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on the border line between the US and Mexico
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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Mexican journalist, poet Javier Sicilia calls for popular uprising against violence on Wednesday

This is Mr. Sicilia's open letter to Mexico's politicians and criminals, in which he calls on all Mexican citizens to take to the streets to protest violence and corruption associated with the cartel drug wars. The writer's son, Juan Francisco, was murdered last week by criminals.

The brutal assassination of my son, Juan Francisco, of Julio César Romero Jaime, of Luis Antonio Romero Jaime, and of Gabriel Anejo Escalera, is added to so many other boys and girls who have been assassinated just the same throughout the country, not only because of the war unleashed by the government of Calderón against organized crime, but also the rotting of the heart that has been wrought by the poorly labeled political class and the criminal class, which has broken its own codes of honor.

I do not wish, in this letter, to speak with you about the virtues of my son, which were immense, nor of those of the other boys that I saw flourish at his side, studying, playing, loving, growing, to serve, like so many other boys, this country that you all have shamed.

Speaking of that doesn’t serve for anything more than to move what already moves the heart of the citizenry to indignation. Neither do I wish to talk about the pain of my family and the families of each one of the boys who were destroyed. There are not words for this pain. Only poetry can come close to it, and you do not know about poetry.

What I do wish to say to you today from these mutilated lives, from the pain that has not name because it is fruit of something that does not belong in nature – the death of a child is always unnatural and that’s why it has no name: I don’t know if it is orphan or widow, but it is simply and painfully nothing – from these, I repeat, mutilated lives, from this suffering, from the indignation that these deaths have provoked, it is simply that we have had it up to here (hasta la madre).

We have had it up to here with you, politicians – and when I say politicians I do not refer to any in particular, but, rather, a good part of you, including those who make up the political parties – because in your fight for power you have shamed the fabric of the nation.

Because in middle of this badly proposed, badly made, badly led war, of this war that has put the country in a state of emergency, you have been incapable – due to your cruelties, your fights, your miserable screaming, your struggle for power – of creating the consensus that the nation needs to find the unity without which this country will not be able to escape.



We have had it up to here because the corruption of the judicial institutions generates the complicity with crime and the impunity to commit it, because in the middle of that corruption that demonstrates the failure of the State, each citizen of this country has been reduced to what the philosopher Giorgio Agamben called, using a Greek word, “zoe”: an unprotected life, the life of an animal, of a being that can be violated, kidnapped, molested and assassinated with impunity.

We have had it up to here because you only have imagination for violence, for weapons, for insults and, with that, a profound scorn for education, culture, and opportunities for honorable work, which is what good nations do. We have had it up to here because your short imagination is permitting that our kids, our children, are not only assassinated, but, later, criminalized, made falsely guilty to satisfy that imagination. We have had it up to here because others of our children, due to the absence of a good government plan, do not have opportunities to educate themselves, to find dignified work and spit out onto the sidelines become possible recruits for organized crime and violence.

We have had it up to here because the citizenry has lost confidence in its governors, its police, its Army, and is afraid and in pain. We have had it up to here because the only thing that matters to you, beyond an impotent power that only serves to administrate disgrace, is money, the fomentation of rivalry, of your damn “competition,” and of unmeasured consumption which are other names of the violence.

As for you, the criminals, we have had it up to here with your violence, with your loss of honor, your cruelty and senselessness.

In days of old you had codes of honor. You were not so cruel in your paybacks and you did not touch the citizens nor their families. Now you do not distinguish. Your violence already can’t be named because, like the pain and suffering that you provoke, it has no name nor sense. You have lost even the dignity to kill. You have become cowards like the miserable Nazi sonderkommandos who kill children, boys, girls, women men and elders without any human sense.

We have had it up to here because your violence as become infrahuman – not animal, as animals do not do what you do – but subhuman, demonic, imbecilic. We have had it up to here because in your taste for power and enrichment you humiliate our children and destroy them, producing fear and fright.

It is you, “señores” politicians, and you, “señores” criminals – in quotes because this epithet is given only to honorable people – are with your omissions, your fights and your actions, making the nation vile. The death of my son Juan Francisco has lifted up solidarity and a cry of indignation – that my family and I appreciate from the depth of our hearts – from the citizenry, and from the media. That indignation comes back anew to put in our ears the phrase that Martí directed at those who govern:

“If you can’t, then resign.” Putting this back in our ears – after the thousands of anonymous and not anonymous cadavers that we have at our backs, which is to say, of so many innocents assassinated and debased – this phrase must be accompanied by large citizen mobilizations that obligate you, at these moments of national emergency, to unite to create an agenda that unites the nation and believes in a state of real governability.

The citizen networks of the state of Morelos are calling for a national march on Wednesday, April 6, that will leave at 5 p.m. from the monument of the Dove of Peace to the Government Palace, demanding justice and peace.

