Blog #5: The Underground: FPR, APPO, Zapatistas, (... and my Camera)

‘The Underground’:

FPR, APPO, Zapatistas, (... and my camera).

 

            On December 26^th, there was a pristine nature of the Zócalo, with the façade of the cathedral, and adjacent buildings unblemished. On December 30^th that changed. I see symbols, hammers and sickles, superimposed to form one of history’s most poignant emblems of socialism. The symbols identify the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them together symbolizes the unity between industrial and agricultural workers. However, to see the “Bolshevik Revolution” in Oaxaca was incredibly outstanding, thousands of miles away and several continents removed from Russia, and there is an incredibly political furor. I tell myself I am witnessing a conflict of ideals, that is not only a vestige of political progression in this area, and seditious in its nature; I find myself extraordinarily fascinated of its clandestine persona. The FPR are the letters that share the space of the wall, along with several phrases expressing a political voice. “A un año exigimos justicia y presentacion con vida”, “¡ Presentacion con Vida ! Lauro Juarez!”.

            It has come from my understanding that rebelliousness in Oaxaca is as definitive a characteristic of this city, as are the limegreen stone that comprises the colonial framework of its neighborhoods. In 2006, Federal Preventative Police (PFP) and the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), came to a head in what once began as a protest of teachers for a wage increase. Since then the government repression within the state of Oaxaca has become intolerable. Activists such as Gustavo Esteva, have wrote on the social, and human rights conditions of Oaxaca and of its indigenous communities, in his writing or “crónica” wrote that “…in Mexico, political power is fading because an abusive and ultimately self-destructive political class has so misused people’s trust that they have withdrawn it.” In political power, Esteva is referring to the PRI.

            “Fuck or be fucked”. Professor Mark Overmyer-Velasquez, showed the group an interesting interpretation of Mexican politics directed in a satirical cinematic style, critical of the PRI and history of corruption in Mexican bureaucracy. In Ley de Herodes, the satire is evident throughout the film. The car is an antique Packard, which I have read to be the traditional status car of Mexican politicians during the thirties and forties. The name of the village, “De Los Aguados”, means thin, watered down, melted. The only educated man is the local doctor, who is a member of the PAN (Partido de Acción Nacional), which now governs much of northern Mexico and controls the presidency. There are other variants of satire, but the overwhelming message that is being conveyed through the use of film, is that any country, is susceptible to the lunacy that is better known as the Mexican government. The phrase, “power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely” summarizes this sentiment.

            In Mexico, New Year Eve is not a holiday that everyone venture to the zócalo ala Times Square in New York City, rather it is a moment of collectivist thought, a treasured pastime shared with family and those close to you. On New Years Eve, I spent my night conversing with “Alex”, a Mexican from Distrito Federal, about Mexican politics, corruption, and his parallel likeness to Ché. . He went to medical school in Germany, and returned to Mexico to become more involved in radical politics, he referred to wanting to be a son of a revolution: the symmetry is stunning. From our walk starting at calle Garcia Vigíl, through calle Independencia, and returning to the zócalo, we covered the political commentary and history of Mexico. I am more fluent on the radical political stance of the 70-year clout of the PRI, than most textbooks: Interesting but tiresome. Be as it may, the unstable political landscape came to me as striking despite the quaint politeness that you see on the surface. Gerardo Rénique characterized the state of Oaxaca as the following, “…the movement in Oaxaca, although part of a broader Latin American trend, is at the same time the product of Oaxaca’s own multiple subaltern traditions and cultures of resistance, galvanized by recent historical of the ousting of three governors (1947, 1952, 1974), and of the mobilizations, repressions, victories and defeats experienced by the oppositional popular movements…” (pg.5). 

The resemblance of Oaxaca’s underground movement and that of our modern civil rights groups and political groups in the United States is striking. However, the government in Mexico is repressive despite its 21^st century, industrialized appearance. It is my hope that Oaxaca’s progressive movement can serve as a catalyst under the new leadership of Mexico, and not remain ruled in the cliché fashioned by the Ley de Herodes.

- Miguel Ramirez Jr.