#YoSoy132's Manifest to the people of Mexico,
When we arrived there was the world, and we were already a nation in hunger and centuries of oppression. We were a gathering of unrest, we were electoral frauds with no revolution, we were Chiapas and 500 years with no name raising their arms, we were Aguas Blancas and the people lying in the ground, massacred, we were crisis and the debt of others, we were strikes, flattened barricades, Atenco and Oaxaca, raped and murdered women, victims of acts of repression. We were the work of slaves, migrant families, bodies hanging from bridges, martyrs (victims) of state-driven terrorism, exchange currency for a political campaign, murder as free market.
We were not sought after but were the unavoidable consequence of a past and present plagued by imposed certainties.
We are not who we have been. We are the result of death and indignation.
We assume the dignity of the defamed and his/her struggle as our own. We stated we were not just a number and that our numbers would never again be quiet servants of polls and statistics.
We said that #YoSoy132 is to stand up against the offence and refuse to bow our heads down. It is refusing to accept the simulation that is presented to us as real.
#YoSoy132 is a student and social movement, anti-parties, pacific, autonomous, anti-neoliberal, independent from parties, candidates and organisations that respond to an electoral program. A democratic movement where decision making emanates from local and general assemblies. A movement that has transcended beyond the electoral juncture and will continue to organise itself and fight for a deep transformation of Mexico, as a counterweight to any political decision that violates the rights and interest of our people.
We have begun to walk a path were we have crashed with monuments which for us are walls or borders. We are faced by the wall of an economic system that presents itself as unavoidable, as an imposed absolute to our lives. Its building blocks are the misery and poverty of over half of all Mexicans and the obscene wealth of a few. Were the 10 wealthiest in the country gather the equivalent of the income of the 40 million in poverty. An abandoned countryside were only misery grows and which only produces migrants. The complete absence of opportunities that drives those who have less to join the ranks of organised crime. The sale of collective heritage for the profit of a small group, the approval of massive infrastructure projects above the environmental and communal rights of the people. On top of this wall, the powers that be display, without a hint of shame and to curb our aspirations, their opulence, the promise of progress, the dream of something that could be ours but that always remains theirs.
The wall of disinformation, where a wealthy minority controls public opinion, and where truth is reduced to a mere commodity, composed of polls and marketing spots, in empty soap opera characters, in a cynical and sad cartoon of our reality. It is in this wall where they project our freedom of choice, as if we had any real power to choose, as if there was any choice to be made and all was not decided beforehand by the top investor.
The wall that protects companies that poison our food and make our children sick, which turn health into a luxury item for the profit of foreign pharmaceutical labs, which abandons the sick and the needy, the pregnant woman, the amputee, the disabled, the dying, the newborn and the elderly woman in order to feed the anonymous greed of the big profiteers.
We saw that big wall raised to put a stop to a nation with a natural disposition to fight. A nation which has been systematically divided and isolated. We now have a growing hope, forced to shout and scream in the vacuum of emptiness. From the glorious days of the División del Norte and the Ejercito Libertador del Sur, up to the repeated requests for justice of the mothers whose daughters were murdered in Ciudad Juárez and the State of Mexico. From the great student movements of the '29, their brothers of '68, '77 and '99. A nation whose actions and struggles used to be fossilised and displayed in museums. Their roots and reasons left aside so no one knows, asks or questions what they were all about.
Generations of Mexicans with legitimate demands, whose only dream is that of building a free and proud nation. Without inequality raising against every individual's right to exist. Demands that have been vilely ignored in a continuous ransacking frenzy of the powers that aim to take control of Mexican National resources. These powers push for their will to become ours.
12 years ago, a large part of our country gave their dreams to a man. This man, committed the worse of crimes against the nation: to ignore and step on the people's hope. He, them, a system that believes we are not capable of looking above the walled city that they have tried to impose to us.
We walk a few steps and we crash into this cold structure. It is the somber ignorance, where those who are lucky enough to attend a school are being trained to work at a 'maquiladora'. Where public education is the education delivered by soap operas, where education's goal is not knowledge transfer but the steady supply of cheap labour for transnational corporations. This education, erected as a gift of educational 'modernity' and the horrible social darwinian concept that only the fittest should be allowed to survive. Standardised tests, the teacher/lecturer turned into an underpaid labour worker that serves as a model of self improvement.