If the citizenry does not unite in this and constantly reproduce it in all cities, in all towns and regions of the country, if we are not capable of obligating you, “señores” politicians, to govern with justice and dignity, and you, “señores” criminals, to retake your codes of honor and limit your savagery, the spiral this violence has generated will bring us on a path of horror without return.

If you, “señores” politicians do not govern well and do not take seriously that we live in a state of national emergency that requires your unity, and you, “señores” criminals, do not limit your actions, you will end up winning and having power but you will govern and reign over a mountain of ossuaries and of beings that are beaten and destroyed in their souls, a dream that none of us envy.

There is no life, Albert Camus wrote, without persuasion and without peace, and the history of Mexico today only knows intimidation, suffering, distrust and the fear that one day another son or daughter of another family will be debased and massacred. You only know what you are ask us, that death, as is already happening today, becomes an affair of statistics and administration and which we should all get used to it.

Because we do not want this, next Wednesday we will go out into the street: because we do not want one more child, one more son, assassinated, the citizen networks of Morelos are calling for national citizen unity that we must maintain alive to break the fear and isolation that the incapacity of you, “señores” politicians, and the cruelty of you, “señores” criminals, want us to put in our bodies and souls.

I remember, in this sense, some verses by Bertholt Brecht, when the horror of Nazism, which is to say, the horror of the installation of crime in the daily life of a nation, appeared: “One day they came for the blacks, and I said nothing. Another day they came for the Jews, and I said nothing. One day they came for me (or for a son of mine) and I had nothing to say.” Today, after so many crimes supported, when the destroyed body of my son and his friends has brought the citizenry to mobilize anew, and in the media we must speak with our bodies, with our walk, with our cry of indignation, so that those verses of Brecht are not made a reality in our country.

Additionally, I opine that we must return dignity to this nation.

SOURCE: http://www.proceso.com.mx/rv/modHome/detalleExclusiva/89858
TRANSLATION SOURCE: http://narconews.com/Issue67/article4346.html

24 comments:

  1. Mr. Sicilia for president.

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  2. It would be the last straw that broke the camel's back on Wednesday, April 6, at 5 p.m. at the monument of the Dove of Peace if a big shoot-out qould break out. That there would take the cake my friend.

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  3. Mexico necesita levantarse en armas nada de este pedo de marchas marikas....puro pelado con su rifle o pistola y a casar todo elemento criminal.

    BoyGeorge
    Zacatecas

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  4. Yeh the "uprising" will no doubt consist of nothing more than some lame ass peaceful protest with citizens and families of victims just walking down the road waving signs looking sad then they take a grenade. USELESS!!

    If they want to do something about whats going on they gotta unite and arm themselves! otherwise waste of god damn time!

    Wish the people would do something to fight back rather than just making targets of themselves.

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  5. This is how it begins. It starts with embarrassment to the government with peaceful marches that bring international attention during the international drug task force conference being held in Mexico currently.

    We have seen several heros emerge of recent. This guy is very literate and very well respected. Let him gain a following and this will be another possibly large group that will become vocal. Let the cards fall where they may.

    Sicilia is pissed off, very angry, and right now, he doesn't give a shit what happens to him. He may be a force through his words that the Mexican government has to listen too.

    The government would love to see fools show up at the march with guns so they could open fire and put a stop to this threat before it gets started. There are a lot of cameras and attention on Mexico right now. This is a very good thing.

    I have a 21 year old son. I cannot imagine how I would respond if mine were murdered. Finding a bazooka might be at the top of my list. But maybe, just maybe, his bazooka is his ability to write because he has that. I'm down with him.

    T_R_C

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  6. This man is suffering grief, he is a poet,not a enforcer,sweet people can not protect themselves,you can not negitiate or guilt criminals who are hard cold and completley self centered. Passive non agressive people need to allow honerable responsible agressors to do what is needed without the inevitable Human Rights outcry,peace marches only inpress peacful people.

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  7. I like what this man is doing and it is very well stated. I agree with T_R_C, the only problem I see is the bastards that need to understand and grasp it; are too damn ignorant to understand it.

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  8. Raza, how much longer will the descendents of the lost tribes of israel live with their idols and their pope? Ask yourselves, where is the Catholic church in all this? Que a echo el papa para ustedes? We are fools, our ancestors worshiped the Most High, and eagerly awaited the second coming of Quetzalcoatl. It was Roman Church who burned our history and knowledge, and shackled our people with idols and false doctrine. Rid yourselves of idols and human saints and bow down to worship the Most High GOD like our ancestors did and he will heal our people and heal our land and justice will be served. Hallelujah unto the MOST HIGH GOD, creator of all things seen and unseen.

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  9. Love what you said T_R_C!
    Imjustagirl

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  10. Camus detested those who collaborate with the enemy, but that is precisely what Javier Sicilia clearly wishes to do.

    Camus fought hard as a member of the French Resistance for Freedom. Instead of a Mexican Resistance against the atrocities being committed by the drug cartels, this joker wants to negotiate with them?

