Modern Robin Hoods have appeared in Morelia. On April 26, students from the Normal School [Teachers College] took seven trucks carrying cookies, bread, dairy products, soft drinks and water. Just after 10:30 AM, they moved two of the trucks to the center of the city. An hour later they brought the rest. They blocked the historic center with the trucks. Having received no response to their demands, they freely distributed the foods among the population. They did not take anything for themselves.
The students' central demand is employment. To be exact, that 1,200 positions be granted to graduates of this school. They studied for years to be teachers; they are about to finish their studies, and now the authorities come out with there is no work for them. For days they have made this demand, in all possible shades and shapes. But the state government refuses to resolve their request, despite the fact that teachers are needed in the state, and the young people are trained to practice their profession.
The young people are enraged. They are convinced that they are proceeding correctly. They note that their action is righteous because it gives back to the people what the people pay in taxes. They assured the reporter Ana María Cano:
"We are not afraid. Rather that the businesses take care, because we are going to continue taking trucks, and we're going to give away the goods."
Companies affected by the student protests have strong interests in the education sector. Their owners sponsor the hate campaigns against the democratic teachers, and their products are sold in schools.
Two days earlier, on April 24, in Chilpancingo, furious teachers staged a modern version of the Fuenteovejunas, violent citizen uprisings [such as occurred during the Spanish colonial period] by attacking the headquarters of the Citizens Movement, the PAN [National Action Party], PRD [Party of the Democratic Revolution] and PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution].
Two days earlier, on April 24, in Chilpancingo, furious teachers staged a modern version of the Fuenteovejunas, violent citizen uprisings [such as occurred during the Spanish colonial period] by attacking the headquarters of the Citizens Movement, the PAN [National Action Party], PRD [Party of the Democratic Revolution] and PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution].
Their anger was focused on the facilities of the political parties and institutions. They broke doors and windows, burned garbage and defaced walls. No one was assaulted. Rather than distance itself from the expressions of disagreement, the leadership of the State Coordinator of Education Workers in Guerrero (CETEG) tried to explain them.
They were angry because, for the second consecutive time, they were outflanked by the Governor of Guerrero and state legislators. The teachers made a political agreement with the Guerrero PRD, majority political force in the state, that the PRD would open a door to the solution of a grave conflict. The PRD promised to endorse the [teachers'] proposal of the State Education Law, but in a session of the Congress held at an alternative site in the city of Acapulco, they [PRD] did not honor their commitment. The PRD and Citizens Movement and the PT [Workers Party] have 26 Deputies of the 46 that make up the Legislature, enough to push through the legal changes. However, in the session only eighteen Deputies voted in favor of the teachers' proposals; the remaining eight betrayed the agreement.
It was not the first time that the Governor and Deputies had deceived the teachers. On April 2, the same Congress rejected--35 votes aye; 7 nay--the initiative of reforms to the State Education Law that Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero had negotiated with the CETEG and subsequently sent to the Guerrero Congress. The president of the Government Committee, PRD Bernardo Ortega, said that the initiative was voted down because it violated the Federal Education Reform passed by the federal Congress last December.
It was not the first time that the Governor and Deputies had deceived the teachers. On April 2, the same Congress rejected--35 votes aye; 7 nay--the initiative of reforms to the State Education Law that Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero had negotiated with the CETEG and subsequently sent to the Guerrero Congress. The president of the Government Committee, PRD Bernardo Ortega, said that the initiative was voted down because it violated the Federal Education Reform passed by the federal Congress last December.
The radical nature of the normalistas' [teachers college students] actions is not unconnected to the intense hate campaign that the business world and various media have unleashed against them. With absolute impunity, they have demonized and vilified the country's teachers because they refuse to accept a reform about which they were not consulted, that denigrates their professional activity and that damages their interests and those of public education.
Far from being an expression of the penetration of guerrillas in the teachers' movement, as Governor Graco Ramírez of Morelos irresponsibly points out, the rage of both the normalistas and the teachers is an expression of an extreme situation: the authorities refuse to negotiate their demands and, when forced by social mobilization to do so, they renege on the agreements reached.
The discontent of the education workers demonstrates the failure of the Pact for Mexico to give governability to the country. The anger that damaged buildings of the political parties in Chilpancingo carries an implicit message:
These parties, say the teachers, do not represent us. The party leadership are able to agree. They may arrive at agreements, but they do not speak for us.
Indeed, while the party leaders and the federal government tie themselves together with agreements at the highest level [de arriba], the Mexico of below [de abajo] is unleashed. Hundreds of environmental conflicts have broken out across the length and breadth of the country, against the mining companies, against huge infrastructure projects [that involve] diversion [of waterways] and contamination of watersheds. In the face of the public security crisis, dozens of community police groups have emerged in at least eight states. A galaxy of educational problems have surfaced in the UACM [Autonomous University of Mexico City], UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico], the Baccalaureate Colleges [UNAM-affiliated High School], Chapingo University and many other schools.
None of these expressions of discontent has any place either in the Pact for Mexico or in the political parties. To the contrary, the way of the elitist Pact, which excludes and falsifies, exacerbates them [those of below] even more. The hate campaigns directed against those affected by the "reforms" will not serve to deter them; instead, those campaigns feed some of the [dissidents] most oppositional traits. Not to mention the intention to deceive them.
Guerrero and Michoacán (more states will join in May) demonstrate that the social movements are already not what they were. They have changed their make-up, their dynamics of struggle, their horizon, their radicalism. In part, they are unpredictable. They are what they are, and they are here to stay. They are modern-day Robin Hoods....
Those who decide the country's direction will inevitably have to take them into account. If they do not, they run the risk of getting something more than a few scares. Spanish original
*Luis Hernández Navarro, Mexican journalist, is coordinator of the Opinion section of La Jornada. A union organizer the mid-1970's, he was one of the founders of the dissident National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE) and an adviser to campesino [small farmer] organizations. He participated in the San Andrés Dialogues between the Mexican government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and was technical secretary to the Commission for Follow-up and Verification for the Chiapas Peace Accords.
*Luis Hernández Navarro, Mexican journalist, is coordinator of the Opinion section of La Jornada. A union organizer the mid-1970's, he was one of the founders of the dissident National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE) and an adviser to campesino [small farmer] organizations. He participated in the San Andrés Dialogues between the Mexican government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and was technical secretary to the Commission for Follow-up and Verification for the Chiapas Peace Accords.