A LETTER FROM MEXICO

Memorial Day, Oaxaca

BY STAN GOTLIEB

Nov. 1 and 2 are the dias de los Muertos (Days of the Dead), here in Oaxaca, in much of Mexico, and in most every community of the vast diaspora in which so many Mexicans live. Forced to emigrate—both legally and illegally—by the iron rules of NAFTA economics, doctors and lawyers, farmers and crafts-persons, laborers and construction workers of working age, in the millions, will be building altars in strange lands, to their loved ones who have gone before them to the next life.

Decorated with cocks-combs and marigolds, these altars are not for ancestor worship. They are to help the spirits of the departed find their way from the grave to the right house; to make sure they don’t get lost on their way to visit the family. Pictures of the loved ones help in the identification: “Oh, yeah, that’s me, so this must be the right place.” Copal incense sweetens the air for them. Tobacco, chocolate, corn, squash, mescal and other yummies await them. But not too much: Their welcome expires by the early hours of the 3rd, and it won’t do for them to dally and forget how to get back to their “real life.”
In past years, Oaxaca, where there is a strong indigenous cultural influence, and which depends on tourism almost as much as it does on remittances from relatives working “al otro lado” (on the other side of the border), has been a Mecca for foreigners and Mexicans wanting to experience Muertos in a magical and traditional place. This year, the prospects don’t look too good.

Oaxaca has, for the last five-plus months, been wracked by social upheaval. What began as a strike and occupation of the central square and 50 surrounding blocks by members of the 70,000-strong teachers’ union, grew into a rebellion when the governor sent in his state police to “clean them out.” After being tear-gassed and clubbed, and having all their tents and other equipment trashed and burned, the few thousand teachers maintaining the occupation returned with tens of thousands of their neighbors and friends and re-took the center, and there they remained until the end of October.

Following several mass marches—as many as half a million in one march, according to the dissidents and their supporters—more than a hundred support groups—from the Stalinists (hard to believe, but there really are banners flying with pictures of “Carlos Marx” and “José Stalin”) to the Maryknolls—formed an umbrella group and demanded the removal of the Governor as a condition of standing down. The People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish acronym) has been negotiating with the federal government to find a peaceful way out of the standoff, so far to no avail.

Meanwhile, the forces of the State donned civilian clothes, and started taking pot shots at the strikers and their friends; beating and killing people and bombing banks and blaming it on the dissidents. Of course the occupiers were guilty of some excesses, but here’s the scorecard: Ten strikers dead, no cops with gunshot wounds.

As I write this (Oct. 26), the teachers have voted, by about 3 to 2 (60 percent), to return to classes, but meanwhile, uncertainty, bad publicity and a general state of tension have driven cancellations by tour groups, closings of some hotels and restaurants, economic disruptions that have beggared many people in the middle class, and in general turned a place that used to have an almost Disneyland-like appeal into a war-zone-like atmosphere, complete with barricades to keep the shooters out.

There will be no sand paintings on the plaza in front of the Cathedral this year; no pageant depicting the Dead rising out of their graves and dancing with their families. Instead there will be a self-imposed curfew, as the townspeople choose to stay away from the center of town rather than risk being mistaken for a teacher and getting shot by people wearing sun glasses at midnight, and driving by in SUVs with darkened windows and no license plates. People will of course go to the cemeteries, to decorate the graves, and sit with their loved ones throughout the night; and there will be altars in private homes, stores and museums, which will be visited—however diminished the crowds—during the day.

There will be one public altar, however. It will be constructed across a small park from the Cathedral entrance, well within APPO territory. It will commemorate the scores of workers for social justice—teachers, peasant movement leaders, reporters, human rights workers, and others—who have fallen this year beneath the wheels of the political machine known by Mexicans as “the System,” a faltering behemoth whose sole task has been to keep the money flowing to those who are on top —by any means necessary.
Los Muertos, Presente! (the dead are with us).
Stan Gotlieb lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, and publishes a subscription newsletter available only on the Internet. A sample can be seen at http://www.realoaxaca.com