Forgetting Forbidden: Chapter One, We have nothing to loose

Yesterday I read a thread on a social media regarding the gruesome details in the killing of the 43 missing #Ayotzinapa students. Someone's response to the post was simple: Stop the tabloid information, it's hurting Mexico! I wanted to comment on that but I hate having text discussions with people I don't know, or rather, not having them face to face.

Let's set aside the fact that person may or may not know the reality we are circumscribed in but trying to find the origin of that comment set the following question: Since when our reality has become tabloid news? News like the extinct Alarma, where the more bloodshed or the most gruesome acts of violence were only published?

The top picture is from a recent immolation in Chiapas. I'm only setting it as a placeholder because I think shows the current state of several things in Mexico. I will make an effort to determine them in 4 basic points and four [ 2 | 3 | 4 ] different posts.

1. The End of Innocence

The following video is from Tijuana 2008-2010. In a nutshell, narcowars fighting for power in a state and people caught in between. Army sent into the zone and cases of impunity start to emerge. These forces are then removed and replaced with the federal police. Horror and the already established impunity begins to prevail. Disappearances rise, mementos found in the crime scenes become the absent presence of the loved ones.

This is a video from 2013. Same pattern, abuse on top of abuse, people got tired and in a national emergency got organized and created the Autodefensa or Self-defense groups in Guerrero.

The Power emanates from the people, federal police or military forces become excluded. People fighting for their people, new articulation of societies and natural resources, this is called Communitary system. A system that it's spreading along that region.

"More than 100 women in the southern Mexican town of Xaltianguis have taken up arms to protect their community from organized crime groups, a local self-defense force official said Monday." [source]

These facts bring me to a dual feeling.
Fear. The same but different, or the Lord of the Flies effect, regulation of power even if it comes from a friend or just because it emanates from a human that's not flawless, that is new to this source of control, it is precisely that has to undergo a learning process. In this curve, impunity coming now from neighbours, uncles and sisters can happen once again.

Respect. The rural listening to the rural needs, micro societies working together in a way it makes sense to them. Not Mr. Slim's pace nor Televisa's brainwash. People from Katrina, didn't wait for the government to erect their city again. A bunch of resiliences got organized and worked together which gave them a regained sense of cohesion, of community, of trusting neighbours that still prevails at every quarter in New Orleans.

To both feelings one origin: We have nothing to loose.

Which brings me back to the first image. Don't worry, there's no fire in this video but the mere points I want to reflect upon. The woman is demanding the reasons why Florentino hasn't been released yet. The man on the floor is his nephew. The public figure has no valid excuses but urges the woman to take it easy and prevent the immolation. She's not convinced. The man with the machete states there's no democracy or a government that protects them and prepares to set the man on fire.

Parents of the Ayotzinapa students recently said:

"We have nothing to loose, that's why we're not afraid anymore. 

The document they gave to us seems to indicate the human remains were found in the (San Juan) river and not on the Cocula dumpster, and when our "buddies" (forensics) got to that place, that human remain was already on the table, and as usual, we doubt in the information given by the government, because they might have probably planted it there." [source]

While Florentino was released, the missing 42 students are still in a hot potato state. But what I think that has changed is that we have lost our innocence, government will not clarify, eradicate or give an apology, it is up to us to find the answers because, clearly in this void of reliability, we have nothing to loose.