Las Palabras de…
Because I miss Oaxaca and this song makes me think of it, I share it with you. For some reason, this video was played about once an hour on the television for several months in Mexico. I can now listen to it without going crazy only because I have had some time away. It is a nice song…
Un Poquito de Tanto Verdad by Corrugated Films is now available for purchase. I just ordered my copy of Jill Friedberg’s new film, but I already viewed it in Oaxaca. It focuses on APPO’s use of alternative media, from COMO’s take-over of state television and radio stations to the use of their own radio stations. It is an interesting portrayal, albeit an obviously positive portrayal of this complicated movement. I recommend it for anyone who would like to learn more about APPO or the role of media in social movements. I also believe it would be an asset in any social movement classroom. I am especially intrigued by the role of women in the movement who have great insight into their own role and power in making change. I’ve met many of the people in the film and I am happy to see their voices made public in this format. My only suggestion is not to use any one film, including this one, as your only source for knowledge about APPO.
One of the central goals of the Sin Maiz no Hay Pais campaign is to obtain one million signatures by January 1, 2008. The petition is available at Greenpeace’s website here. Signing the petition shows your support for a moratorium on the importation and sale of genetically modified food.
These past few days have been a wonderful mix of excitement; meeting amazing people, buying tons of products from Mexican artesians, and listening to great speakers. The Sin Maiz No Hay Pais campaign ends January 1, 2008, but is going out with a bang. On October 27, they entertained a huge crowd in the zocalo with a concert in support of the Mexican campesino and for the past few days they have turned their focus to education. This fair is quite different than others I’ve attended (two in Oaxaca) because of its size, diversity in events, and amount of vendors. The Oaxacan fairs were nearly entirely attended by corn farmers, with their voices at center stage, and key presentations by a professor from Chapingo University to discuss the problems of GM corn. Here, farmers are in attendance, but they primarily came as vendors or representatives of campesino organizations to sell their products or offer materials about their organization at tables in the vendor fair. I’m not saying that one certain fair is better than the other, their difference is just clear through the organizations that sponsor the fair. While the other fairs were locally sponsored and held in a small space, this fair is sponsored by a few international organizations along with 300 organizations as part of the campaign. Oxfam paid for most of this event, with major involved by ANEC and GEA.
The fair organizers claim that the importation of US corn, the introduction of GM corn (and other GM seeds), and neoliberal policies in general threaten the livelihood of Mexican farmers and the biodiversity of native seeds. The high rates of immigration and the loss of job opportunities are signs of changes already felt in rural parts of Mexico. This campaign, with its focus on corn, is really a method of bringing awareness to issues facing farmers in general, in addition to the negative consequences of genetically modified corn.
I promise to post photos soon to my photo page. You can also read about this event in yesterday’s La Jornada (in Spanish).
Protesters and police clashed again this week in Oaxaca. Ten thousand protesters (APPO, community members, teachers, and others) took to the streets to demand a non-commercially ran version of the traditional Guelaguetza festival. They hoped to enter the Guelaguetza auditorium but police stopped them with tear gas, arrests, and violence. Monday’s clashed lasted for three hours and APPO claims that protests will continue this weekend during the planned Guelaguetza festival. For news coverage, refer to these news articles from the BBC and Noticias. I also suggest this thorough post at The Mex Files that contemplates the complexities of this situation. Below is an Urgent Action put out by the Oaxaca Solidarity Network.
URGENT ACTION
A NEW ESCALATION OF POLICE REPRESSION AGAINST THE POPULAR MOVEMENT OF OAXACA
This Monday, June 16th at approximately 11:30am personnel of the Municipal police, Federal Preventative Police, Banking and Industrial Police confronted members of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) and teachers of the National Syndicate of Education Workers (SNTE) section 22 with tear gas and rocks in an effort to stop them from entering the Guelaguetza auditorium, located on the Fortín Hill in Oaxaca City. Members of the APPO and SNTE section 22 are participants of this popular Oaxaquen festival.
In this confrontation, the diverse police force brutally beat teachers and others participating in the manifestation. In addition, the police threw tear gas at commercial establishments, private homes, and public buildings. Moreover, during this violent escalation newspaper reporters and photo journalists were injured. Among them being employees of Reforma, Las Noticias, and Marca y Tiempo who were giving coverage of the fierce blows given by the police to those manifesting. Unofficially the media mentions the arrest of 7 APPO sympathizers who caused damage at the Plaza Fortín Hotel.
