Social Action--There and Here



One of the younger Fulbright-Garcia Robles fellows lamented, as he posted an update about Occupy Wall Street, "Why am I not there?".  It's a strange thing to watch what's going on, and with the technology of live streaming video, we were able to do just that last weekend when hundreds of people were arrested/detained/whatever on the Brooklyn Bridge.  As I told my younger friend, this is the first time a movement like this has sprung up in the US in my adult lifetime and I have hopes that it really amounts to something.




This grafiti refers to the casualties in Pres. Felipe
Calderon's war on narco traffickers--50,000
deaths and counting, it says.



Meanwhile, back in Mexico, there's social action worth mentioning, too.  One current movement is called "Moviemento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad" (movement for peace with justice and dignity).  This is a movement established by Javier Sicilia, a poet whose son was murdered earlier this year in narco trafficking related violence.  The movement recently held "Caravan por la Paz," which was a road trip of some 630 people in 14 buses and seven cars, for 10 days, from Mexico City through central and southern Mexico.  With approximately two stops per day, the group marched and held demonstrations in a number of cities, towns and villages that have been savaged by violence.  In some of the locations, the violence has been at the hands of narco trafficking; in others, the conflict is more longstanding, based in oppression of indigenous people, and at the hands of the state or entities sponsored by the state.  Part of the process was to hear the experiences of people in the various locations.  One of the Fulbrighters whose research is related to state response to violence experiences accompanied the delegation.  Here's a link to more information:  http://movimientoporlapaz.mx/.  It sounds like it was very interesting and moving.  (The website is in Spanish but has plenty of pictures.)

What I really wanted to write about this time, though, takes us back to 1968.  The Olympics were to be in Mexico City--a first for a developing country.  At the same time, there was a very active student movement that was seeking more support for education, more freedom, and more democracy.  The students had had large demonstrations in the Zocolo, but the government was unwilling to budge an inch.  Finally, on October 2, 1968, another demonstration was planned in another location in the city--the Plaza de Tres Culturas (plaze of three cultures, which has Aztec ruins, structures from the Spanish colonial period as well as modern Mexican; photo left).  The crowd gathered was reportedly smaller than those earlier in the summer, but still numbered 1000-2000.  Various regiments of the army arrived and surrounded the plaza, and a massacre occurred with a yet-unknown but large number of deaths.  After that, the student movement (what was left of it) went into hiding.  (Here is a link to a very moving NPR story about the massacre:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97546687.  The story is in English, with some Spanish speakers translated.)  It's chilling listening to accounts of what happened and the almost total secrecy that has existed since 1968 (I was in the third or fourth grade, to give you an idea of the scale of time here).  Sure, we had a national guard shooting during a protest in the late '60s (or early '70s?) in the U.S.--in Ohio, even.  Four students were killed and a number of others were injured.  It was definitely a shock and awful, but here possibly more than 1000 people died or were "disappeared".  This effectively ended the student movement.  Most of the Olympians had no idea it had happened because it was immediately covered up.  Reportedly, this affected Mexico for many years.

"Don't pardon and don't forget"



October 2 is remembered here through several different events.  I had learned of a demonstration in the Zocolo, from a student group at the school of social work.  Doug and I were planning to visit a different historical site, but in figuring out how to get there, we realized that it was very near La Plaza de las tres Culturas, so we decided to head there instead.  This was early afternoon and we were thinking that probably anything that had been happening at Plaza de las tres Culturas would be over.  However, the large police presence at the Metro station indicated otherwise. 

Groups of (mostly) young people were in formation for a parade, with banners for various (mostly leftist) political parties, facemasks, and flags.  We learned that the theme of the demonstration was opposing increased militarization of the country and campuses.  We decided to observe for a while--Doug was taking pictures we were both trying to figure out what some of the banners meant.  The march started moving and we moved alongside.  We were pretty near the end of the marchers when they started moving.  At first, the police presence was minimal, with some vehicles following the marchers and a few officers on foot here and there.  However, the closer we got to the Zocolo, the more police there were, and the more heavily fortified. 

Five or six blocks from the Zocolo, the march turned down one of the narrow streets in the main historical center (Cinco de Mayo).  Large, metal walls had been put up to protect the buildings, which also made the street several feet narrower.  At times, we could walk behind the police (like in the photo to the left here), but other times there wasn't room for that and we had to walk in front of the police who were dressed in riot gear.  Some of them had large fire extinguishers.  Note that we were not participants in the march, but rather observers accompanying the marchers (it's illegal for foreign nationals to participate in protests).  Because we have been to Mexico a number of times and attended large, public events, this is not the first time we have seen a large police presence in riot gear, so I'm less freaked out about it than I would be otherwise (the first time was at an event that translates as the Night of the Radishes, a festival in which groups compete for prizes with scenes constructed from large, carved radishes--some of which are up to two feet in length.  That time, the riot police were shoulder to shoulder around the radish displays.)  However, this was the first time that we have been more or less inside a protest march.


This kid is painting something akin to "F the police".
Note the gringa in the pink tee shirt and the men walking
 in the opposite direction.

The marchers were well-behaved and the police were, as well.  I had interacted with several of them--one who moved over to make room for me to get up on a curb alongside where the marchers were entering a long underpass under several crossing streets (I was not about to accompany them through a tunnel!  Way too paranoid for that.).  As I said, the marchers, overall, were well-behaved, but there were a few people along who were spray-painting grafiti as they went, as the photo to the left illustrates.  This was one of a series of tags and I was walking ahead, trying to get further away from the tagger. Very shortly after this picture was taken, the tagger ran ahead of me, and the two men walking toward us grabbed him.  They were police in civilian garb.  Doug and I ran to the other side of the street (which was also lined with police in riot gear.  The marchers, seeing that someone was being detained, turned on the police and began yelling insults at the police (one of which was "Pitufos!", which is the name for the Smurfs in Mexico,  others were, of course, more profane).  The police on that side of the street closed ranks and raised the riot shields; reinforcements also ran to that side.

We had come a long way with the marchers, but at this point, we wanted to leave.  The first street we tried to turn down was blocked by officers who would not let us through, but a block later we were allowed to exit Cinco de Mayo down another side street.  Highly adrenalized, we figured out where we were and made our way to the nearest Metro station that was not in the direction of the marchers.

I think the Mexican flag with crosses in the center represents
people who have died, such as the protesters of 1968

The incident with the tagger apparently was an isolated one as the newspaper the next day reported a peaceful march (and the newspaper I read is one that would have reported widespread conflicts between the marchers and police).

 The banner below is from the school of social work at the university with which I'm affiliated.  I think the one further below is from another social work program outside of Mexico City.  As I understand it, my school is the only one in Mexico City.  It has a LARGE undergraduate program and a smallish master's program.  I plan to write about social work education in a later post. 
  



"Stop the militarization of academia and the country"
Escuela Nacional de Trabaho Social
"National School of Social Work"
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
National Autonomous University of Mexico

"If you want security, don't ask the police, demand education"



"Social Work--We are preparing to improve the dignity of the people"