Photo by Prometeo Lucero.
Mexico’s ongoing Yo Soy 132 movement continues to show a capacity for
creativity and joy while opening new spaces for political
participation. A case in point: On June 19, Yo Soy 132 organized a
debate among the Mexican presidential candidates, this time with the
movement’s own media, rules and questions.
Three of the four candidates took part in the debate: Josefina
Vázquez Mota of the National Action Party (PAN), Andrés Manuel López
Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and Gabriel Quadri, of
the New Alliance Party. Enrique Peña Nieto, from the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), was the only candidate not to accept the
invitation. His absence throughout the two-hour debate was reflected by
an empty chair facing the audience.
“Welcome to this historic day,” the
presenter announced at the beginning of the debate. And the truth is
that this really was an unprecedented moment in Mexico’s democratic
history. The debate marked a new form of political expression and of
public dialogue. It initiated a new way of conceiving of the media and
of communication outside of corporate rule.
The
movement broadcast the debate online through its own media — live on
YouTube through an agreement with Google — so that it could be
rebroadcast all over the world by other media, commercial or otherwise.
At the beginning of the debate, more than 90,000 people came online to
watch. According to Rodrigo Serrano, one of the organizers, “112,000
people watched the online stream.” In spite of transmission difficulties
due to the high volume of hits on YouTube, they delivered what was
promised.
Others who were unable to access the streaming version opted to
listen over the radio. The debate was also projected in public plazas
throughout the country. This was done not only at a number of locations
in Mexico City but in other cities and states, from Chihuahua to Yucatán.
At the end of the debate, the organizers gave the candidates a folder
of questions that arrived through social networks and various Yo Soy
132 assemblies. In spite of Peña Nieto’s absence, they will also send
him a folder with 15,000 questions.
In organizing this exercise, it is evident that, for Yo Soy 132,
fostering authentic democracy means engaging people in more ways and
more places: in the streets and plazas, at home or over Twitter. In
contrast to the last two “official” presidential debates, this time
issues that have been ignored by the candidates were put on the table,
such as the fulfillment of the San Andrés Accords with indigenous
peoples, and the democratization of the media and telecommunications.
The candidates present also saw the value of this exercise in
democracy. López Obrador called it a “call to conscience” and referred
to the debate as “authentic, clean, creative and independent,
contributing to the rebirth of our country.” Josefina Vázquez Mota said:
What brings us together tonight is Mexico, with the goal of building a better country, with more justice and more opportunities. I come with the certainty that you [Yo Soy 132] have sparked the light of democracy.
Gabriel Quadri added: “It is a valiant initiative, for a country that is in need of ideas, in need of vision.” The 132 Debate is now available online in its entirety, and has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
Creativity as a nonviolent organizing strategy
Yo
Soy 132 is equally creative and joyful in the streets. The movement’s
spirit was on display during its march on June 10, in which theater
groups and singers joined with the famous jarana players who
play the music of the Huasteca regions. All of this mixed with the
sounds of a mariachi group singing “Las Golondrinas” — a song always
linked to last goodbyes — in front of the Televisa Chapultepec offices
in Mexico City. The goodbye song was dedicated to the ex-governor of the
state of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, and the TV station itself.
Less joyful but also very poignant, was a group of youth
participating in a funeral march to symbolize the more than 60,000
killed during the “war on drugs” initiated by current Mexican president
Felipe Calderón.
On the night of June 13, people projected images
onto the walls of the Televisa station in Mexico City about chapters of
Mexico’s history that Televisa has distorted and misled the public on,
such as the slaughter of 45 Tzotzil in Acteal, Chiapas, in 1997, the
massacres of students in 1968 and 1971, the rape of 23 women and the
killing of two men in San Salvador Atenco in 2006, the 1988 electoral
fraud, and the 17 campesinos killed in Aguas Blancas in 1994. The
slogans chanted that night were: “Turn off the TV, turn on the truth,”
“Wake up and demands the truth peacefully,” and “Televisa does not
decide for you.”
The walls spoke, recuperating historic memory, as the viewers lit
candles or turned on items that gave off light. Three days later, the
first Yo Soy 132 concert brought together more than 50,000 people in Mexico City’s Zócalo over the course of nearly 8 hours.
Yo
Soy 132’s creativity is also reflected in the way its members interact
with the general public. In their Metro system outreach efforts in
Mexico City, movement participants have been wearing television-shaped
masks on their heads giving out paper and pencils to riders, collecting
suggestions and complaints for the political candidates, the mainstream
media and even Yo Soy 132 itself. The papers are then read on the train
car, and participants are informed that their suggestions would be used
in a traveling display and at the next anti-Peña Nieto march.
Beyond these “outreach brigades,” members of Yo Soy 132 have begun to
change the names of certain Metro stations in Mexico City. For example,
the Child Heroes station is now named “Yo Soy 132,” and the Panteones
station has a sticker with the word “full” over it — to symbolize that
the cemeteries where the dead are buried are already full.
The Yo Soy 132 art and culture group also invited people to draw
silhouettes on the floor of the Zócalo before the march last Sunday with
the goal of calling attention to the dead from the drug war.
Creative actions like these give visibility to the movement and
spread online through tweets, videos and photos. They enable people of
all ages to learn about and participate in it, thereby bringing new
energy and life to Mexican politics.
Photo by Mario Marlo.
There is less than one week left before Mexico chooses its next
president. The 132 youth have been agitating around the presidential
campaigns with a busy calendar of events and actions. They are demanding
clean and free elections in a country accustomed to electoral fraud and
a corrupt media.
Last Saturday, Yo Soy 132 held its second music festival, which
brought 80,000 people out to the Zócalo in Mexico City. The following
day, while Peña Nieto closed out his campaign at Stadium Azteca, Yo Soy
132 undertook its third wave of anti-Peña Nieto marches in Mexico City
and other parts of the country. It was a massive expression of popular
indignation. “I didn’t come for my sandwich, I came for my eggs [balls]”
was one of the slogans, alluding to the sandwiches that the PRI was
handing out in Stadium Azteca.
Camping Revolution
With four days to go before the elections, the Yo Soy 132 movement
has a physical space within Mexico City, which was announced publicly at
the end of the music festival and on all of the social networks.
Participants have camped out in front of the Monument to the Revolution,
where activities are being organized to achieve more efficient dialogue
with the public and improve teamwork. The organizers said their goal is
to act as a base of operations, organizing projects and “informative
brigades,” and to act as a media and electoral watchdog before and
during the elections. By camping publicly, they want to make visible the
work processes of the movement, ramp up their efforts towards media
transparency, and with their actions, demand a more democratic process
during the elections. There are two concrete goals: transparency in the
elections and making sure the media is telling the truth. The
encampment’s Twitter hashtag is #AcampadaRevolución, or Camping
Revolution.
For the first time, a true electoral monitoring group
has been proposed for all of Mexico and its electoral colleges to
prevent fraud. The Yo Soy 132 students ratified a national march for
democracy, to take place on June 30, which would leave from the
Tlatelolco Plaza (the site of the student massacre of ’68) to the
Televisa Chapultepec offices, and from there to the Zócalo, where the
marchers will light thousands of candles. Yet again, the movement is
poised to transform youthful anger and indignation into an explosion of
collective creativity.
Source: wagingonviolence.org
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