Class: Chilean protests 2019

por Paul Kearney
en Sin categoría
en 24/10/2019

Match the these captions with the following pictures:

Riot police hold a demonstrator during a protest near Plaza Italia in Santiago
Workers clean up a looted supermarket in Santiago
Firefighters extinguish a barricade placed by protesters in downtown Santiago
Riot police stand in front of a mural in Santiago
An aerial view of a metro station after protests in Santiago
Police use shields to protect themselves in Santiago
A protester with cooking pots on the streets of Santiago
Demonstrators lighting bonfires in Valparaíso

Do you think these pictures are a good representation of the protests? What would you include? What might you eliminate? What has your experience of the protests been?

Video: Protests around the world

What protests are happening around the world at the moment? What important protests have happened over the last ten years? What were the conditions that led up to them? What set them off? Were they successful? Why/Why not?

Watch the following video, stopping to answer the comprehension questions and discuss the contents. How relevant is it to the situation in Chile?

Minutes 1-3.10
1. What protests do they mention?
2. What is happening in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Catalonia?
3. What do the following expressions mean?
«step down»
«can’t stand it/take it»
uprising
4. How similar do you think these protest might be to the Chilean protest?

Minutes 3.10-7.16
1. Who says the following things: Matthew, Jean-Batiste, Amalendu
People no longer trust their governments.
Protests begin with a explosion of anger.
Protests in one area can start protests in another
The decade of protests started with the Arab Spring and with Greece.
2. How did the Lebanese protests begin?
3. What do these words mean:
– tipping point
– Trust deficit
4 What is the trust deficit /tipping point in the Chilean context?

Minutes 7.16- 10.12
1 What things contribute to a deficit of trust? Why do people become more radical?
2. What happens when people start to get organised as a crowd?
3. What has happened in Hong Kong?
4. What is interesting about the Hong Kong protests?

Minutes 10.12-15.52
1. Why does Jean Batiste think people decide to start protesting?
2. Why did the protests escalate so quickly in Tunisia?
3. What is the goal of protest groups in relation to the target group?
4. What happened in Syria/Tunisia?
5. What is special about this moment in history, in terms of protesting?
6. What happened in Ecuador in relation to this?
What do the following words mean?
– seachange
– triggered
– acquiesce
7. Why do you think the Chilean protests escalated so quickly? How do you think the target groups feel? What role is social media playing?

Minutes 15.52-20.54
1. What are protesters worried about originally? What happens as protests become sustained?
2. What motivates protesters in a functioning democracy?
3. Why is the strategy of occupying spaces important in a democracy?
4. What type of protest is threatening to an authoritarian regime?
5. What do these words mean?
threshold
prompt
6. Are any of these trends relevant for the Chilean context?

20.54-25.10
1. When is a vote a type of protest?
2. When do people use their protest vote?
3. Why does Amalendu think people are protesting in Chile?
4. What effect does inequality have in causing protests?
5. What do these expressions mean?
its hands are tied
to cut a long story short
6. Do you agree with Amalendu about the causes of protests in Chile? What do you think are the causes of the protests in Chile? How do you think they will end?

Reading

In groups, different pairs choose one of the following articles. Summarise your article, using the following questions:

What events does the article describe?
What context does it give for the events?
Who are the actors in the article (e.g. government, protesters, the army, police …)
How does the article describe these actors (adjectives, phrases)
Does the article say the protests will be resolved? If so, how?
Do you think the article has a point of view about the protests?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/23/chile-protests-sebastian-pinera-apology-reform

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2019/10/20/riots-after-a-fare-increase-damage-chiles-image-of-stability

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-protests-explainer/explainer-chiles-inequality-challenge-what-went-wrong-and-can-it-be-fixed-idUSKBN1X22RK

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-23/chile-s-protests-aren-t-like-other-latin-american-protests

https://www.thenation.com/article/chile-protests-inequality/

https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/what-brazils-2013-protests-tell-us-about-chile-2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-29/chile-protests-what-are-they-about-exactly

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/chile-protests-portraits-protesters-sebastian-pinera

Explain your article to your group. What does perspective/information does each article offer?

Language

What have been the main events leading up to and during the protests. Create a timeline of the most important events so far.

Listen to this podcast, from minute 22.02 – 26.40. Did you leave anything out?

https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2019/oct/23/are-fox-news-and-donald-trump-falling-out-of-love-podcast

2nd conditional/Past modals

What could have been done/should have been done at each stage?

Future

What do think is going to happen in the future? What might/can/will happen?

Graphs

Look at the following graphs. Pick one and think about how you would present that information to your group. Each person takes turns to present the information. To what extent do they explain the current situation?