Last Thursday turned out to be a particularly good day to work from home. Just after lunch, following some very loud thunder, we heard what sounded like actual explosions. After waves of them for almost an hour, Eric found tweets indicating it was campus protests. Naturally, we headed out to investigate. We walked 4 blocks to the edge of campus, and found my regular commute blocked off with riot police (Esmad, the "Moblle Anti-Disturbances Squadron") lined up along the street side of the campus fence, and protesters hiding out on the other side of the fence on campus. The charade consisted of protesters launching "papas bombas" (potato bombs), also described in the newspaper as "artesenal explosive artifacts" at Esmad, and Esmad responding with water cannons and tear gas. We watched with a group of students (campus had been evacuated) until the air turned sour and our eyes started burning. It was my first time experiencing tear gas - not pleasant!
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| Photo from El Pais with smoking Papas bombas |
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| Esmad Tanquete driving by our corner |
I had been told to expect "disturbios" this fall, as something like this typically occurs a few times a year. The national government is in the process of reforming the main law that governs university education (la ley 30) to allow private investment in public universities, for-profit universities, and top-down accreditation procedures that significantly undermine universities' autonomy. Student activists are mobilizing around these issues via conventional organizing and peaceful protests. However, noone seems very clear what this particular protest by the radical wing or "los encaupchados" (the hooded) was about.
All seems back to normal now, and I'm feeling glad this didn't result in my own class getting cancelled, since I'm only teaching once per week. Last week we had a couple power outages during class, but that all seems minor now!
