At least 17,000 young people marched through Guadalajara last Saturday to voice their displeasure at the election of Enrique Peña Nieto and the media’s “imposition” of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate.
This “Mega March” was among the largest ever demonstrations in Jalisco to be organized by and for citizens – not labor unions or the University of Guadalajara (UdeG) – says Rodrigo Cornejo, a spokesperson for the #YoSoy132 student movement.
Although Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is disputing the outcome of last week’s election, the movement is resigned to the fact that Peña Nieto will soon be confirmed as president-elect.
Saturday’s protest was “merely an expression of popular discontent,” but the idea of #YoSoy132 is “not only to resist the imposition of this candidate” or “call people to demonstrate,” says Cornejo. “The biggest challenge is to focus the movement and undertake concrete actions.”
Yo Soy 132
#YoSoy132 is a democratic organization mostly comprised of students from public and private universities across the country. Often ignored, trivialized or misrepresented by the mainstream press, its aim is to democratize the media and Mexican politics.
While not at work, Cornejo dedicates every waking hour to this goal. A former student at the UdeG, he attended one of the earliest demonstrations in Guadalajara and was chosen to coordinate the movement’s internet and media campaigns.
Later elected to represent Jalisco at national assemblies, Cornejo was one of 640 student delegates to attend a #YoSoy132 meeting in Huesca, Morelos last weekend. Having held previous assemblies in the capital, the students are now keen to prevent Mexico City from being over-represented at the expense of groups from elsewhere.
Although no concrete plans were agreed upon at the meeting, the students drew up a blueprint of ideas for further discussion.
A cornerstone of future action is to broaden the base of the movement, creating alliances with labor unions and indigenous communities. Having met with indigenous groups in Huesca, Cornejo believes #YoSoy132 is “weeks or months from becoming something much larger than merely a student movement.”
Another meeting is planned to take place this weekend in San Salvador Atenco, the setting of a 2006 protest infamously repressed by police under the orders of Peña Nieto, then governor of the State of Mexico. #YoSoy132 did not organize the forum in Atenco; it is joining other resistance organizations with the aim of creating a broad and united political front.
But with many left-leaning organizations eager to join the movement, recent discussions have been focused on how to integrate them without alienating those who do not share their ideas. It is a difficult balancing act.
Preempting repression
Awoken from a materialistic slumber by the return of the PRI, Mexico’s youth is at its most politicized since 1968, when said party slaughtered a generation of student protesters in the Mexico City’s Tlatelolco Plaza.
“I don’t believe that we will have the massacres that we had in the past and I believe now that the country is much better prepared than 30 or 40 years ago to face an authoritarian government, but there are more subtle ways of repression such as legislative censorship and a media empire pushing for its candidate,” says Cornejo.
“But if we don’t stand our ground then we could see a regression to an authoritarian leadership that is different in appearance but has the same character as many years ago.”
The movement has drawn encouragement from the support it has gained in states such as Jalisco, which are traditionally not as politicized as the capital. #YoSoy132 holds one or two popular assemblies per week in Guadalajara, with an average attendance of 150-200 people.
“We are trying to turn that political awakening into a source of strength,” says Cornejo. In order to consolidate support, there are tentative plans for a nationwide tour to unite different cells of resistance, from the capital to tiny rural municipalities.
“After we sweep the entire country and discover how broad our base can be, we can start planning concrete actions,” says Cornejo, although he admits such a tour will only be viable “if the security conditions allow, especially in the north, where there’s a lot of violence and paramilitary groups.”
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