. the fight between students and Chilean police took place in Plaza Italia. To clarify, some international media said the military was sent to intervene, which was not the case.

After these incidents, the students called for a second protest to show their discontent, this time at 6:00 p.m., which provoked movements all over the city until midnight.

For this reason, people from all parts of the country joined the protest. A massive crowd of Chileans met around 9:00 p.m. to carry out the traditional “cacerolazo” in support of students and their fight for better education.

The cacerolazo is not something new. Although in several parts of the world people are talking about the repression that our country is facing today, and comparing it to what happened during the coup of 1973, we can say that there are differences because that moment and the motives are completely different. The country is not willing to suffer something like that again.

The sound of the spoons hitting the pots, represent the power of women and unify families in Chile, which in the time of the Unidad Popular went out to the streets to protest because they did not have anything to “put in the pots” or “echarle a la olla” and cook. There was a time of shortage and political confusion.

Today, the cacerolazo, as one can appreciate in the images, represents unity and fraternization with the students’ mobilizations. The young people are not alone in the streets; the families will support them until the end.

Some say that change is good, especially if the population is asking for it. Not everything is hatred and repudiation against society and the political actors and this video are a good representation of this fact.

Cacerolazo 4 agosto 2011 from Jonathan Bravo on Vimeo.