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Although the rains yesterday overshadowed a new day of mobilization, more protests are coming. However, the social movement loses strength. Analysis.
Although the health emergency unleashed by the coronavirus disrupted any agenda or plan that the social movement had for this year, gathered around the national strike, the mobilizations do not stop and, like 2019, the end of the year looks amidst social discontent. Despite the fact that yesterday’s day was clouded by the force of the rains -particularly in Bogotá-, what was experienced this Thursday was just the prelude to how 2020 will end and accounts for the expectations about what 2021 will be for the protesters .
In the capital of the country, as well as in Medellín and Cali, from the first hours the citizens took to the streets once again to express to the Government their dissatisfaction with the social and economic crisis that the country is experiencing and that ended up aggravating the pandemic. Once again, the peaceful sit-ins, harangues and mobilizations were felt, yes, with less force. The rains were the final blow, which left the mobilizations to be seen.
Read also: Live: due to heavy rains, protesters left the Plaza de Bolívar, in Bogotá
Although the balance was bittersweet and in Bogotá the planned concentrations in the Plaza de Bolívar were soon dissolved, concentrations have already been cited for tomorrow and for next Wednesday, November 25, in the middle of the anniversary of the death of the young Dilan Cruz. “We are working, especially, for this November 25, when the International Day of Non-Violence against Women is also commemorated. The women gathered around the strike have been designing activities and mobilizations ”, declared Diógenes Orjuela, the president of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT).
According to the union leader, efforts are also concentrated on December 8, which coincides with International Human Rights Day. However, the plans for the national strike go further: “Right now we are preparing what will be 2021 for the social movement. There is a fact: we will continue to mobilize until this government, which does not dialogue or negotiate, pays attention to us. The ignorance of social organizations is worrying, ”Orjuela claimed.
You may also be interested in: Photos of the national strike on November 19 in Bogotá
Despite the expectations of the movement, another is the reading that is done from the outside. According to Mauricio Jaramillo, a professor at the Universidad del Rosario and a political analyst, discontent peaked just a year ago and, although in recent months the 21 days seem like fixed dates of mobilization, the protests are getting weaker.
“The social movement was running out and the natural thing -which was for the protests to continue-, did not materialize due to the coronavirus. That made the entire protest delegitimized and they had to move to the field of social networks. The pressure that can be exerted there is not the same, unlike when they were on the street ”, he explained.
For Jaramillo, people ended up disconnecting from the protest, among others, because it was not possible to specify and shape a leadership that would lead the claims, despite the petition sheets presented by the Unemployment Committee and that the Government neglected. “The striking thing a year ago were the spontaneous protests, detached from parties. Now, what has happened is that many political leaders have tried to take advantage of it ”, he says.
Read also: Vindication of the peaceful march
The analyst warns that the balance is not the best for the Executive led by Iván Duque, “which is in one of its worst moments”, and although the mobilizations will persist in 2021, the capacity to call will be less and less. To this is added, Jaramillo points out, that next year will be overshadowed by the start of the presidential race and the plays of the parties with a view to 2022.
In other words, the agenda will be dominated by the economic reactivation and the presidential issue. What is the unemployment? It will be a challenge for its organizers to keep their claims at the forefront and continue to gather social discontent in the post-pandemic times.
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