3 years of struggle for libertarian and popular education in Chile

bolivia / peru / ecuador / chile | miscellaneous | press release Tuesday November 01, 2005 03:24 by Chacalón - Anarkismo Editorial Group

The record of the Libertarian Students’ Front (FeL)

The FeL is now three years old, and the comrades in Lota, a small miners' town in the south of Chile, celebrated this new anniversary in the public Theater on the monday 10th of October. To the event, assisted some 120 people and it was organised by the comrades of the school section. We send our greetings to this intiative of organisation and struggle, that with great perseverance and persistence, has been built up for all this years, until becoming a national referent. What follows, is the speech of the representative of the Local Coordination Council of the FeL of Concepción for such an ocassion.

Brothers and Sisters,

There are different levels of organisation and struggle, and we want to be clear, that none can be replaced by the other. In the same way that the re-organisation of the Revolutionary and Popular Students’ Movement requires of a national and unitarian libertarian organisation, particular to that sort of struggle, the reconstruction of a popular project assumes the need of an organisation that crosses all of the sectors in struggle, with a marked political and revolutionary accent. To distinguish those levels, their reciprocity, their autonomy and the need for libertarian ideas to breakthrough from their historical silence to become a clear referent in a not so distant future, those were the core ideas of a small group of comrades from different towns of the country that assumed the task of building up a socio-political grouping for the students’ struggles. Thus, the project of a Libertarian Students’ Front (FeL) germinated, at the end of the year 2002.

The unification in a national structure could not be an artificial thing, as the political dispersion typical of the 90s was reflected in the existence of several collectives all along the country, most of the times plagued with hostilities between them, with a complete lack of strategic and tactical unity criteria, and among which distrust, self-reference and self-satisfaction were elements that crowned this nefarious way of understanding politics, that kept as away from the bigger picture. This was the context to put hands on our task, particularly difficult from a libertarian angle for it was difficult to come out from our niches with a proposal both revolutionary and contextualised to our times. Also, there were numerous critics. The comrades could break with this old and sectarian logics, stressing the need of unity and agreement among the libertarian ranks, in order to become a real alternative for those on struggle, creating a unitarian national front; thus in October 2003, in Santiago, its first conference took place, the one that produced the Platform of Struggle of the FeL, what makes national unity a reality. This platform becomes the basis of the libertarian students’ project, stressing the organisation from below, through unity in struggle, advancing in the way to a popular university, carrying on the struggle for the historical demands, and if the conditions were favourable, to recover the class and struggle nature of the social organisations of students. Thus, in December 2003, the FeL wins the elections of the Students’ Union in the Catholic University of Concepción (UCSC). This becomes relevant as it is a historical victory, marking the way out for libertarian ideas of their political catacombs, doing justice to the forefathers of the students’ movement –the anarchists of the FECH (Students’ Federation of Chile) in 1923.

We can say that this gamble is becoming fruitful as in 2004 was the year to mark the irruption as a students’ referent at a national level, with a remarkable participation in the struggles and both on the grassroots and leadership of the movement, as for the comrades of Arica in the UTA (Universidad de Tarapacá), in University of La Serena, the Valparaíso comrades in the UPLA, Santiago comrades in University of Chile, in Concepción the comrades of the UCSC and the University of Concepción.

This year, the FeL became a libertarian referent in the most confrontational struggle of the students since 1997, given its direct intervention in the conflict at all levels, turning to be the only national referent for the revolutionary left still standing, being able to put forward, from the grassroots, a National Plan of Struggle, and installing as the strategic axis the Popular University. It’s important to remark that our organisation kept a different political position to the traditional left, without betraying its politics. From this point of view, we consider that the remaining task for us is to present a program coherent with the development of the social struggle, re-enchanting students’ masses against the sale of the education, placing our emphasis on the new university, the POPULAR one. On the other hand, it’s important to stress our libertarian ethics, the one kept us away from certain situations such as the “negotiation” table set up by the CONFECH (ed. Coordinator of all of the Students’ Unions in Chile) with the MINEDUC (ed. Education ministry), the one that affirmed to represent the end of the students’ movement; an utter non sense, as this accord represented the accommodation of the privileged, with their usual servants, that does not hold any regard to a tactical step towards a popular university. Economic engineering won’t change the class nature of our struggle, as we place the emphasis and our strategic content in education as a right.

Without any doubts on the advances made over the last 3 years, there are some central points that need to be adressed, such as to reinforce responsibility, the commitment, and a better theoretical and technical schooling for our militants. As well, we have to consolidate the national structures, particularly the Coordination Councils, to obtain higher levels of communication and discussion of the political orientation between the different sections and organisational bases, to avoid program insufficiencies of the organisation in relation to the raising of the masses on struggle and the demands they pose. For no matter our comrades were well positioned in the leadership, there was lack of unity of action, added to the inappropriate knowledge of some other comrades that gave everything in the struggle, being all this some of the elements that caused us real troubles. As well, it’s important to reaffirm our organisational presence with more activities of propaganda, enabling us to link the ideas of our organisation with the actions of its militants.

On regard to the prospects, the fact of having young militants well able to assume leadership and comrades still at school, which started from this year to form sections in their schools at a national level, let us recognise that we are breaking the lack of historical continuity in students’ organisations. Today, there is a new generation of popular militants, what allows us to conclude that this is the expression of a certain tendency to close a cycle of debacle of the students’ movement since ’97; that results in the general questioning of the formal structures of representation on a political and student-unionist field, at the same time, that at a slow pace, there is a consolidation of a popular actor of the student.

We consider, in political terms, as our main task today as an organisation to fill this political vacuum, reflected in all of the country. We have demonstrated to be capable of abandoning the caves of leftism without any need of hiding away our anti-capitalist condition or our belief in direct action. Today’s task is to create a broad program together with all the people on direct struggle against the capital and the State, being able to give tactical steps, bearing in mind the different levels of our rank and file activity. Today, we can give an important step if we are capable of channelling the aspirations of the masses on struggle for an education at the service of the people and the workers.

Against the University of the Market and inhumane repression, the FeL grows and moves forward in the libertarian and popular struggle.

Local Coordination Council-FeL Concepción
10-10-2005