Mexico – Page 7 – Upside Down World

National Day of Maize in Mexico: Protecting the Sacred Plant

September 30, 2014 Adelita San Vincente Tello, translated and edited by Beverly Bell 0

Mexicans celebrated National Day of Maize on September 29, 2014, with demonstrations, marches, and expositions. Known as the Land of Maize, Mexico now imports one-third of this sacred icon and staple food, mostly from the US. A fierce battle is being waged over corn that is still grown in Mexico, with small farmers and seed sovereignty activists pitted against Monsanto and other GMO giants, the Mexican government, the US government, and the World Trade Organization.

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Sonora Spill adds to the Social and Environmental Consequences of Free-Market Mining in Mexico

September 27, 2014 Darcy Tetreault 0

The massive spill of toxic mining residue that took place in August in Mexico’s northwestern state of Sonora has underscored the weakness of the country’s environmental laws, as well as the destructive consequences of free-market mining. It is a harbinger for what is in store for the country since Enrique Peña Nieto’s government extended neoliberal reforms to the oil and gas sector, allowing for private and foreign investment in all facets of exploration and production, with a green light for fracking.

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Mexico: San Salvador Atenco Fights for Land, Resists Proposed Airport

September 23, 2014 Jessica Davies 0

For the people of Atenco, their whole identity, customs, traditions, history and existence are bound up with their land. The airport project to them means the destruction of their entire social fabric, their cultural history, collective identity and community life as indigenous people. They say “the project to us is death.”

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Queering the Metro in Mexico City

August 29, 2014 Josh Mentanko, Photos by Clayton Conn 0

When Mexico City’s Sistema de Transporte Colectivo (STC) closed certain metro cars in February 2011 in order to prevent gay men from using them for sex, the public conversation about the ban highlighted how the metro is more than just a transportation artery … The appropriation of certain metro cars as meeting and hookup sites for gay men exemplifies the clash between the STC and its users, and the closure of these cars illuminates the complex relationship between the political class that controls the city and the LGBTQ community.

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Voices From the Field: Puebla’s Campesinos Resisting the Theft of Their Land

August 21, 2014 Jeff Abbott 0

The campesinos of the Texmelucan valley in Puebla, Mexico, depend on the land for their livelihood. Their cultures and identities spring from these rich volcanic soils in the foothills of mount Popcatepetl and mount Izatacihutl. Yet, this all could be lost with the construction of a new highway that threatens to forcibly displace them from their land.

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Laws that Kill Protesters in Mexico

August 4, 2014 Daniela Pastrana 0

People in this town in the central Mexican state of Puebla found out the hard way that protesting can be deadly. A new law passed in Puebla makes it possible for police to use firearms or deadly force to break up demonstrations. […]

Fracking Fights Loom Large in Mexico

July 12, 2014 Kent Paterson 0

Mexico is emerging as the next big battleground in conflicts over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as the method of extracting natural gas is commonly known. While Mexican lawmakers consider regulatory legislation to put into practice the 2013 energy reform that opened up their county’s oil and gas reserves to private investors, anti-fracking forces are mobilizing for a moratorium or an outright ban of the controversial practice from the Mexican Congress.

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Mexico Rape Victim Faces Prison Time for Self-Defense

June 30, 2014 Daniela Pastrana 0

“I just want all this to be over,” said Yakiri Rubí Rubio, a young Mexican woman facing trial for killing the man who raped her in December 2013. In the view of organizations working for the defense of women’s rights in Mexico, Rubio has become a symbol in the fight against machismo in the justice system, where the norm is to disparage the complaints of women who have been raped.

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Zapatistas Decide to Do Away with Subcomandante Marcos

June 4, 2014 Orsetta Bellani, Translated by Danica Jorden 0

“It is our conviction and our practice that we don’t need leaders or chieftains, messiahs, or saviors, in order to rise up and fight, only a little humility, a lot of dignity and a great deal of organization; the rest either serves the collective or is useless,” Marcos said, suggesting a criticism of the revolutionary vanguard, as the EZLN managed to transform “leading by obeying” into the centrality of the collective in the face of the individual.

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Photo Essay: Zapatistas Show Dignified Rage and Demand Justice and an End to Violence Targeting their Communities

June 3, 2014 Tim Russo 0

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos rides horseback in front of the Zapatista support base members in La Realidad during an homage to fallen compañero – Galeano – killed in a paramilitary attack against Zapatista members in La Realidad on May 2, 2014. Thousands gathered in La Realidad to show there digna rabia, dignified rage, demand justice and an end to the on-going violence directed towards Zapatista indigenous communities in Chiapas.

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