And after this, if we still have faces and hands, a military control post hinders our right to roam freely in our country. Walls of steel and concrete, the walls made out of stones and bullets. The walls where your sister was killed, where some were forcefully disappeared. The walls of 'collateral damages' which blur the faces, the walls of fear and of hanging severed heads, of impotence, where dead children are presented as drug cartel members and leaders. The walls where there is no voice left to protest and less for desertion. The wall of the 'right strategy' where you have been massacred so that you are certain of the crime and the horror.
We have walked, crashed against these walls and have looked for a way out. But when we look at these walls in their composition, we find a building. This building is a structure that supports a society designed for the benefit of a precious few. Where above everything else it is business as usual and where below that layer we are all being crushed. A dead building, with youth-looking make up. Where the doors have squeaky hinges. We do not want old buildings! We don't want structures that are falling apart due to their corruption! We do not want to be crushed! Our youth wants virgin buildings.
We have taken the path of struggle and have decided to walk forward and never to turn back. Our fists shall bring their walls down. Our shouts will resonate in their deaf ears and shake the foundations of their structures. We, who have taken the streets, through conscientisation, politisation and organisation of the people. With the power of their cohesion and unity, we will fight, we will fight to abolish their pillars. Amongst all of us, we will build a true democracy in México and sculpt our own future. This is the program and the fight that we propose:
- Democratisation and transformation of mass communication media, information and diffusion. We consider that only with socialisation of mass media and a model for public media, we will be able to reach a true media opening that guarantees the right of information and freedom of expression.
- Change of the education, scientific and technological models. We will fight for a truly free, scientific, secular, multicultural, humanistic, popular, critical, reflexive and free education that has the highest academic level and that is guaranteed by the State as a constitutional right, obligation and responsibility.
- Change to the neoliberal economic system. Experience and history support our claim that the free market is not the panacea to solve all social issues, It is clear that both government and society at large must play a vital role to solve the economic problems that the country is going through. For this reason, we will fight for a humane and fair economy which is autonomous, self sustainable and peaceful.
- Change to the national security model. In order to bring peace back, we need the withdrawal of armed forces that have taken the tasks of public security. It is equally important to cease the criminalisation, repression and provocation against social movements, protests and the population at large. We demand the solving of the several murders that take place everyday in our country. For example, the urder of the social fighter Carlos Sinuhé Cuevas and we demand a stop to the Women killings! and Hate crimes! In parallel we validate the autonomous processes for communal safety and the organisation against massive infrastructure projects that are a threat against environmental or communal rights.
- Political transformation and establishment of links with social movements. In order to enforce and promote participative democracy in the decision making processes. The construction of public policies and support to autonomous and self-ruling projects. We propose the creation and reinforcement of assemblies at the district, municipality, communal, local and neighbourhood levels. All of this in the interest of establishing a popular and citizen-driven power that implements methodologies and mechanisms to bring solutions to the needs of all Mexicans. We embrace the voices of existing social movements and organisations, linking with them in solidarity and in the search of alliances that part from the respect of their autonomy. We want to construct a horizontal relationship with these organisations and to recognise each other side by side, in humility as one more of so many social forces that represent the social unrest present in México.
- Health. We will fight for the thorough fulfilment of the state's responsibility to provide health care as a basic rights to all Mexicans. This right is consecrated in the 4th article of the Mexican Constitution and ratified by the 14th Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations. We oppose the neoliberal health scheme adopted by the Mexican state over the last few decades and we pronounce ourselves for a multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach to the health sector in México.
If we want a true democracy, the democratisation of mass media is unavoidable. Just like all of the other defects of our poor democracy, the manipulation and concentration of information is a shameful inheritance of the old regime and the so-called 'change'.
Throughout most of the 20th Century, the PRI party engulfed unions, companies and social movements. Corrupting their leaders and incorporating these institutions into their system of favour-trading. During the PRI's several regimes, corporations would collaborate with the federal government in order to receive economic and political privileges. This allowed the PRI to grow their power over all strands of the Mexican political, economical and social life. Control of information distribution and mass media was a fundamental element to control opposing political and social movements.
In a clear partnership relationship, Televisa-PRI both have more than 60 years of existence. Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, grandfather of Televisa's current president, founded in 1951 the Channel 2 in Mexico's open television, just six years after the establishment of the PRI party. Azcárraga Vidaurreta was able to secure the acquisition of channels 2, 4 and 5 under the banner of a single media company thanks to the PRI-driven government at the time. Telesistema Mexicano, this established the first tv-monopoly of the time. A media that published only the information that the PRI party regarded convenient. Thus distorting any information and ignoring the ever growing social movements that questioned government policies.
