No newspaper covered the story on its front page. Some motorists in Jalapa [capital of], Veracruz, honked their horns to demand that they stop obstructing the street. Not a few media executives demanded that their reporters not participate in the protest. And most of civil society was indifferent. These were the predominant responses to the marches on April 28 to demand an end to attacks on freedom of expression.
Society's treatment is no different towards the Mexican Association of Stolen Children, the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, Embroidering for Peace, Parents of ABC Nursery and dozens of civic organizations that try to do their part to stop the maelstrom of abuse, corruption, impunity and violence that is blowing the country to pieces.
"The marches are useless." "Journalists are not news." "The narcos are stopping drugs from being legalized." "You have to propose (solutions) and not go with troublemakers".Under the logic that what isn't happening to me is a distant problem, excuses and indolence are part of the general life position in the face of the flood of rotting blood in Mexico.
This is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. The National Human Rights Commission has identified that in the last twelve years there have been 82 murders of journalists, 18 disappearances and 33 attacks on media. Last year alone there were eight murders and four went missing. So far in 2013, there have been six physical assaults, five kidnappings, five attacks on offices and one murder. They are not just numbers or statistics. We are speaking of widows, orphans, torture, hours of pain, despair and mutilated lives.
Do journalists deserve special treatment? Of course not; we are talking about citizens with the same rights and obligations as others. However, assaulting a reporter is violating the freedom of expression. Each communicator killed is a muted voice, a triumph of violence. Many newspapers have even decided not to report any more on the activities of the drug traffickers; the most recent case is the newspaper the Zocalo in Coahuila.
There are too many regions where people are not informed about the level of aggression being committed. Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Veracruz are the most visible cases. In response, citizen initiatives have been made to keep society connected, as in the case of the Facebook page "Value Tamaulipas", which warns its readers about kidnappings, illegal activities and crimes committed in the state. But even so-called "citizen journalists" are not saved from the attacks; the administrator of the site was threatened with death and in 2011 four informers using social network in Nuevo Laredo were killed, two hung from a bridge and a couple beheaded.
The lack of response by the owners of the media and the "major leaders of public opinion" to the journalists' march helps to reinforce the agenda of power and strengthens the impunity of criminals. Where were all these men in suits who extol the defense of truth in their radio ads? Where were those media owners who boast to their readers that they are champions of democracy? They are the same hypocrites who sell themselves as "impartial" but who repress their workers, pay them poverty wages, limit their freedom of expression and annually cut their benefits. They are the ones who, presidential term to presidential term, praise the incoming president and burn the outgoing one alive. They are the privileged ones who cover up the corruption.
The sickly level of civil society's solidarity with journalists is the same indifference suffered by dozens of organizations struggling to put a stop to the suffering and pain of the country. We see the facts of malnourished families of victims of drug traffickers, the indigenous communities defending their land, fighters for the environment branded as "troublemakers" and speakers who invite the killing of cyclists groups seeking cleaner cities.
The prevailing logic is to ridicule those who look out for their neighbor. What matters, according to the values of this era, is individualism, work all day to acquire credit card junk, mold the body, and "be somebody in life." And that, of course, is absolutely incompatible with being in solidarity with the marginalized and the victim.
Meanwhile, the discourse of power has been further amended. For the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, the violence of criminal groups is not an important issue. We must talk about nice things: Quaker cookies and the virtues of Rosario Robles [references to the Crusade for Hunger creating alliances with PepsiCo and the Secretary of Social Development evidently using welfare programs to garner votes for the PRI] and the beautiful beaches of the country. It's the same rhetoric for Barack Obama's visit to Mexico. For them violence is a dead letter.
Only, in the day to day, the asphalt of our cities still dawns with dismembered bodies. Central American migrants continue to suffer a painful hell as they pass through the country. Vulnerable young people are sucked up by the machine of the perverse criminal groups. "Los Zetas" continue to impose their cruelty on the places they control, and "Chapo" Guzman has free territory to circulate wherever he wishes. Nothing has changed.
It is, moreover, an act of stupidity to reproduce the forgotten discourse of power. Except for a few powerful exceptions, each and every one of us is likely to suffer a tragedy linked to the criminal groups. No one is saved. Therefore, it is collective suicide to mock any initiative that helps put a stop to the maelstrom of carnage that Mexico has become.
To leave it solely to the journalists, mothers, orphans, migrants, to the indigenous communities, environmentalists, cyclists, combative priests and human rights defenders is to give one's hand to the executioners of Death. Individual indifference is a step toward collective suicide. Spanish original