These violent acts are being carried out as a security measure for the state government’s “Guelaguetza 2007″ by means of surrounding the Fortín Hill with personnel of the Mexican Army, Federal Preventative Police, Federal Agency of Investigation, Preventative Police and the Oaxaquen Municipal Police. This coordinated operative of the Secretary of Civil Protection was done to prevent the celebration of the Popular Guelaguetza, which is put on by the APPO and Section 22 of the SNTE Teacher’s Union. This is in spite of the fact that the State government declared days before that it had absolute respect for the celebration of the Guelaguetza Popular.
We consider that this act is just one example of the deliberate provocations by the governor against the Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People. Moreover, it is an ominous sign of the inability to dialogue, which has again resulted in the irrational use of the public force.
We demand the following:
-An immediate end to the police repression and the harassment of those involved in the Oaxacan Social/Popular movement
-We condemn the government’ action to indiscriminately use federal and police force.
-We put the responsibility upon the state and federal government to register the arbitrary detainment or disappearances of those participating in the manifestationsOaxaca de Juárez, 16 de Julio de 2007
ESPACIO DE ORGANIZACIONES CIVILES DE OAXACA
NETWORK OF CIVIL ORGANIZATIONS OF OAXACAWE ASK YOU TO SEND FAXES, E-MAILS TO THE FOLLOWING (AND PLEASE NOTE THE “WHAT TO DO” SECTION IMMEDIATELY BELOW FOR ADDITIONAL ACTIONS):
Presidente FELIPE DE JESÚS CALDERÓN HINOJOSA
Residencia Oficial de los Pinos Casa Miguel Alemán
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, C.P. 11850, México DF
Tel: +52 (55) 27891100
Fax: +52 (55) 52772376
felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mxLicenciado Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña,
Secretario de Gobernación,
Bucareli 99, 1er. piso, Col. Juárez,
Delegación Cuauhtémoc, México D.F., C.P. 06600, México,
Fax: +52 (55) 5093 3414
frjramirez@segob.gob.mxDr. José Luis Soberanes Fernández
Presidente de la CNDH
Periférico Sur 3469, Col.
San Jerónimo Lídice,
10200, México, D.F.
Tel: 631 00 40, 6 81 81 25
Fax: 56 81 84 90
Lada sin costo: 01 800 00 869
correo@fmdh.cndh.org.mx
correo@cndh.org.mx,WHAT TO DO:
• Contact your local representatives and Mexican consuls and inform them of your concern about the recent repression by government forces in Oaxaca. Ask them to contact local Mexican consuls and national Mexican authorities (listed below).
Please also send appeals to official addresses below (by fax is most effective) to arrive as quickly as possible, in Spanish or your own language, making the following points:1. Members of the recent Oaxaca Solidarity Network/Rights Action Emergency Human Rights Delegations can point out that they recently heard repeated testimonies of torture, forced confessions, and arbitrary detentions, and that they demand the immediate release of all political prisoners.
2. Express your concern for the well-being of all Oaxacan political prisoners.
3. Call for a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the illegal detentions of people engaged in peaceful protest, for findings to be published, and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
4. Remind the authorities that they have a duty to carry out an independent and impartial investigation into the alleged fabrication of charges against political prisoners, with the results to be made public.SEND APPEALS TO MEXICAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS LISTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS E-MAIL…
MORE ON WHAT YOU CAN DO:
• A fundamental element to work in favor of global justice, equality and the environment is to fund and support local organizations that are leading their own struggles in defense and promotion of development, the environment and human rights.
• Get involved in education and activism work in your home community concerning the negative impacts of North American investors and hydro-electric and mining policies on community-controlled development, the environment and the human rights of local populations in Oaxaca.
• Consider coming in on one of OSN’s Human Rights/Educational-Activist Delegations and meet with victims of the repression, local human rights groups, leaders of the popular movement, local political and business leaders, and to visit local indigenous communities to learn about vital social, economic and political issues.
• Invite us to give educational presentations in your home community.
• Get on our e-mail list and visit our website for news updates, delegation announcements and more.TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS: You can make donations to Oaxaca Solidarity Network by making a check payable to “Rights Action”. Please write “FOR OSN” in the memo space and mail to: UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887 ;
CANADA: 509 St.Clair Ave W, box73527, Toronto ON, M6C-1C0.
CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS:
www.rightsaction.org . Please note that the donation is for Oaxaca Solidariy Network.
QUESTIONS: info@oaxacasolidarity.orgURGENT ACTION ADDRESSES:
U.S.:
Ambassador Carlos Alberto De Icaza Gonzalez
Embassy of Mexico
1911 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20006
Fax: 1 202 728 1698MÉXICO:
President:
Lic. Felipe Calderon Hinojosa
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de ”Los Pinos”, Casa Miguel Aleman
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
Mexico D.F., C.P. 11850, MEXICO
Fax: 011 52 55 52772376 felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx
Salutation: Senor Presidente/Dear President CalderonMinister of the Interior:
Lic. Francisco Ramirez Acuña
Secretario de Gobernacion, Secretaria de Gobernacion
Bucareli 99, 1er. piso, Col. Juarez, Delegacion Cuauhtemoc,
Mexico D.F., C.P.06600, MEXICO
Fax: 011 52 55 5093 3414
Salutation: Dear Minister/Estimado Secretario
No e-mail, please send fax.Minister of Public Security:
Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza
Procurador General de la Republica
Paseo de la Reforma #211-213 Cuactemoc Mexico D.F. C.P. 06500
Colonia Juarez, Delegacion Cuauhtemoc,
Mexico DF. C.P. 06600, Mexico
Fax: 011 52 55 5241 8393
Salutation: Dear Minister/Estimado Secretario
To send e-mails online: http://pgr.gob.mx/index.aspPresident of National Human Rights Comisión
Dr. José Luis Soberanes Fernández
Periférico Sur 3469, Col San Jerónimo Lídice, CP 10200, México, D.F.Governor of Oaxaca:
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz
Gobernador del Estado de Oaxaca
Carretera Oaxaca - Puerto Angel, Km. 9.5
Santa Maria Coyotopec, C. P. 71254
Oaxaca
Oaxaca, MEXICO E -mail: gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx
Fax: 011 52 951 511 6879 (if someone answers, say ”me da tono de fax, por favor”)
Salutation: Senor Gobernador/Dear GovernorCOPIES TO:
President of the Oaxaca State Human Rights Commission:
Dr. Jaime Perez Jimenez
Presidente de la Comision Estatal
Calle de los Derechos Humanos no. 210
Colonia America, C.P. 68050
Oaxaca
Oaxaca, Mexico
Fax: 011 52 951 503 0220Please send appeals immediately. Thank you for your solidarity and support.
When you have Google News set to automatically find you any news related to maize (corn), you can discover gems such as this one. I like that it links to all of the articles that Google news is failing to send me. With all of this negative attention on biofuel and the rising cost of food staples, I wonder what this will do to the drive for alternative fuel sources. Be sure to check out the related articles hyperlinked throughout the article.
Tequila, pork and orangutans: new victims of the biofuel boom
01 Jun 2007 15:07:00 GMT
Blogged by: Ruth GidleyA looming shortage of tequila wouldn’t usually be an AlertNet crisis, but in this case it could be a sign of hungry times ahead.
Mexican farmers are torching fields of blue agave, the cactus-like plant used to make the fiery spirit, and resowing the land with maize as soaring U.S. ethanol demand pushes up prices.
The spiky-leaved agave plant can take eight years to reach maturity, so cutting them down and burning out the roots isn’t something that can be turned around easily.
Troubled farmers are hoping to cash in on the biofuels boom, but there have been protests over rocketing food prices in Mexico, where maize is the staple food.
In China, gas stations in some provinces already mix 10-percent ethanol into the gasoline they sell. The problem is that the increasing use of maize for industrial purposes in ethanol production is driving up the cost of corn for agricultural use, mainly to feed pigs. The knock-on effect is a dramatic rise in the price of pork, one of China’s most widely consumed food staples.
The Christian Science Monitor quotes Chinese political analysts who say the government is afraid that rising food costs could affect social stability. Inflation was an important factor in sparking the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square 18 years ago.
Authorities in Beijing are trying to impose limits on the production of ethanol using traditional food crops, but they are hard-pressed to keep a lid on the large and small ethanol factories which are springing up in China’s corn-producing regions and are starting to compete with animal-feed manufacturers for raw materials.
Chinese projects are under way to make ethanol instead from cassava - a starchy tuber common in Africa but not used as food in China - and jatropha, also inedible and grown in wastelands.
