It's a common refrain in Mexico. It's also what people often say when they lament their roughly 50,000 dead, slaughtered since 2006 in a war fueled by the obscene amounts of money prohibition creates. Many of the murders are grisly, atrocious. Photos of dismembered bodies line the news stands. Every morning, a fresh image, another family bereaved.
Sometimes there are massacres. Mass graves are often found in the countryside. Bodies hang from bridges. And it seems like no one cares. They're just Mexicans, right? Invisible. Disposable. A problem. Bodies to keep out of the United States.
Everyone knows someone affected, disappeared, killed. My neighbor's husband never returned home from a trip to Veracruz, where violence has been escalating during the last year or more. The doctor treating her afterwards told her to accept that he wasn't coming back. Some people suggested he'd left her. She knew better.
In my English classes, my students receive calls from their children throughout the class, telling them when they'll be home. One of my students had to hide a family member. It is normal now to push fears aside and proceed.
In the context of the Drug War, the elections of July 1 were a frightening affair...at least that is the word I most often heard people use. Frightened, for the future of Mexico. Now that the elections are over amid allegations of fraud as well as unequal and unfair treatment of the candidates in the press, the word I hear most often is "depressed", with "angry" a close second. My students ask what the international press is saying, knowing they can't get the truth from Televisa or Tv Azteca.
Guardian Coverage of Media Interference in Election
A sign pasted in the metro. The hands covering the eyes say "Televisa" and "TV Azteca". The hands covering the mouth say "Gobierno" or government.
A young woman waits to hear election results from a reporter from Televisa, who is outside the picture frame.
Men stand in the rain in the Zocalo, waiting for word on the outcome. Everyone is nervous.
Mexico's Occupy-like movement, Soy 132, had generated excitement and hope. It began when Nieto, the presumptive winner (far before the election) was booed by the students during a speech at Ibero University. Andrew Kennis, who taught classes there, sums it up for Russia Today. (Full disclosure, Andrew is an acquaintance of mine, and one of the few journalists actually here on the ground. Here is his Tale of Two Cities), coverage of violence on the border.
Andrew Kennis on The Elections and Soy 132 Movement speaks to Russia Today
People talked about a Mexican Spring, and demonstrations were held throughout the campaign cycle. But on the day of the elections, when I went to where I had heard the Soy 132 were meeting, this is all I found.
Votives placed around the Mexican flag.
Rain soaked hopes.
There was a note on the website of La Jornada, the major lefty newspaper, that Soy 132 would meet the following day, but no information was given about when.
The predominant feeling here this week has been one of silence. The streets seem emptier, my Twitter feed quiet.
It would be impossible to unravel the disquiet around the election, the return of the PRI, and the Drug War without people like John Gibler doing the in-depth, first person research here. (Full disclosure, I know John, but his book, to die in mexico is truly unique and special in that he goes there and talks to journalists and victims to get the story of what is really going on beyond the headlines.
In this video of a talk he gave at Moe's in Berkley, he speaks about complicity of the police and military in the Drug War.
It's becoming apparent to most thinking folks that the Drug War is a total failure, from the new segregation of African-American men in prison on drug charges to the inability of people to safely use marijuana for medicine in most states. What isn't so apparent, and is one of the defining "love your neighbor" issues of our time, is the bloodbath here on this side of the border.
From Mexico City, Despierta Ya.
Wake Up
Stephen Frye on the deaths (internationally) from the Drug War