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  11. A peaceful protest will not get you anywhere. We just witnessed what happen to that lady in Chihuahua... sometimes the best way to fight evil is with giving them a taste of their own medicine..

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  12. They been fighting evil with evil for a quite a while and the only that's happened is more senseless acts

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  13. I really get what he's trying to do, the people have become so disconnected from any Spiritual principles and therefore lack any moral or ethics, he knows the truth about them and they are born in the image of God and have lost site of right and wrong, God bless him and keep him safe.

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  14. Well.....fighting evil with evil is not the best way.....ITS THE ONLY WAY!!

    I guess "you gotta fight fire with fire" is the right saying here.

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  15. Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character. ~ Spinoza

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  16. Peace full demonstrations do work, not right there and then, but they do change history for the better, its the beginning of the end to injustice of any kind. And to the person that wrote something about the Pope and the Catholic Church, you are misinformed, WE DO bow down to worship the Most High God. The Pope and the Saints in Heaven also worship the Most High God.
    http://www.ccm.org.mx/principal/portal/noticia.php?id=2008

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  17. this country will never change...

    its been 500 years since we've come to the democratic stuff... in which our declaration of independence lacks of virtuosism, horoic people, among other things... we have had this problem in the 1915... when our country was at revolution, we had "THE GRAY CAR BAND" which was killing, violating, kidnaping ppl on the DF... (there is a documentary-fiction movie of this), after that... and before, our political leaders, joined in gangs and were armed all the time and killing each other in the street and so on... until the mid 50's... its been 50 years since we settle our political views with words (almost...) until 1998 with the assesination of COLOSIO (the next president after SALINAS DE GORTARI). So... no its 2011... and now, we say we have modern laws, modern ways of political expressions... MEXICO IS A VERY YOUNG COUNTRY... we are in the strugle of what the AMERICANS fought when they were in the 20's (remember the alcohol?) and with the ITALIANS that they had this fights before we did... every country has find its way to end this type of wars.

    We still have time to change our country... even if it doesnt looks like it will have any change after all this dead...

    Will we, mexicans... have the power to really change the course of our country? or are going to lay down... siting so some one else can put a foot on our lifes? even if its mexican?

    Will we?

    God... please help our nation!

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  18. I have nominated Javier Sicilia for the Global Exchange "people's choice" human rights award, for his bravery in speaking out to the politicians and drug cartels against the senseless violence that is wreaking havoc on the Mexican people. He is in second place and needs your support. Please vote TODAY because tomorrow evening the voting closes. Click here. Thanks! http://humanrightsaward.strutta.com/entry/164061

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  19. andrea

    great!! thank you very much for the info

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  20. Why did Sicilia not speak up before his son was killed? The country has been on fire for 5 years.

    Too busy? Didn't know? People want to be left in peace until something hits them where it hurts a lot. Then they want everybody to feel their urgent need to do something.

    Blaming the govt/police is like blaming yourself. Mexicans have allowed institutional corruption and impunity to exist and to grow since the independence. When I lived in Mexico in the 60s and 70s no one complained about it unless they made me for a gringo and then they offered some lightweight grumble about the "pinches transitos". You could see this problem getting out of hand back then but everybody was getting rich selling dope to the gringos so what's the problem? they said.

    Well, now you know what the problem is and you don't even have the basic tools to deal with it so you have to start over and hope you still have a country left. Being close to the US could be the best piece of luck ever. Mexico could solve this and be better or it could fail and be like Ivory Coast or Sierra Leone

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  21. I do sympathise with Mexican People and society for the kind of suffering they were under going, due to drug related violence and killings.Now it is high time that all the important intellectuals in Mexico, should gather at one place and take a pledge and shun the violence and drug business.

    T.Krishna Kanth

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  22. Okay, look, there are the Let's use guns! posts and the Let's be peaceful! ones. Remember the phrase: absolute power corrupts absolutely. We are mostly unarmed! The government, the militia, the narcos... they come into houses, entire villages, and do whatever they want knowing the posibility of being shot is close to zero. They have absolute power, and so, they abuse us. We Mexicans need to get armed, but not to go out and kill, but to defend ourselves, and the best defense will be that THEY know THEY can get hurt too if they mess with people at their homes. We need to take the absolute power away from them, We don't need to get violent, or take arms to the streets. We can be peaceful and maintain this VITAL BALANCE OF POWER. And if North Americans want to help, pressure your government to legalize drugs. Our countries can't do it if you don't due to a treaty. Demand on drugs will never cease. This is a lost war, an unecessary war, a costly war, a neverending war, a war convinient for only a few. After all, wouldn't taxation and legal handling of drugs benefit all?

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  23. The U.S. needs to stop supplying weapons to the cartels. These guns are coming from a few border states. We all know who they are and we know who the dun dealers are.

    Read more:

    http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/03/30/u-s-admits-that-mexican-cartels-get-military-weaponry-from-central-america/

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