Still Marching

I’m still getting my feet here in Mexico City, as I haven’t spent a considerable amount of time here in many years….

But in the meantime, I’ve been working this film job and going out into the streets when I can, like today when Ali called to tell me about a big demonstration going on. So I rolled over and shot some pics and talked to some of the participants.

There were a whole slew of groups demonstrating, like these folks, called “Diableros” (Devil-men). Their job is an incredibly menial one: hauling things on dolly carts around the markets in the Centro.

Now the government is arresting them and/or fining them 500 pesos (enough to buy about 50 cheap meals, or around 40$ U.S.) for doing their job. It’s part of the ongoing efforts of the Mexico City government to “clean up” (I hate calling it that) the downtown, by getting rid of any and all evidence of poverty, i.e. street vendors, prostitutes, and manual laborers like the Diableros.

By the way, the reason they are nicknamed Diableros is because of the horn-shaped handles on their carts. You’ll also notice (on their sign above) that they are Magonistas, i.e. they take as inspiration Ricardo Flores Magon, that most famous of Mexican anarchists, who was born in Oaxaca and died in Leavenworth Prison, Kansas.

Also present were the Frente Popular Francisco Villa, marching with the micro-bus drivers who are protesting the new Metro-Bus, a dedicated bus lane on a major thoroughfare that gets exceptional traffic privlelges. This puts the smaller, poorer, micro-bus drivers at a loss and so they are taking to the streets.

I guess they have such big sticks for their flags so the police will stay well enough away…..

Also present were Triqui folks from Oaxaca, carrying a banner in honor of the two people, Alberta Cariño Trujillo and Tyri Antero Jaakkolo (of Finland) who were killed by paramilitaries in San Juan Copola.

In any event the march went to the Procurador General de la Republica, which is sort of like the Justice Department, where there were speeches, etc. All evidence of theongoing grind that Mexico’s poor are facing under this new global austerity. More to come….