African food prices are feeling the impact of the biofuel boom too, with South African maize shooting from $85 a tonne in recent years to $282 a tonne in March, U.N. news service IRIN reports.
In Asia, palm oil is the big biofuel focus. Used in toothpaste, cookies, ice cream and breads, it’s the world’s second most popular edible oil after soy, and Malaysia and Indonesia together produce 83 percent of it.
They’ve already come under attack for clearing forests to plant palms for biofuel production. Apart from the environmental consequences of huge fires and diminishing forests, campaigners say orangutans could be extinct in 10 years because the animals’ habitat is shrinking and they’re sometimes killed for straying into palm plantations.
And let’s not forget about the people…people affected from an oppressive trade agreement…people affected by a system of globalization that is more complex than the biofuel issue.
Yesterday, I attended an event sponsored by Acción Zapatista (a UCSB student organization) that featured three new exciting documentaries. Jill Friedberg, who also worked on the Award Winning film This is What Democracy Looks Like, presented Granito de Arena, which tells the story of the dismantling of the Mexican public education system. This compelling film highlights the power of resistance by educators, families, and students, who demand access to free public education and a living wage. In 2006, a year after Friedberg completed this film, Oaxacan teachers entered a new chapter in their struggle. Her new film, a work in progress, called Un Poquito de Tanto Verdad, traces the story of the recent Oaxacan uprising. I was thrilled to see the brave Oaxacan women who took over Channel Nine powerfully represented in this film. I remember Jill from my time in Oaxaca–she was always at the frontlines, documenting the uprising as it happened. You can learn more about these films and how to order them, from Corrugated Films.
We were also treated by Monica Hernandez’s film, Rights on the Line, which deconstructs the image and reality of the Minutemen Project, in particular their racist and controversial involvement in apprehending immigrants who cross the Mexican/US border. I loved the footage of Minutemen at the Arizona border. The American Friends Service Commission trained ACLU legal observers to document the activities of the Minutemen and other vigilantes. The film and trailer are availble from the American Friends Service Commission.
I love Kohn’s analysis of NAFTA’s affect on Mexico’s corn industry and how it all relates to immigration. We can debate the section on ethanol…but her overall analysis is part of what I argue in my dissertation:
Corn-Fueled Migration
Sally Kohn
May 23, 2007Sally Kohn is director of the New York-based Movement Vision Project, working with grassroots organizations across the United States to advance our shared values of family, community and humanity.
Thankfully, immigration reform is progressing in Congress. There are 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States who have made invaluable contributions to our culture and economy and deserve the basic rights and dignity that citizenship provides.
Yet some nasty provisions stand out in the compromise Senate legislation—prioritizing highly-skilled, English-speaking immigrants over working class immigrants and people of color whose families are already here, and blocking the opportunity of citizenship for future “guestworkers”, continuing the two-tiered system of discrimination and exploitation that currently exists. Instead, if we examined the root causes of migration, we might actually help—rather than punish—immigrants.
And here “root” cause is not just a metaphor. The seeds of the immigration dynamics we now face are planted on the U.S. side of the border, the kernel of which is corn. Corn is what causes migration and corn is the only way the injustices of immigration, on both sides of the border, will ever be solved.
As the birth nation of just over half of the undocumented immigrants in the United States, Mexico provides a good example. Although agriculture is less than 5 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product, more than a quarter of Mexicans still make their living as farmers. And most of the poorest of those farmers grow corn. Over 60 percent of Mexico’s cultivated land is planted with corn, most of which are small family plots. In all, 18 million Mexicans, including farmers and their families, rely on corn for their livelihood.
Enter NAFTA in 1994, which opened the U.S.-Mexico border to trade. It’s worth noting that before the wealthy nations in the European Union like France and German expanded trade with poorer nations like Portugal and Greece, the wealthier countries first transferred huge sums of money to the poorer nations, to build their infrastructure and help get them to the equal footing necessary for trade to work. Not so with Mexico. The United States (1990 GDP: $23,130—a.k.a. Goliath) became “equal trading partners” with Mexico (1990 GDP: $6,090—a.k.a. David).
On top of that, corn production in the United States is heavily subsidized. Under the farm bill, which is up for reauthorization this year, we taxpayers give over $25 billion each year mainly to large, industrial corporate farms. And the more corn the factory farms produce, the more money they make. That means there are big corporations with mounds of corn on their hands that they can sell for cheap because they’ve already made plenty off the subsidies. Cheap corporate corn floods the Mexican market, drowning local producers.
