The people were shot down in the streets with no regard for age or sex, many women and children being among the slain. They were pursued to their homes, dragged from their hiding places and shot to death.
Gallery: Wonderful and current Mexican resistance posters
Mexican movements create artistic, poetic, powerful, and creative posters to build events and support causes. A lot of symbolism and references to Indigenous culture are used. Below are just a few of some of the awesome posters used by organizations over the past year. No fearful, nor obedient, nor submissive - It's women's time Unity... Continue Reading →
Losing a revolution, and learning to trust again
I think the big mistake Chavez made at the end of his life was not trusting the people – the millions who had spent the past 15 or so years participating in the Bolivarian revolution. After all those years, all those meetings and marches, he could have left it to the people to choose someone... Continue Reading →
Urgent: Mexican national guard take over Indigenous community centre
At 1:20am this morning around 300 National Guard and state security officers entered an Indigenous community centre in Puebla, Mexico and violently removed the environmental activists from the space. Known as Altepemecalli, the buildings were previously owned by Bonafont, a water bottling company that was stealing local water. French transnational Danone is the parent company... Continue Reading →
The story gap
He tells me the long story of trying to cross the border, of looking to buy a life jacket to cross the river at 4am but then changing plans at the last minute because there were gangs there extorting or kidnapping. He's been trying to cross the border for three years, and he will try... Continue Reading →
La ausencia del derecho al aborto está privando a Latinoamérica de su voluntad y de su derecho a vivir plenamente
Foto: Tamara Pearson No puedo mencionar su nombre porque es una niña. Tenía doce años en ese momento, era demasiado joven para trabajar legalmente, pero no demasiado joven para ser obligada a ser madre. Era mi alumna, y recuerdo que, hace unos años, jugaba al puente con ella. Se reía con deleite infinito mientras yo... Continue Reading →
Efrain Ascencio Cedillo, a Mexican photographer who depicted the real Mexico
Too often, the general vision of poor countries and oppressed peoples is provided by the white male gaze and viewpoint. People - journalists, photographers and tourists - from the US come to Mexico for example, for two weeks. And it is their US-centric version of the world that makes its way into the English-language media... Continue Reading →
Revolutionary gems on mothering, survival, rebellion, and war
I read Mai’a Williams' book like some one starved for word gems and insights. I want to cover this book for this blog because no one talks about mothers like they are the key protagonists in this world. They (and women and people of colour and people in poor countries and..) are portrayed as being... Continue Reading →
How creativity is killed in the Majority World
Watching a video of Jim Carrey painting, you can see he has a wonderful sense of play and colour, as he creates a range of giant paintings in his warehouse-sized studio. He bashfully covers a canvas double the size of my bedroom with paint, and he pours thick, luscious acrylic paint from cans in wonderful pink... Continue Reading →
Mexico’s revenge
Trump called the people here rapists. White people in the US think it's legit that Mexican migrants work there for less, doing the hardest work, with no rights. You know the story, but do you hear about the resistance to the narrative, to the demonisation and discrimination? Does the media tell you what Mexicans, and... Continue Reading →
Too much water
I'm sleeping, surrounded by pillows and a warm doona. It feels like soft flowing hills. Outside, there are storms. They gather around the city like hungry seagulls. Greedy rumbles and too much water. Overflowing concrete barrios and broken stone roads and rubbish pile-ups by drains and nearby a town that will slide down the hill... Continue Reading →
A migrant poem defies “anti-poem toxins”
Miguel M. Morales grew up in Texas, in the US. He worked there as a child laborer and migrant or seasonal farmworker. He wrote this poem - by a migrant, about migrants. This Is a Migrant Poem This is a migrant poem a farmworking poem, a poem that covers itself in long sleeves to avoid... Continue Reading →
Mexico’s magical monsters… and the Trump alebrije that rocked it
With 60% of Mexicans working informally, often selling all sorts of cheap goods in the streets and on public transport, and neoliberalism tightly gripping the country, culture can play an important role in countering the overwhelming consumerism. I took these photos at Mexico's annual alebrije parade yesterday: 200 unique and wonderful monster-things wove their way... Continue Reading →
The different shapes of death
A child saw death as something to be put up with, and not as something that came in old age, because most of her brothers had been killed. Likewise, some people fear death, some believe in some sort of afterlife, and others don't. For some in this world, death is normalised and funerals are weekly things.... Continue Reading →