For those out of the loop, a group which included myself up until recently,1 Chile is in the midst of a revolution. They’re fighting against the increased cost of living, privatization of essential services, and worsening inequality — problems facing everyone who lives under capitalism around the world — but in Chile’s case, the people actually seem to be winning. The Chilean people voted overwhelmingly in favor (80% with a 50% turnout) of rewriting the constitution, a constitutional convention has been assembled, and a call has been made for the Chilean people to re-define their country’s values.
One of the answers to this call arrived in my inbox courtesy of Felix Freeman, a Chilean hacker and activist for free software, free culture, and free knowledge, who asked me to signal boost Propuestas constitucionales para Chile en la era de la información, three proposals to establish the following principles in the foundations of Chilean law:
Each of these proposals needs 15,000 Chilean signatures to be proposed at the constitutional convention, and I’d like you to help Felix and other advocates for digital freedoms in Chile get the attention they need. These links provide the canonical Spanish text and the appropriate place for Chileans to register their support. Felix was also kind enough to provide me with English translations for your reading pleasure:
This is exactly the kind of political action we need to enshrine the values of free software, free culture, and free knowledge within Chilean law. I hope you will support their efforts to score a victory for the Chilean people and for global digital freedom. Opportunities like this one are vanishingly rare, and need to be taken advantage of before they’re gone. The call for signatures ends on February 1st — act fast!
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No surprise given that promising popular political movements like this are deliberately under-reported in western media, especially when they’re happening in the global south. We can’t have anyone wondering if we could make similar changes here! ↩︎