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The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project |
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January 6, 2020/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team |
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What Makes International Solidarity Solid?
1850: American Henry Reeve is born. Too young to fight slavery, he serves as a Union drummer boy. At 18, Reeve hears about Cubans rising up to end Spain’s cruel rule. He immediately leaves home to join the fight. Captured, he survives a Spanish firing squad and goes on to become a general in the Cuban Liberation Army. He dies in battle at age 26.
2005: Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans. In response, despite numerous CIA assassination attempts and a US invasion to overturn the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro forms the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disasters and Serious Epidemics to offer medical aid. The long US embargo had impoverished ordinary Cubans. Yet this tiny nation still stood ready to send doctors to care for those in need.
2020: The Henry Reeve Brigade goes all over the world treating those infected with the previously unknown Covid virus. One Brigade contingent of 500 health providers serves for six months in México City. The Cubans risk their lives — out of their respect for all lives.
So what does all this tell us about what makes for solid international solidarity?
Lesson one: Solidarity involves much more than just giving money to — and thinking you’re saving — poorer peoples. Solidarity is understanding that your privilege rests on your government’s power to determine whose labor and natural resources get extracted and who reaps the benefits. Solidarity means changing the rules so that no one needs charity.
Lesson two: We don’t do solidarity with governments. We do solidarity with working people. That may mean joining people’s movements against their governments, as Henry Reeve did, or that may mean serving the African American people of New Orleans abandoned by their own government, as did Cuba’s Henry Reeve medical brigade.
Lesson three: Solidarity is seeing the world through the eyes of the people you’re working to build solidarity with. Solidarity is bringing questions, not answers. The best doctors listen to the people they’re serving and adjust their methods to fit the patient’s beliefs and circumstances. The best solidarity activists know that we have much to teach and much to learn on both sides of the border.
In 2021, our México Solidarity Project will share with you the hidden and not-so-hidden rules of the game that determine US/Mexico relations. We won’t simply cheerlead AMLO and Morena, though we do believe Morena represents México’s best hope. We’ll bring you information from people’s movements that disagree with Morena and push it to do better. We’ll give you history and context so we can avoid wrong assumptions and judgments.
And in 2021 we’ll work to show that solidarity need not be grim. We can speak to each other through images, poems, music, dance, laughter! All these can help us come to love one another. And that we have to do, because only love makes solidarity truly solid. |
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Pedro Gellert, a rank-and-file Morena activist, comes from a political activist family and has been involved in left politics since age 13. His activism spans international solidarity campaigns that range from support for Palestine to local neighborhood organizing in México City, where he currently lives. For Gellert, working with young people pulled into Morena through the electoral campaigns of 2015 and 2018 has been particularly exciting. We asked him to assess AMLO and Morena as we move into 2021. |
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“First the poor.” This has been AMLO’s rallying cry and also reflects Latin American Catholic social teaching, the “preferential option for the poor,” that resonates throughout this Catholic country. Has AMLO delivered?
Pedro Gellert: Worldwide, we have growing economic inequality. AMLO aims to reverse that trend in México. The minimum wage has been increased by 30 percent. Today, 25 million receive government benefits from various programs, up from 6 million before his election, with 75 percent of Mexican families receiving aid. And priority has been placed on helping indigenous peoples, who are among the poorest of the poor.
The “First the poor” slogan has a political purpose as well. It lets the public understand that those who have suffered the most will now be first in line. It promotes the ideals of solidarity and a just society.
“No stealing, no lying, no betraying”: a second slogan and moral imperative. This slogan seems especially difficult to enforce!
Corruption — a normal, ingrained part of daily life in México — has been the issue that most enrages the people as they witness the shameless self-enrichment of the powerful. AMLO has stopped “business as usual.” He attacked crooked government purchase contracts with their artificially inflated prices. Just by going after corporate tax evaders, he increased fiscal revenue by $640 billion.
Another issue that angered the public: the massive theft of gasoline facilitated by corrupt government and union officials, with a whopping 40 percent of fuel stolen and resold on the black market. AMLO reduced such theft by 87 percent. Previously, social benefits were distributed through intermediaries, generally local PRI power brokers. Now people receive their assistance through a form of debit card directly from the federal government.
The savings from these measures and what we call “republican austerity” is paying for the increased benefits going out to people, without having to increase foreign debt, raise taxes, or boost prices.
The word “austerity” makes us think of neoliberal cuts to public services and privatization. What does AMLO mean by “republican austerity?
