Atenco

This Thursday and Friday we went to Atenco, a place of resistance in the face of brutal government actions, of love for the land and compadres. It happens to be located near Mexico City, but it remains semi-rural ejido land.

Basically the government wanted to build an airport right over their fields, houses, even their cemetary, while negociations about water and schools were already underway. They were accused of kidnapping public officials, a charge that many in the town say was false. Protesters took to the street with machetes shouting Tierra Si, Aviones No! The protesters avoided violence except in self defence, and even then their weaponry was limited to machetes. The government decided to put their airport elsewhere.

In addition to attracting visitors from other resistance movements (including Subcomandante Marcos and other neo-Zapatistas) Atenco began to help other nearby towns. In a particular case they were trying to help flower vendors in another town who stood in resistance to a Wal Mart being built over their flower market. To make a long story short the state police came in, possibly with some national military dressed as State Police, and led a campaign of arrests, rape, and in one case literally beating people to death. Some of the people in prison from that time still have yet to be released.

Touring Atenco, I was amazed by how the people could still remain smiling, and determined (right now freeing prisoners is the main concern) after all that happened. They no longer vote in elections, but to me they seemed more engaged than anyone I had met in the U.S.

Barack Obama was in Mexico City at the same time, and we saw his heiliocopter passing. What struck me here was that, unlike elsewhere in Mexico, here I actually found cynicism about Obama, rather than indifference, or (rarely) hope, as I've found elsewhere. They considered him to be the same as Bush, which to them made him at least something of an enemy. Like me, they were concerned about the troops in Juarez, although theirs was in some ways the opposite of my concern. While I worried that the army would encounter hatred, violence, and endless war (another Columbia, or another Iraq) they were worried that it would be another Puerto Rico! It's not too surprising to hear that kind of sentiment in what history has taught me is the Polland of the Americas. Yet no one else seems to have any problem with the foreign troops. It could be their own experience has made them distrust armies, while in Cuernavaca, one still finds tanks patrolling Holy Week processions.

I worry about writing entries like this. I worry that I will be blacklisted here in Mexico, or that dissidents will get unwanted exposure. For that reason I did not give names.

Don´t Panic!

I was talking to my friend Goose (Josiah Guzik) today. He told me that I should only write about one conversation or event per day. Or at the very least keep things simple. I´ll try to do this blog daily with that style. Is that alright with everyone?

Okay, so some of this will make more sense when I do more back-dating. The embassy talk clarified much of what follows. My journal and notes can help me with back-dating.

But I assume people want to keep hearing from me especially with events in Juarez being what they are right now, never mind that I´m not in Juarez! Oh, and I´d go off on a long diatribe against wrong policies there, but I´m just a Gringo Idioto! For now I´ll say that Mexico´s problems, especially along the boarder, are at least partly the U.S.´s problems.

Several conversations today. I´ll leave Betty Ramos aside for now, even though she came again today (see below for her theories).

The big news is that last night some students were held up. I would say ¨mugged¨ but that implies physical harm rather than just taking the money and running. Funny this is the first time anything like this has happened. (I´ll try to connect to classmates blogs in the future to fill in narrative gaps). Also, interestingly enough, it corresponded with analyzing a newspaper article in my Spanish workbook about the rise in use of burglar alarms and security guards in El Salvador´s capital (the article was not current).

Rosalva (my teacher) and I had a long discussion in Spanish about gun control in the U.S., even though we had just barely gotten through talking about a previous ¨Minivacas¨article which talked about dog-sized cows that required less land. We also touched on the many ways of indicating cause and effect in Spanish and their connotations.

Theoretically there are even stricter gun laws here in Morelos than in the U.S. even if they are not followed. Some police are corrupt here, and they may have been involved. But we have support of local businesses on our street and the local Catholic church. I learned some of this at a meeting we had as a group.

Also we have a new security guard to join our old one. We also have a new emergency cell phone system. So please, don´t panic!