The most shameless manipulation took place in the year of 1968. In that tragic year the student movement was attacked, minimised, censored by the TV monopoly that in that year alone, produced 28 soap operas. Amongst these, the cynically titled ¨Nation without hope¨…
The day of the Tlatelolco massacre, on October the 2nd 1968, Jacobo Zabludowski (The top national news anchor at the time) announced as the top story of the day that: "It's been a sunny day"…
Who? Whom?… No one. The next day, no one……
The square was swept and clean in the morning…
Local newspapers would publish their weather section as the main news for the day…
On TV and radio, cinema, there was no change to the regular programming, no special announcement, not a minute of silence for the fallen during the banquet
(Oh yes! their banquet carried on…)
One of the darkest pages in the world's history of communication had taken place. With this broadcast, the human right to information had been violated and this action evidenced the alliance between the Azcárraga family and the oligarchic powers in Mexico. Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (President of Mexico at the time), was desperate to blind the people's conception of their reality and situation. He approved the creation of two new channels. Channels 8 and 13.
In 1972, as an initiative of then-president Luis Echeverría, channels 2, 4, 5 and 8 were gathered under the brand of 'Televisa', whose direction was assigned to Azcárraga Vidaurreta's son. Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, AKA 'The tiger', immediately became the self-proclaimed "Soldier of the PRI party and of the president". Milmo, would go on to state that he produced TV content for 'fuck-ups' because México was a country of 'fuck-ups' who would never go beyond that condition and social status.
In 1993, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, gave Ricardo Salinas Pliego the Imevisión TV network, which ran channels 7 and 13. During 2002, Salinas Pliego, forcefully took Canal 40's premises. An episode that would be known in the Mexican catalogue of infamy as the 'Chiquihuitazo'. The then president of México, Vicente Fox, after being questioned about the involvement and responsibility of the federal government in these actions, pronounced his now infamous phrase: "(Y yo por qué) What do I have to do with this?" or "Why me?". Fox, who had founded the transition to the so-called ´Mexican democracy´ after decades of the PRI party's rule, was now kneeling to the national de-facto powers, whose visible faces are the mass media conglomerates. ¨Why me¨ asked the 'brave' candidate that had promised to "kick the PRI party out of the presidential house". "Why me" said the leader of the useful vote and the big promises.
Briefly before his presidential period came to an end in 2006, Fox anticipated the payment for a favour he received from the TV-driven duo-poly. After a 7 minute discussion, he approved what is now known as the "Televisa law". This law allows the media companies to make use of the radio-electric broadcast spectrum without any charge or regulation. Thus, stealing from the Mexican people the collective profit from this resource which belongs to all mexicans according to the constitution.
Two months after this law passed, the media duopoly backed the brutal repression and oppression suffered by the dwellers in San Salvador Atenco. A machination of the federal government in coordination with the then-governor of the Sate of Mexico EnriquePeña Nieto, where our mate Alexis Benhumea was viciously murdered. All information regarding the rapes, murders, attacks and violations of international human rights were hidden by the Mexican mainstream media.
The de-facto powers concentrate their influence around these media companies. Out of the ten richest men in México, 5 sit at the executive board of the TV companies. Ricardo Salinas Pliego is the second wealthiest man in México. His riches doubled just in 2011. The Salinas group gathers the Elektra, Salinas y Rocha, Banco Azteca, TV Azteca, italika, amongst others…
Pedro Aspe, who was the Mexican Secretary of State during Carlos Salinas' presidency officially stated that poverty in México was a "Brilliant Myth". He met with the administrative council of Televisa along four of the 10 richest men in México. Whose interests stretch to all sectors of the national economy.
Alberto Baillères, the third richest man in México. He is the owner of Palacio de Hierro, of Peñoles, the country's second largest mining company and he is a main shareholder of FEMSA, which controls all activities of Oxxo, chain stores, the 'Cuauhtémoc-moctezuma' brewery and Coca-Cola México.
Germán Larrea, Mexico's fourth richest man, is the owner of the Cananea and Pasta de Conchos mines. In 2006, due to lack of appropriate security measures, an explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine, resulted in the death of 65 workers. Out of whom, and after 6 years of the tragedy, only two bodies have been recovered.
