A Clash of the Titans in Oaxaca

by Stan Gotlieb

The poster says “Say No To McZócalo”. The golden arches are green (a mixed message, no?), on the poster, but the symbol is unmistakable. McDonalds’ is coming to the historic center of Oaxaca, a UNESCO - designated site of world patrimony; and the drum-beat of resistance is growing louder. The proposed site is on a corner across from our famous town square, a tourist mecca in this town of little industry and a lot of old world charm.
Leading the charge is Francisco Toledo, considered by many to be the most important painter in Mexico today. In a country where artistic accomplishment is revered almost as much as proficiency in sports, this gives Toledo h a lot of clout. Being a multi-millionaire who contributes much of his fortune to restoration of colonial-era buildings and has established libraries and museums, (both here and in his native city of Juchitan on the narrow isthmus to our south), greatly enhances his popularity.
This is not the first crusade the maestro has mounted in defense of Oaxacan culture and history, nor is it likely to be the last. His organization, PRO-OAX, an acronym that basically stands for defenders of the culture and the ecology, has taken on deforestation, helped to close a ring highway that would have destroyed a park, and fought to keep the restoration of the ex-convent of the Church of Santo Domingo from becoming an office building instead of the magnificent cultural center that it now is.
Toledo is as capricious as he is dedicated. A few years ago, there was a contest to sculpt a statue to be placed in the middle of the cobblestone pedestrian street that passes the Museum of Contemporary Art. The judges chose a small bronze of Don Quixote. Toledo went ballistic. “A symbol of (Spanish) Colonialism”, he said. And besides, he declared, it’s ugly. He dispatched some students with clipboards to the site, to help passers-by fill out questionnaires. Do you like it? Do you know that it is Don Quixote? Where do you think it should be? Here? In a warehouse somewhere? At the bottom of the River Atoyác?
By the time Toledo had finished making a laughingstock of the statue, the city fathers were only too glad to find a space for it in a small park well away from the town center.
Toledo has also caused some grievous harm. His desire to have a more tranquil vista out the window of his Graphic Arts Institute resulted in the displacement and impoverishment of a few dozen Triqui indigenous that had been using the park as a market to sell their weavings. They have been banished to a spot further away from the tourist center, and the park is little more than a concrete plaza.
Toledo officially joined the battle against McDonalds in late August, when PRO-OAX organized a “Big Mac, NO, Tamale SI” eat-in on the street in front of the proposed site. Three thousand people showed up, ranging from gringo and Mexican tourists to the arts community, to local folks, to peasants encamped nearby protesting the sacking of their village by elements of the state motorized police. Tamales, atole (a rice drink) and aguas (water flavored with various types of fruit juice) were served at two block-long tables while bands played, speeches were made, and signatures were gathered on a petition.
A brochure was handed out. The usual complaints were aired: Mickey Dee buys beef from cattle raised by clearing irreplaceable rain forest; the cattle are bred using altered genetic material; the hamburgers are too high in fat and scrap; unions are ruthlessly suppressed and the workers are exploited; the packaging is environmentally destructive, and will create a litter problem; the money you spend goes to support some fat capitalist in a foreign country, and does nothing for the poor among us. Here, where so-called structural economic improvements since NAFTA have resulted in thousands of jobs lost, particularly in the agricultural sector, anti-globalist sentiment runs strong, and attacks on the “transnational corporate McDonalds” gets a lot of sympathy.
On the other side is the “jobs” argument: this place will create 170 jobs for local kids (without talking about the scores who will lose their jobs working the hamburger and hotdog stands in the area); and the tax incentive: hundreds of thousands of dollars in desperately needed income for the city and the state of Oaxaca. Add to that the thousands of Oaxaqueños who love their Big Macs (in spite of Toledo’s argument that tamales represent racial pride and hamburgers are culturally imperialist), and it’s anybody’s guess what the various commissions and councils that control who gets to do what—and where—will decide.
As for me, a certified cheeseburger addict, I’d be a lot more comfortable if they’d keep the store out by the airport (where there is a Sam’s Club, an Office Depot, a Pizza Hut, and two McDonalds—one in the building with the ten-screen cineplex), where I hardly ever go. I don’t need the temptation.
Stan Gotlieb lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, and has been writing “Letters” for over eight years. He maintains a web site, “An Expatriate Life”, at http://www.realoaxaca.com. His email address is stan@realoaxaca.com