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Ayotzinapa, higher phase of capitalism of the 21st century

by Katu Arkonada

source Rebelion
translation Cuba - Network in Defense of Humanity

*The orphans of the tragedy of Ayotzinapa are not alone in the determined search of the beloved family members in the chaos of the garbage dumps set on fire and the lost graves with human remains.

They are accompanies by the voices of solidarity and the warm presence throughout Mexico and beyond…

*Eduardo Galeano*

Northing is pure chance. The country that had the first large revolution of the 20th century in defense of the land; the first country in Latin America that, despite the theft of ballots, the left won presidential elections in the midst of a long neo liberal night; the country that, a year later, in 1989, gave birth to a political instrument to dispute electoral power (much before than Venezuela with the Movimiento V Republica or Bolivia MAS-ISPS); the country in which the indigenous people and guerrillas rose up to shout, enough of neo liberalism and its instruments; the free trade treaties; the country that unfortunately is so close to the United States and is its de facto southern border, riding on the wave of change of an era in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The left today is going through a series of defeats in a tutored democracy in which Mexico has become. Not only the system of counting ballots “fell” that night of July 7 of 1988 but with the assumption to power of Salinas de Gortari reduced the hopes of defeating a system that, contrary to speculations, was not produced in a failed State but in a perfectly designed machinery to be placed at the service of the political and economic elites. This machinery has flaws (many far below the permanent social, environmental, or educational conflicts) that once in a while stretch as happened in 2006 when López Obrador defeated the regime of the PRIAN; but again, in any country, it would be enough for the left go rule the government. Winning the elections in Mexico demonstrated it was not enough.

In spite of some explosive demonstrations in the past few years, one of the last was #YoSoy132 developed in the private university and with the use of social networks embraced large sectors of the Mexican youths; a continuity to thread demonstrations and breach has not been possible.

But if these flaws (which the system at the moment has been unable to assume) are not broadened it tries to reorganize and reduce them. Mexico is moving towards a tutored democracy administrated in which the partial granting of sovereignty has been set down in the Pact for Mexico (also signed by the New Left controlled by the PRD), the energy reform and recent law that allows US agents to bear arms legally in Mexican soil.

Ayotzinapa and discipline through terror

This administrative democracy born in a Mexico that did not suffer, as compared to many countries in the region, the imposition of a military regime. PRI governed Mexico for most of the 20th century through an institutional dictatorships in which consensus and coercion walked hand in hand but the absence of a military dictatorship generated the impossibility of a transition, of a democratic and cultural democracy that would sweep away the previous regime.

It was during the 12 years of the Pan government (2000-2012) of Vicente Fox and, above all, Felipe Calderón that the consensus in 1968 [2] began to shatter definitively and Mexico is sunk into a crisis of legitimacy, political and security representation.

Criminalization of protests, very common during the *pax social* of the PRI suffered a turning of the screw shrouded by the excuse of war on drug trafficking and capital found no other way of developing a new era of neo liberalism than through a shock doctrine, supported by a State that guarantees impunity. Luis Hernández basing different studies of groups of Human Rights calculates

that during the past 8 years and with the pretext of a war against drug traffic, 120 000 persons were killed while 30 000 others were disappeared. From Acteal to Tlatalaya, past Atenco in Mexico a new appearance of the Plan Condor that terrorized South America in the 80s, rose its ugly head.

But that same year, 2014, that saw the massacre of 22 young people by the army in Tlatlaya, terror adopted in Ayotzinapa a higher form. The place of the turtles (according to the náhuatl language) became a place of torture in which crimes of genocide, equal to those committed by the Nazis during the holocaust.

Ayotzinapa concentrated the worst essences of a non-failed-state; police, corruption and militarism together with the Alliance of a political, local and narc classes. But the problem is like the previous ones but a conjunction of all those in the past through a thermo mix of capitalism that produces horrors such as kidnappings, torture and disappearance of 43 student teachers.

Ayotzinapa as the EZLN reminds us is a flaw in the system. Ayotzinapa presupposed an anomaly even for the daily horror to which we are accustomed in Mexico, an anomaly that should be used to boost political articulation and cohesion of a people against the political and economic elites who prefer to calmly watch how the country bleeds rather than lose some of their profits. That same people that took the streets every week and every month, but as a crowd, organized mass marches that ignored any form of organization or leaders, just thousands and thousands of people marching.

It was just the parents of the student teachers who arose as the only legitimate and catalyzing force of unrest and rage. “It was the State” represents the horizon of questions, the possibility of transforming rage into a movement organized, in the first place, to recover the Project of a nation from and for the popular classes.

And the left?

The left, at least the institution is not present and we don’t know what it is waiting for. No political party of the Mexican left had any protagonism in the protest marches one way or another, as far as we know, and in different degrees the main parties had some form of connection with the events, either by action or omission. It is significant that no political group of the Mexican left had unfurled a banner of Ayotzinapa maintaining a profile against the massacre since they don’t count on the legitimacy to represents either the parents or the people marching in the streets.

The 8th of June will be to analyzed the damages after a half term elections and it very possible that we will find a left immersed in the worst crisis of the past decades with a PRD that is not willing to disappear (in spite of the historical Project buried after the signing of the Mexican Pact, the internal elections and their implications in the events in Iguala) and a morena that takes too long to be born (surveys report 10 to 12% of voting intention without gathering up the large percentage of captive and corporate votes of the PRD although adding the more idealized left wing vote).

Elections that will win with a percentage higher than 30% for the PRI. The surveys places the “left” (Morena-PT-MC-PRD) also with a vote of about 30%. The only hopeful figure could lead to some sort of confluence for the presidential elections of 2018.

Luis Humberto Méndez y Berrueta says that whether legitimate or not power in Mexico has always been done, basically outside legality. In Mexico the bond between legality and legitimacy has been definitely broken. Ayotzinapa implies the breaking point and a glimpse of opportunity to build a project from below, from the majority masses that questions established power still under a shroud of apparent legality and build a national and popular power the fights corruption and the crisis of legitimacy, political representation and security under which Mexico live.

*In memory of Julio Cesar Mondragón and the 43 student teacher with the affection and love for their families.*

*thanks to Luis Hernández Navarro for the critical revision of the text**

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