Roberto Hernandez, Televisa's second share holder is the ninth richest man in México. This person was benefitted by the privatisation of the Mexican banks during Salinas' presidency. Specially after Zedillo's banks rescue. Finally, after bringing Banamex to the verge of bankruptcy, a bank that had existed and operated successfully for over a hundred years in México, it was sold to the U.S. based group City Bank. Earning juicy profits for himself whilst avoiding taxes by conducting the sale through the Mexican world trade centre.
Emilio Azcárraga Jean, Televisa's current president who inherited relationships with the national oligarchic powers, is the sixth richest man in México. He owns football clubs and stock shares in several banks. Currently, and following on to this family's monopolyist tradition, he has partnered with his alleged competitor Tv Azteca through the cooperation agreements signed by his mobile company Iusacell.
Televisa and Tv Azteca are merely the public face and the main instrument of the massive corruption network that rules this country. They represent the de-facto powers that impose and depose governments. These are companies that produce and spread hazy, manipulated, doctored information. Thus presenting as 'public opinion' what is convenient to the political and economical regime, in order to impose governments that make possible the neoliberal projects proposed by the big national and transnational capitalists.
Since 2005, Jenaro Villamil denounced in Proceso Magazine, the media tactics to promote Enrique Peña Nieto's Image. The new embodiment of the de-facto powers and of the neoliberal economical project. The mainstream Mexican media was already plotting a process of presidential imposition which they attempt to conclude this year. This information has been confirmed by the british newspaper The Guardian when they published that a secret unit of Televisa sold a marketing strategy pack to the PRI party candidate, based on a "favourable coverage" in their main news show, their most popular entertainment programs and YouTube and Facebook accounts. The Guardian reported that they had analysed documents that evidenced and formalised the transaction between Televisa and the presidential candidate. These included a list of fees that Televisa charged Peña Nieto for the concept of building a positive image as Governor of the State of México between 2005 and 2011. This image was to be constructed through promotional videos, and an offensive tactic to attack his opponents.
Thus, during the past electoral exercise, antidemocratic practices prevailed. Practices like State violence, vote buying and threats to vote for the PRI candidate, media manipulation, propagandistic use of polls and other illegal strategies that altered the essence of the free, reasoned, critical and informed vote. These events were not reported by the media. On the contrary, mainstream media, the current president and the electoral authorities shamelessly qualified the election as "transparent, exemplary and peaceful".
This evidence demonstrates thoroughly that the imposition of Enrique Peña Nieto originated since 2005, and that companies like Televisa have played a major role in this imposition.
We warn that if the imposition is consumed, the old violent and oppressive political regime would be restored. A regime that pioneered repression against their critics, authoritarianism, generalised corruption, cover-ups, opacity in the decision making process on matters of national interest, vote buying, and several other antidemocratic practices. Enrique Peña Nieto must not be our president. Not only because he represents this dated regime and his ties and obedience to Televisa, but because he casts specific threats upon our country. The privatisation of Mexican oil resources in favour of transnational corporations, the raise in taxes, the work reform, a reform that would legalise the brutal exploitation of workers and the loss of basic work rights. Finally, the privatisation of the health sector and of workers pensions. All of these threats are promoted and backed by media conglomerates such as the one against which we now manifest.
Against this danger, we make a call to unity and organisation of all social forces in our common ground: The transformation of the current Mexican state. We acknowledge that us students can't accomplish this on our own, and thus call all social movements, civil and political organisations, and the people at large to join the democratic project of social transformation and national reconstruction through active participation, discussion, agreements, organisational activities. We call all of the above to join the actions that we are undertaking such as the ones agreed during the National Convention Against the Imposition.
People of México: We have a lot to do today! Organising ourselves is just the first step. From our cause, our indigenous community, our farm, our city square, our jungle, our beliefs, we invite you to join our manifest and action plan. Let's make it happen, from your territories, your organisations and regional history, which we aim to make ours, that we can be in contact, that we can trust each other, fight and transform this, our México.
We were silence, we were pain, we were oppression.
They tried to take everything from us, and the only thing we have lost is fear.
We will no longer be a silenced voice. We come here today with our bodies that scream: IT'S BEEN ENOUGH!!!!!
Source: #YoSoy132
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