So what’s the result? Imported corn now dominates the Mexican market. For instance, in Mexico—the birthplace of corn—one-out-of-three tortillas is now made with imported maize. An estimated two million family farmers who can’t compete with subsidized U.S. corn have been driven from their land. They now have to buy imported corn to feed their families but don’t have the income to afford it. Meanwhile, American politicians following the instructions of corporate farm lobbyists start pushing ethanol. Even though the “alternative” fuel actually wastes more energy than it produces, it’s made from corn so agribusiness loves it. The new demand for corn drives up prices. And so the price of a tortilla in Mexico has risen 279 percent since NAFTA. The overall effect impacts not only farmers but all Mexicans, especially the poor. Since NAFTA, poverty in Mexico has increased. As of 2001, over 80 percent of people in rural Mexico were living in poverty.
So is it any wonder that as more and more U.S. corn flows to Mexico, more and more Mexicans cross the border to the U.S.? And corn is just the beginning. Migration around the world is the direct result of U.S. policies and actions. As immigrant rights leaders in England often chant, “We’re here because you were there.” Exactly.
Improving immigration policy in the United States is an important start and hopefully the legislation that comes out of Congress will be far improved over the current draft. But in addition, American farmers and factory workers who have also been devastated by U.S. economic policies must join with immigrant rights leaders to repeal NAFTA and other disastrous trade agreements and remove bloated corporate subsidies from the farm bill. And, as military occupation of Iraq goes hand-in-hand with economic occupation of the global south, the United States must start spending far more money on foreign aid and assistance than border enforcement and war. Maybe then we could start producing an abundance of fairness and justice on both sides of the border, instead of corn.
Fighting between drug cartels in Cananea, a town near the Arizona border, escalated when 50 men executed four local police officers. USA Today’s story sounds like the scene from a movie (it is below). Mexican President Calderon deployed army troops to control the drug cartels. However, the National Human Rights Commission claims that the army is involved in local crime including rapes and other abuses. The public comments on USA Today’s website are racist and one-sided. Instead of using this horrible event to analyze the real origins of poverty and corruption, these comments use this event to justify their racism and the need for more border control. Not one comment offers a critical anti-racist examination of this issue. Here is the article - I won’t post the comments here; you can see them for yourself.
Mexico arrests 4 gunmen after battles near Ariz. kill 22
HERMOSILLO, Mexico (AP) Police and Mexican army troops arrested four members of a criminal assault force that overran a town near the Arizona border and set off gunbattles and executions that left at least 22 dead in violence linked to drug cartels.Luis Pena Molina, town secretary of Banamichi, said Thursday that “helicopters are combing the whole area” looking for the remnants of the estimated 50 gunmen who assaulted the nearby town of Cananea, 20 kilometers (30 miles) south of the U.S. border. He said four gunmen had been detained.
The violence began Wednesday, when men armed with assault rifles and riding in 10 to 15 vehicles pulled four lightly armed city police officers out of their cars and executed them in a park.
The assailants fled to the nearby hills with authorities in pursuit. The gunmen ditched their vehicles, commandeered horses and forced ranch hands to serve as guides, according to an account from a man abducted by the armed gang.
An hours-long gunbattle erupted between the gunmen and police and soldiers. Fifteen assailants, five police officers and two local residents were killed.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Mexico | Cananea | Jose Luis SoberanesThe invasion of Cananea — a town that helped spark the 1910 Mexican Revolution when U.S. forces crossed the border to help put down a miners’ strike — showed the brashness and power of Mexico’s ruthless organized crime gangs.
The first outside authorities to arrive in Cananea on Wednesday found an eerie no man’s land where local law enforcement had melted away.
“When the state police arrived, there was not a single municipal police officer,” Sonora state Gov. Eduardo Bours said. “We had to take over the command. There wasn’t anyone there. They had all left.”
Bours added that he had previously asked for a federal investigation of the Cananea police force, apparently to determine whether it was infiltrated by Mexico’s Pacific Coast drug gangs
Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna blamed a turf battle between the Gulf and Pacific drug gangs.