When AMLO took office, he didn’t move into the luxurious presidential residency. Instead he opened that residence to the public as a museum and cultural space. AMLO also sought to sell the presidential jet. Salaries of government officials have been slashed. Under AMLO, serving in public office is no longer about getting rich. It’s no wonder the public loves this!
As a Morena activist, what do you see as the challenges the party faces?
Morena has 3 million members on paper. We still have much to do to strengthen our party’s structure and improve internal democracy. We don’t have enough political discussion and debate, a problem since anyone — including opportunists! — can join Morena.
One bright spot has been the National Institute of Political Education, led mainly by left intellectuals. The Institute’s webinars attract as many as 3,000 at a time, and political educational study circles have formed at the neighborhood level.
Morena began as both a party and a movement. But it has become more electorally oriented and less a “movement.” Given that midterm elections are coming up in 2021, that focus makes sense for now. We can’t continue making progress — given the virulent hostility of the old entrenched parties and major business sectors — unless we maintain and expand the Morena majority in Congress.
In the US, midterm elections usually see the President’s party lose state and local seats. What do you see as the prognosis for Morena in 2021?
AMLO’s support remains at about 68 percent. Morena appears ready to expand its representation in the states and win the vast majority of the upcoming gubernatorial races. We’re optimistic. And we hope our friends in the US can help us get the breathing room we need to continue Morena’s transformational agenda. |
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José Emilio Pacheco (Mexico City, 1939-2014) aligned himself politically with the 1968 protesters outraged at Mexico’s growing capitalism and denationalization — and individualism, as Pacheco illuminates in Salt, one of his most noted poems. His many volumes of poetry spanning five decades make him one of México's most read and recognized poets. |
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Salt If you want to study its essence, its purpose, Salt surfaces from the sea. It’s petrified And so finally worn-out, Salt is the desert where there once was sea. Through it the world knows of what it is to be alive.
La sal Si quieres analizar su ser, su función, La sal sale del mar. Es su espuma Y al final ya rendido, La sal es el desierto en donde hubo mar. Por ella sabe el mundo a lo que sabe estar vivo. |
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Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
Roger Harris, 2020 Latin America and the Caribbean in Review: the Pink Tide May Rise Again, CounterPunch. México and Morena in a hemispheric perspective.
John Ackerman, Morena en vilo, La Jornada. Ha llegado la hora de consolidar la Cuarta Transformación a partir de la aplicación de controles de calidad para las candidaturas y el fortalecimiento de liderazgos propios.
Lorena Ríos, Women in México Reckon With the High Cost of Migration, Nation. With husbands dying in the US — from Covid-19, dangerous jobs, and more — many Mexican women are wondering whether migration merits the risks anymore.
Women should decide whether to legalize abortion, Mexican president says, Reuters. Abortion remains illegal, except under special circumstances, in all of México outside México City and Oaxaca.
Mexico Sets Gender Parity Rule for 2021 State Governor Elections, Telesur. The new regulation won't guarantee the election of women, but will promote the inclusion in the nomination process.
Oscar Lopez, Fleeing Lockdown, Americans Are Flocking to México City, New York Times. The so-called axis of cool has become even more attractive, even as México City confronts a public health crisis.
Víctor Quintana S., México: Inmunes a la Cuarta Transformación, América Latina en movimiento. A pesar de críticas y errores, hay importantes efectos positivos de la Cuarta Transformación que ya se pueden apreciar.
México's 3 main opposition parties form unlikely alliance, Associated Press. The three parties, bitter enemies in the past, have realized they can't win on their own, given AMLO's continuing popularity.
Maanvi Singh, 'The US isn't an option anymore': why California's immigrants are heading back to Mexico, Guardian. The pandemic has magnified the Trump-era anti-immigrant policies.
Mary Beth Sheridan, As México’s security deteriorates, the power of the military grows, Washington Post. Troops are patrolling cities and raiding drug labs as well as running ports and repairing hospitals.
Steve Fisher and Kirk Semple, Hit Hard by the Pandemic, México’s Drug Cartels Tweaked Their Playbook, New York Times. The brutal cartels struggled as governments imposed border closures and lockdowns, then got "creative."
Miguel Ángel Velázquez, Cada año 200 mil armas de fuego ingresan a México, La Jornada. Del total de armas aseguradas por el Ejército en México durante la década de 2010 a 2020, 70 por ciento fueron fabricadas en territorio del vecino del norte y 30 por ciento en Europa. |
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The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty.
Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Interested in getting involved? Drop us an email! |
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Web page and application support for the México Solidarity Project from NOVA Web Development, a democratically run, worker-owned and operated cooperative focused on developing free software tools for progressive organizations. |