What’s happening in Mexico?

BY JOHNNY HAZARD
 
1. Influenza
2. Abortion
3. Baby-killers, for real
(The Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire of the 21st Century)
4. Elections
5. Numerology
 
1. Influenza. Life is back to relative normalcy—people sneezing on their hands just before they offer to shake yours, wearing heavy layers of clothing in the heat because they think that will cure their colds, etc—after two weeks in which the “spurious” president Felipe Calderón and his allies in the television networks and at all levels of government accomplished what, in Honduras, required a military coup: everyone off the streets, no one buying newspapers, two major protest marches canceled. Now, it seems, there’s more influenza than at the time of the scare, but it’s not convenient to call another lockout, as abstention in the coming elections will be bad enough without that.

2. Abortion. Following the decriminalization of abortion in Mexico City two years ago, at least ten states have passed laws making it more illegal than it already was, i.e., prohibiting abortion in cases of rape or incest (to the extent that these family values advocates will admit that incest exists). Despite the fact that Mexicans have fought several civil wars to curb the collusion among government elites, business elites and church elites, the Catholic-fascist alliance is enjoying a resurgence. Some reports suggest that more than 100 women face criminal proceedings for having aborted. On the brighter side, it is possible for women from all over the country to obtain free, legal abortions in Mexico City up to the 12th week.

 In one of the states with a new anti-abortion law, Puebla (governed by the formerly secular PRI), a newspaper conducted a survey that purported to show that absolutely nobody supported legal abortion. This was probably conducted by the same firm that asked recently what people do in cases of constipation: around 40 percent resort to laxatives, 0 percent “eat fiber.” This, in a land where the tortilla (whole grain, corn) is the most important food staple.

3. Baby-killers. On June 5, a fire broke out during evening rush hour at Guardería ABC, a childcare center, in Hermosillo, Sonora, a few hours south of Tucson. When the smoke had cleared, more than 20 children had died, and dozens of others were hospitalized in Hermosillo, in Guadalajara, and at a Shriners’ specialty hospital in Sacramento, Calif. The death toll has now risen to 48. The ABC center was one of hundreds licensed by the federal government to private, for-profit interests to meet the demand for childcare in a society where the housewife is just beginning to become an endangered species. These joints are outsourced, in an extreme manifestation of thus/Reagan/Thatcher/Pinochet/Friedman/Calderonism, to “empresarios,” usually  friends or relatives of government leaders, with no real attention to basic safety, hygiene or educational concerns. At the moment of the fire, there were six workers present to care for about 120 children. There were no fire extinguishers or smoke alarms. Next door to the center was a warehouse operated by the state government in which flammable materials were stockpiled. The ceiling of both structures was of a styrofoam-like material.

 At the outset, one of the owners was rumored to be Marcia Gómez del Campo, cousin of Margarita Zavala Gómez del Campo, wife of president Felipe Calderón. The rumor was and is true.  Zavala Gómez del Campo, in an act reminiscent of Bill Clinton, denied knowing this “distant relative,” despite having appeared with her on the society pages of a Hermosillo newspaper two weeks earlier in a (probably paid for by the family) photo spread commemorating the birthday of the president’s mother-in-law. Marcia Goméz del Campo has the luck of being, also, the wife of a state government functionary, despite the fact that the president and his wife are of one right-wing ruling party, the PAN, while her husband and his boss, Governor Eduardo Bours, are of another ruling party, the center-right-populist PRI.

Officials of these two parties publicly blame each other for the disaster while privately, surely, they meet to try to minimize the damage.

  Parents of the victims are fighting back, refusing offers from the governor of money in exchange for an agreement not to sue. A few low-level officials have been indicted and it appears that the owners—the president’s wife’s cousin, her husband, and various other state and federal officials and their spouses—follow, but with charges of the local equivalent of manslaughter, which permits bail and flight. Some of the owners are rumored to have left the country already and have availed themselves of Mexico’s generous (for white collar criminals) injunction policies. The parents have staged three large marches in Hermosillo and are calling for a fourth this Saturday, this time also in Mexico City. They’ve opened a bank account to receive donations to help parents refuse the government funds that come with strings attached. More information available upon request.
Reports in the past few hours indicate that the injunctions sought by the owners have been or will be denied and that the owners have fled or are about to flee the country.

If you’re thinking of hanging up a sign outside of your local Mexican consulate, “HOLOCAUSTO EN LA GUARDERÍA ABC: RESULTADO DE LA DOCTRINA DEL SHOCK” is a message they might understand.

4. Elections. Midterm elections are this Sunday, July 5. The two above-mentioned parties are battling for first place in the congress; the PRD, the party of López Obrador, is debilitated by a partial right-wing takeover and growing public awareness of the corruption of various factions of the party. Television advertising was recently prohibited. One way of getting around this is to buy advertising (and articles, and cover photos, and actors to appear in said photos) in magazines owned by the TV networks, which then run in-house ads for the magazines, featuring the cover and cover story, and the party’s logo. López Obrador has, in his best moments, something of the combative Martin Luther King of 1967-68, but, unlike King, is unable to transcend electoral politics.
A don’t vote movement has gathered strength. Maybe it’s better to say it’s a series of don’t vote movements, ranging from zapatistas and other leftists to middle-of-the-road good government types to mere politicians upset that they didn’t get their parties’ nominations. A process called nullification of the ballot has always been popular in Mexico, but this year may set records. It consists of leaving the ballot blank, putting an X across the entire ballot, or checking all the candidates.

5. Numerology. Do you remember how we used to marvel at how all the U.S. presidents elected during a year that was a multiple of ten, since Lincoln, had died in office? Reagan had the bad taste to survive John Hinckley and his own diseases and plague us for eight years, directly, and many more indirectly. Clinton, too, failed to die in office, and the prophecy died. In Mexico, it is believed that every hundred years, at the ten-year mark, there’s a major upheaval: the independence movement started in 1810, the revolution in 1910. After the electoral fraud of 2006, a survey showed that 13 percent of the people were willing to take up arms against Calderón and the forces that he represented. We can assume that a much greater percentage were willing to participate in or support a nonviolent movement with the same goals. The flu scare seemed to soften that impulse for a while, but the next few months will determine the course of events.

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More information, sources, suggested readings available upon request.