THE PREVIEW OF THE PLEBISCITO

Just over two months after the expected plebiscite of April 26, posters and videos of campaigns for the approval and rejection of a new constitution are already beginning to circulate. They say that March comes with everything; marches, protests, mobilizations through the streets of the country. The pre-plebiscite would be a kind of great armageddon where the only certainty is that chaos is approaching. What would happen if instead of unleashing madness, we made an effort to mobilize the meeting between neighbors, informing the protest and the conversation with respect, sharing with those who are different from us, knowing our differences by looking at each other? It sounds naive and dreamy, but it is something real that has been happening silently in recent months with the logic of self-organized councils and neighborhood gangs in different neighborhoods of the country. This is also precisely what El Gran Malón in its fourth version seeks to promote in the pre-plebiscite. El Gran Malón is a neighborhood meeting that takes place once a year throughout Chile - in 2020 it will take place on Saturday April 18 - it is totally self-managed and last year it managed to bring together more than 10,000 Chileans around multiple collective meals that took place simultaneously. There were more than 300 malones organized by neighbors from Antofagasta to Punta Arenas. Without hoods, without tear gas, without guanacos or matapacos, rather open-faced, preparing a collective meal, with a cane of wine in hand, and where each one contributes with what they can, betting on the meeting between neighbors to recover the confidence that we have been losing. According to the World Values ​​Survey, only 12% of Chileans trust someone who is not from their close family or friends. We urgently need to prepare a climate of trust and respect in the run-up to the plebiscite, and April 18 is a good excuse to do so.

Javier Vergara Petrescu

Executive Director Ciudad Emergente