Update
July 13, 2016
We’ve just
had a lovely visit from two delightful old friends, Max (a former RI colleague
and now professor in Boston) and his mother Carmen (who lives in one of the
suburbs of Mexico City). 1600 meters is about Linda’s altitude limit for visits
of any extended period, and their home in Cuajimalpa is way higher than that,
so we had to miss Carmen’s birthday party. But they offered to schedule a
coda
here in Oaxaca.
We picked them up at the airport on
Sunday afternoon, despite the announced blockade, and had a scrumptious dinner
in the shaded patio of one of our favorite seafood restaurants, Marco Polo. We
spent the rest of their too-short visit in the Etla Valley: the art center of
San Agustín, some unexcavated ruins at Señor de la Peña, ending with a pigout
dinner at the Santa Martha Buffet, with its 100+ choices of Oaxaca’s notable
signature dishes, and a play area for kids including a slide, a trampoline, and
a genuine DC3 airplane. What’s not to like? The highlight, of course, were two
delicious breakfasts at the San Pablo Mercadito, where Lupe and doña Irene, as
usual, treated us like family and fed us as if we were starving.
Both days Linda and Carmen held up
well for the mid day activities (in both cases beyond their current general
expenditures of effort), and we all enjoyed the late afternoon siestas and
conversations. We didn’t go in to Oaxaca city even once, despite the relative
unclogged-ness of the highways on the city side of the blockades.
This morning David took them back
to the airport at the usual 0-dark-30 hour, and returned to Casa DaviLinda mid
morning to find that Lauro, the gardener, and Linda had harvested 6 different
little squashes and 3 tomatoes.
Well, has been happening
in the Oaxaca protest world?
The siege continues, with the dissident union occupying the
Zócalo and adjoining streets, and blockading the three main entrance routes to
the city. Their former demands remain intact (Abrogate the reform laws; leave control
of education and its budgets in the hands of the union; release the protestors
from any penalty or threat of penalty for not meeting classes these many
months, refusing to take the validation exams, in some cases destroying public
property, and mistreating as traitors by beating or shaving the heads of
professors who have continued to meet their classes.)
Sección 22 has also added several broad social goals to
their demands, highlighting class conflict and trying to make their movement
the precursor of a broad social revolution by pitting the downtrodden,
poverty-stricken, powerless, indigenous and mestizo proletariat against the
autocratic, coercive, violent, government, industrialists, and international
corporations. Some truth, probably, on both sides. Curiously, they have NOT been
targeting the United States as prime aggression. This broadening of goals seems
to have been a very successful tactic, for it has garnered support from other
unions, from student groups (UABJO, Oaxaca’s state university has been
periodically closed by the sympathy protests of students and some professors),
from the mayors of many rural villages (90 are staging a caravan-march to
Mexico City later this week), and as best we can tell, much of the foreign
press.
From here at home (access to international editorials via
internet, NPR) it seems like much of the international press’s coverage of the
struggle is un-nuanced solidarity with the protestors, without giving even a
passing nod to arguments on the other side; not recognizing that it was the
Mexican congress, not the president, that passed the education reform law (by a
very large majority); not mentioning the effects of the sustained interruption
of yet another school year; or the most egregious excesses of the dissident
union; or the enormous economic destruction (and in many cases physical
destruction) that Sección 22’s tactics have wrecked on the State of Oaxaca.
A marginal but enormous sore point is that the conflicting
descriptions of the events that caused the 8 deaths of protestors at Nochixtlán
remain unresolved, with each of the sides blaming the others. Around here most
seem to believe the government is to blame (but which? – Federal, state,
local?), since the deaths were from automatic weapon fire. But: was it policy?
Rogue policemen? Provocateurs set by …??
Late last week the national teachers’ union published a
manifesto in most national papers, saying that they are willing to negotiate within the context of the reform laws as
long as 10 specific areas of concern are addressed, and the government’s department
of education has agreed. The manifesto was signed by the presidents of almost
all of the local Sections in each of the Mexican states, some 80 signatures in
all. Notable absences: Oaxaca and Chiapas. The union Secciones in those two states have repudiated the action of the
National Union, and have vowed to fight to the end, because, citing this
morning’s communiqué, “ya
no se trata sólo de una lucha magisterial, es un movimiento social en contra de
las prácticas que afectan a los pueblos” (this is no longer
a teachers’ fight, it is a social movement directed against the practices that
affect the people).
The public outcry against the chaos seems to be gaining momentum,
at least on the editorial pages. The Jeremiahs blame the union for its thuggish
tactics, the economic havoc it has caused, and the effect on the state’s
youngsters; and likewise the government, for not having effectively put a stop
to it. Both of those themes played out in several screeds this morning in the
paper and on the web news, since yesterday the masked “brigada de cazadores de funcionarios” (the bureaucrat hunter
brigade) of the union—their term!—, crashed a meeting in a hotel of twenty non-dissident
union leaders with government representatives, dragged the “traitors” outside,
manhandled them, pelted them with eggs, and stole their phones and computers;
while the police were nowhere to be seen.
The Guelaguetza dance, artisanry, and folklore will be going
on as scheduled. The union will try to disrupt it. Hotel reservations are less
than 50% of normal, but all the main-stage Guelaguetza tickets have been sold.
Come on down anyway: every village in the valley is having
its own local mini-Guelaguetza. Tlacolula’s and Tlapazola’s will feature red
pottery; Coyotepec’s, black pottery; Teotitlán del Valle’s will feature rugs
and their spectacular dances with feathered headdresses. And then there are the
foodie Guelaguetzas: Cuajimoloyas’s will offer wild mushrooms, San Sebastián
Tutla does something with chicken livers, Huajuapan dishes out pozole, and
Reyes Etla their delicious white cheese.
And how does the conflict affect the lives of David and
Linda?
Not significantly, though the siege is annoying. So far we manage to get into the city and back home with
reasonable ease and only some delay. Even the bloqueo at Hacienda Blanca has been letting passenger cars through,
just stopping trucks, focusing on those of the international purveyors of junk
food! The apparent goal is to make people “stop eating junk food, to improve
their health, and against the transnational corporations like Coca Cola, Bimbo,
and Sabritas, which benefit from exploiting the people” (as per a statement by
Sección 22 this morning). Sección 22 has stopped calling them blockades; now
they are filtros (filters). We went
to Home Depot to try to find a backup generator for Linda’s oxygen
concentrator, but they are out of them, and they haven’t received any shipments
of equipment in weeks. We went around the block to Sam’s Club, but found that
they were that day’s hostage-of-the-day (rehén
de turno), with a picket line outside their closed doors. Though some food
prices have risen in the stores, we are finding what we need at prices we can
manage. Our salad garden is currently producing chard, lettuce, and squash,
with peas and beans on the way; many of the weeds growing in the rest of the
property are edible and, as we are learning from the two men who help us with
the gardens, delicious. None of the neighbors seem to have salad gardens. They
wonder why we are not raising chickens.
David & Linda
