By: Mariana Navarrete, Contributing writer
These last couple of months of 2020 have been marked by worldwide protests, aiming to create social change.
In the United States, the first weeks of October featured protests against President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barret for the Supreme Court. Thousands of people protested in cities, colleges, and towns of Arizona, D.C, Florida, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan, and New York.
Barrett’s confirmation cements a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Hence, women protested for women’s rights, especially body autonomy, and honored the memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Protests in Poland erupted in October as a response to a court ruling on abortion. The country’s constitutional court ruled on Oct. 22 to outlaw abortion of fetuses with congenital defects.
Saint Leo Alumni and Project Manager of Legia Warsaw Foundation, Zosia Pilarska, attended the protests on Oct. 22.
“Women’s rights, or rather lack of them, were the reason why I decided to join the masses on the streets,”said Pilarska.
Pilarska points out that restaurants, bars, shops, even medical services support the “Strajk Kobiet” (Women’s Strike) in Poland. They show their support by displaying the strike’s symbol, a red lightning bolt, on their windows.
People gathered at Polish embassies in Rome, Lisbon, Copenhagen, and Stockholm in solidarity with Polish women.
“The feeling of being understood and solidarity among these women are irreplaceable,” Pilarska said. “We’re writing history right now.”
At the same time Polish women were making history, Mexican women in Cancun, Mexico, aspired to make history too. Feminist protests sparked in October after the body of a missing woman was found quartered. This year in Mexico, various other protests have been held against gender violence and hate crimes that were left with impunity by authorities.
Cancun citizen and undergraduate student studying public administration and global policies at the Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Alexia Tobin, reflected on one of the protests.
“It was not the first femicide, but it has been escalating over time, and we are done,” Tobin said.
Tobin emphasizes that there were too many men trying to vandalize buildings.
“But they were not armed, neither the women,” Tobin said. “The police’s gunshots were unnecessary, and they sexually assaulted the women that got arrested.”
Tobin went to the protest because she thinks it is a way to pressure the state government on placing gender violence on top of its social agenda. However, her fear of police repression sometimes exceeds her desire to protest.
Below the equator, social unrest in Chile since October 2019 has finally resulted in a constitutional referendum. 78 percent of the population voted to begin the process of replacing the dictatorship-era 1980 constitution with a new one.
Daniel Cortés, an undergraduate student studying political science and international relations at Alberto Hurtado University, is one of the thousands of Chileans that protested in October 2019 and 2020.
“The motivations that led to the outbreak on Oct. 18, 2019, until today, are all related to the injustice and social inequality that the economic model has perpetrated,” said Cortés.
According to The World Bank, Chile is an example of development in Latin America.
Still, Cortes argued, “What is not said is that a limited section of the population lives this development at the expense of the vast majority.”
Another Chilean protester, an undergraduate journalism student, and photographer, Daniel Ulloa, enjoyed the unity he experienced at the protests.
“Being there was beautiful, exciting – a unique experience,” Ulloa said. “The rich, the poor, rival soccer teams, we all united for change.”
The only thing that Ulloa did not like about the protest was police repression.
“The ‘carabineros’ [the State’s police]used extreme force upon protesters; I was only taking pictures with my camera, and they tried to arrest me using brutal force and threw at me tear gas,” Ulloua said.
The companionship that the protesters experience is what the undergraduate student studying secondary education in Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University, Astrid Milagros, felt in the recent protests she attended in Peru.
“I liked seeing the Peruvian youth and children involved and feel protected by them. We have been called the bicentennial generation- the generation that does not throw bombs but deactivates them,” said Milagros.
In the second week of November, Peru’s Congress selected the country’s third president to appease the growing street protests after the decision made by lawmakers to dismiss a popular president.
Joaquin Huipu, a Peruvian studying psychology at Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University, said, “The corruption of country officials aroused helplessness in me as they believe that they can handle us as they please and that we will do nothing.”
Huipu commented on police repression as well. “
We were all leaving knowing we were probably not coming back home,” he said. “It has been one of the largest mobilizations in the country, with assistance from more than 10% of the population.”
He was proud to be present in such a historical event.
In Thailand, pro-democratic protesters have been rallying since July, calling for significant government reforms. Secondary school students, women’s rights advocates, and LGBTQ activists were among them. One of the Thailand protesters’ prime demands is to amend the constitution since the monarchy holds too much power and the prime minister was elected undemocratically.
After the police failed to stop the protests, the government scheduled a Parliament session to discuss changes to the constitution. Still, the motion backed by the protest movement failed. Hence, peaceful protests continued but have been repressed by the State police with gunshots, chemical-laced water cannons, and tear gas
Whether or not the protesters met their goals for the progression of women’s rights, gender violence, or social inequality, the youth has driven these protests worldwide and did not get scared of the police repression.
