Transcript
A (0:09)
This is a special episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Camila Osorio is a fact checker at the New Yorker, and she writes sometimes for us about Latin America. She's been covering political protests that are rocking Chile as we speak. Here's Camilla.
B (0:24)
I was recently in Chile. I went after a protest erupted on October 18th. And I was just fascinated by everything that was going on because it was really a protest that was about rewriting what the country should be, should look like now. People want to rewrite a new constitution. People want to change completely the economic system. So I went there and I arrived to a place that was changed from what it had been. It was a place that was always seen as the most stable country in Latin America. And suddenly the streets were filled with graffiti. Some sidewalks were completely destroyed because people had wanted to get rocks in confrontations with the police. And the violence of the police has been really striking. The police have been accused of killing at least six people since the protest started and injuring thousands as well, including more than 200 people that the police has shot in their eyes with projectiles. And some have lost already one eye or even some two eyes. But this violence has also been gendered. There are several allegations of the police raping or forcing women to get naked in police jails and to squat down. There have been more than 100 accusations of sexual violence made against the police. But in the middle of all of that violence, it has created so much rage. There's also something quite creative that was born. It happened on November 20. There was a group of women that organized a performance in the coastal city of Valparaiso, performance about all of this violence that was going on against women. So you see this big crowd of women. They're like. It's kind of like a feminist line dance. And they're all looking at the same place. And they're also kind of like moving back and forth, kind of like dancing or marching. They are blindfolded. They sing at unison. The patriarchy is a judge and is judging us from the moment we're born. Our punishment is that violence that you're not seeing. It's feminicite. It's rape. It was not my fault, nor where I was, nor how I was dressed. The rapist is you. It's the police, it's the judges, it's the state, it's the president. And so this protest started as a small thing in the city of Valparaiso, and then it became huge. It's just like every day you would See, like, white women gathering in corners. There's sometimes, like, thousands of women in front of symbolic places in Chile to say these lyrics over and over again and to basically be telling to the authorities, the rapist is you. And by meaning you, it meant, like, all of you who are not investigating all of this violence. It is you. It has nothing to do if I had a miniscard, and it is not because I was walking late at night, it is you. It was not my fault. So after the protest happened in Valparaiso, somebody put it on Twitter and it started being shared around the world, and it started being reproduced in Bogota, Colombia, in Mexico City as well. Oh, in Italy, in Germany, in the US in la, and in New York, there was also a performance, it was translated to French in front of the Eiffel Tower, which is blinking in the back when the women are singing and dancing. And it has happened in Istanbul. In Istanbul, actually, the police stopped the women when they were performing. It has happened in Beirut. It has happened in Bolivia. And so in every place, you would see how women would change a little of the lyrics. So, for example, in Bogota, at the end of the song, women started adding one line that said, it is not the state who takes care of me. It is my girlfriends who take care of me. So it's very complicated to have exact numbers on gender violence in Latin America. There are a few reports. There's a report from 2016 that mentions that among the 25 countries that have the highest rates of feminicity in the world, 14 are from Latin America and the Caribbean. And so gender violence in Latin America is clearly an epidemic. And I think that this is why this anthem really resonates among women in the region. It is a moment to finally express on the streets not only the violence that is lived in the intimate space, but also the. The violence that happens in the streets. And it's just so common to be afraid in the streets of Latin America. I grew up in Bogota, which is quite a hostile city for women as well. And I'm always surprised every time I visit family, just how I have to be reminded to be more alert than here in my normal life in New York.