A youth march with the notable absence of youth. A march against violence that ended with deliberately provoked violence. A nonpartisan march with one of its key proponents in the pay of the nation’s conservative party. A march inspired by imagery from the hit left-wing comic One Piece descending into a maelstrom of far-right hate.
The contradictions surrounding Mexico’s so-called “Generation Z” march on November 15 — also known as the “15N protests and riots” — are abundant. Moreover, they provide an object lesson in the “franchise model” of international demonstration symbolism in which a domestic event is appropriated to suit the agenda of the franchisees. But most importantly, they demonstrate the willing obtuseness of the international corporate press in falling, again and again, for the ostensible story instead of the actual one.
The event that sparked the march was certainly real enough. On November 1, Carlos Manzo, the outspoken mayor of the town of Uruapan, Michoacán, was gunned down at a public event in the midst of Day of the Dead festivities. After being subdued, the assassin, a seventeen-year-old from the nearby town of Paracho, was then killed in mysterious circumstances by security forces.
Moving quickly, the federal government arrested the presumed mastermind, a member of a criminal cell linked to the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, together with seven of Manzo’s personal bodyguards under suspicion of complicity. President Claudia Sheinbaum also announced her “Michoacán Plan,” a MX$57 billion (US$3 billion) package of security, economic, educational, and cultural measures to aid the distressed state and its aptly named region, Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land.
Among all the opportunistic headlines spiraling out of the event, some brief context is important. Sheinbaum has succeeded in reducing the murder rate by an impressive 37 percent in her first year in office. Together with her sky-high approval ratings, a solid…
Auteur: Kurt Hackbarth
