women , the oppressed , the unemployed , the marginalised and the impoverished middle classes — who face racism , machismo and class prejudice on a daily basis — from the public space . Responsibility for the attacks has been claimed by the Mapuche , the Chapanecos and the Misak community , and also by students , professors and intellectuals , who seek to assert that other stories , other memories , other narratives are necessary in order to break the paradigm of civilisation versus barbarism . Attacking those figures that have , for centuries , embodied the yoke of the elites or the victory of the invaders over the indigenous population is , in this sense , the expression of a cultural dispute , a dissent that challenges the foundations of domination . It establishes a path to be followed , on the ruins of that which has been destroyed , as a form of reparation and cultural recreation . Such actions aim to reveal the heterogeneity and complexity of Latin American cultures and societies . In the face of the crisis in modern rationality , and the supposed cultural homogeneity of the nation , social movements demand not only the right to life , but also the right to health , education , a decent home , food security and the right to memory .
Statues were erected in Latin American public space as a way of showing reverence to progress , and to forge the image of power and strength of countries that were headed towards modernisation , for the purpose of projecting international relations with the hegemonic capitalist centres , particularly those in Europe . The monuments were also erected to affirm that those who were absent from the public space – the native peoples , black people and the poor – were unwanted , for they represented backwardness , and to affirm that the great mass of black people , natives and poor people hindered the progress of Latin America in the developed world . The statues were a way of colonising public space through symbols of power .
Those statues were destroyed in order to expropriate the symbols of power , to decolonise public space , to assert that there are other memories , other forms of narrating the past . They were toppled so as to show that another form of development is possible , that neoliberalism and the entry into the globalised world have only inflicted more suffering on the forgotten peoples , and that the countries that revere heroes from the colonial past and from the newly independent nations continue to be profoundly dependent , both economically and culturally , and still remain socially unequal .
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5 . The monument to Manuel Baquedano ( a Chilean military officer and politician who became the interim president of the country in 1891 , and was a commander at the War of the Pacific ), erected in Italy Square , was repeatedly defaced , until it was removed by the government . Image : Baquedano monument restoration . 03 / 09 / 2021 . ( Wikimedia Commons ) overview
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