“An armed command first abducted a police patrol, then went out on the streets of Cananea … abducting policemen,” Garcia Luna told reporters. “It is a group linked to the Gulf cartel, waging a turf battle with the Pacific people, for control of this territory.”
He praised Sonora state officials for their “efficient” response.
While President Felipe Calderon has dispatched thousands of army troops to fight the cartels, critics say troops trained for battle should not be acting as police officers.
The official National Human Rights Commission said Tuesday that there was credible evidence that some of the newly deployed troops committed rapes, illegal searches and other rights abuses.
“Soldiers are not trained to carry out police work,” said Jose Luis Soberanes, president of the rights commission.
In Cananea, there was little debate over the need for army troops: Mayor Luis Carlos Cha Flores had formally requested that federal police officers and army troops be sent to the town to restore order, the government news agency Notimex reported.
What a beautiful sight. I love this story reported in the LA Times and at the Mex Files. Here is the story and pics from the LA Times:
MEXICO CITY - People usually strip for love or money. But Isaac Esquivel and thousands of other Mexican men and women dropped their clothes in neat piles early Sunday and pranced naked around the main plaza of this capital just for the heck of it.
New York photographer Spencer Tunick, famous for rounding up people to pose naked in cities around the world, brought his fetching artistic gimmick here. His goal was to persuade more than 7,000 residents of this very Roman Catholic country to disrobe in front of God, one another and a media army perched on the roof of the downtown Holiday Inn. City officials estimated as many as 20,000 people might have taken part.
“At first I was really nervous,” said Esquivel, 25, who also is a photographer. “I kept thinking about what they tell you before you make a speech, you know, to imagine your audience naked.”
He didn’t have to wait long. At 6:50 a.m., the disrobing began at Tunick’s signal, and, after tossing aside their workaday identities, people began running to the center of the capital’s historic plaza, known as the Zocalo.
‘Part of human life’
“Nudity is part of human life,” said Liliana Velasco, 30, an anthropologist. “Being naked is being in the moment, and being naked in the Zocalo gives everyone a chance to celebrate our culture.”
Not quite, maybe, what the 16th century Spaniards had in mind when they set aside the plaza for the heart of their new empire. The giant square is the scene of concerts, political rallies and parades. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have raised their fists here. Most years, the Mexican president gives the annual cry for liberty from the balcony of the National Palace to kick off Independence Day celebrations.
Esquivel said he found his own freedom Sunday. “After you take off your clothes, you see that everybody is the same,” he said. “That’s when I stopped being nervous and started to have fun.”
That didn’t last too long either. Tunick and his assistants began herding the naked volunteers for the first say-cheese moment.
“Everybody take a stone,” barked Tunick, referring to the large stone squares that form the floor of the Zocalo.
The one-person, one-stone command lent order to the crowd. Tunick asked them to pose in the Mexican salute, which is held not at the forehead but chest-high. A woman lost her nerve and ran out of the crowd. She dressed and left in a hurry.
‘Otra, otra!’
After he finished with that pose, the crowd chanted, “Otra, otra!” Another one, another one.
Tunick then asked that they lie down on the cold stones, feet facing north. Mexico City is in its warm season, but the early morning temperature was in the 60s. By 7:30 a.m., the crowd was kneeling, head down, curled up in the so-called snail pose. It looked as though they were bowing to the cathedral, Mexico’s oldest.
A few shouted for Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera to join them. Tunick had promised while negotiating for city permission that he would not include the cathedral in any of the photographs.
Shortly after 8 a.m., Tunick dismissed all the men - about three-quarters of the crowd - and broke the spell that for a couple of hours had united several thousand strangers in an odd intimacy.
Tunick and his helpers corralled the women into a corner of the Zocalo for one last shot while the men dressed. Most stuck around to watch. And some began to cheer, injecting a bit of wolf-whistle attitude that was absent when everybody was naked.
“Thank you for participating, but would all the men please return to the street, please!” shouted one organizer. “No photographs please. No cellphone photographs, please.”
Everybody was dressed by 9 a.m. as the street sweepers gave the Zocalo a once-over.
“What a great moment for the Mexican art scene,” Tunick said later. “The heart of Latin America is now in Mexico.”
Maybe we should be naked more often. Maybe it would solve more of the world’s problems. Or would the US government us it as an occasion to tear gas us again? Sorry, I shouldn’t say such things. We value art in our schools…that is why our children all take mandatory art and music lessons in elementary school (note the sarcasm please).
