Combative October 2: On the Institutionalization and Autonomy of Social Protest

From Radio Zapote
Translated by Scott Campbell

Forty-eight years after the Tlatelolco massacre we continue demanding justice for the murdered, disappeared, persecuted, tortured, defamed, and imprisoned, as even though the killers and masterminds have not been tried and punished, those compañeros who fell in the militant struggle remain present in the popular and social struggles today as part of our memory, solidarity, guidance, dignity, strength, inspiration, rage and courage. Today, no one doubts that IT WAS THE MEXICAN STATE who planned and carried out that mass murder, just as it did with the disappearance of 43 teaching college students on September 26, 2014, as from Tlatelolco to Ayotzinapa one can trace a historical continuity that affirms the totalitarian character of the state that today we can characterize as “narco and terrorist.”

For decades, on every October 2, thousands of people from all over Mexico take to the streets to protest against the crime and to remember the fallen, they raise their voices and point to the state and its institutions as “the murderers of Tlatelolco”; at the same time, year after year, the government’s crimes mount, from the “dirty war” of the 1960s through 1980s, to the Aguas Blancas and Acteal massacres, to the “war on drugs” and the most recent massacre in Nochixtlán, as well as the thousands of disappeared, political prisoners, displaced and exiled. We affirm that for all these crimes, the culprit is the “terrorist Mexican narco-state”.

As such, it’s ridiculous to demand justice from the murderer, it is ingenuous and in some cases perverse, to ask for justice from Mexico’s legal institutions, because in its historical configuration, in its forms of exercising power, in its daily political practices, the terrorist narco-state murders, persecutes, disappears, tortures and imprisons thousands of people. It also seeks to administer social protest, to institutionalize and mediate it, to make it a spectacle or better yet an anniversary meriting commemoration. It has tried to do this with the “October 2 March” through its “committees” and its officials, encouraging and supporting a “march” that is sympathetic to the government itself, with controlled media coverage presented to the world as an example of democratic plurality.

But it doesn’t fool anyone. Many social organizations, collectives and individuals throughout the country don’t accept the institutionalization of protest and continue pushing the struggle into the streets, with political autonomy and “remembrance” as action. Faced with the authoritarian power of the state, we devise not just several means of resistance and rebellion, but we also build other forms of organization and autonomy, from Tlatelolco up to Ayotzinapa. These came from before and will continue on moving forward. As such, we not only create historical justice for our compañeros who have fallen in the long night of rebellion, we continue fighting for the 43 disappeared from Ayotzinapa and soon we will achieve freedom for our political prisoners: Fernando Sotelo, Fernando Bárcenas, Abraham Cortés, Miguel Peralta, and Roque Coca, kidnapped by the “terrorist Mexican narco-state.”

This past October 2, there were two marches in Mexico City, one that is increasingly institutionalized and that took place “without incident”, calm, uneventful and for which there was no “security operation” mobilized for it. It wasn’t needed, as that march was of little importance to the state. The other, which was called for by the Combative Anti-Capitalist Coordinator, led the federal and Mexico City governments to deploy thousands of police from various agencies: transit, riot police, “intelligence” (sic), who from 1pm on, gathered around the “Antimonument to the 43+” to “surveil” and to try to intimidate the march.

The march headed to Tlatelolco and tried to pass by the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the Eje Central, but police surrounded the march at the Hemiciclo a Juárez, preventing its advance. When trying to continue along the Alameda, police began beating and arresting several compañerxs, which quickly led to a confrontation with the police and the rescue of the compañerxs who had been detained. Given these repressive acts, the march decided to change its route and to head to Tlatelolco via Avenida Reforma. Police commanders were forced to allow the free movement guaranteed by their hypocritical constitution and the thousands of police were met with rage, courage and dignity as the march was able to advance along Reforma, though surrounded by hundreds of riot police, security forces and the occasional hired goon.

The combative march brought together more than 400 libertarian, anarchist, and antifascist compañerxs who were able to get to Tlatelolco to remember the fallen from October 2, 1968 and to demand freedom for political prisoners. The punitive, fascist police operation enacted by the Mexican state did not stop us, did not scare nor threaten us, we never doubted that the march would arrive at its planned destination. We did it in the memory of our murdered compañerxs and for the freedom of our prisoners. They would had to have beaten and arrested all of us in order to keep us from getting to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas.

In the current national context where impunity for the Mexican state’s crimes is a banner for the “political class” and a strategy of control that foments fear through its cynicism and shamelessness, it is essential to create ethical and political distance from the institutions of power, from political parties, from business owners and from the “political class”. It is indispensable that lines of rebellion and resistance are emphasized that continue building autonomies so as to not fall into their institutions’ games, as happens when people run for office or public positions, that weave national and international solidarity, that tear down the walls of all prisons, that strengthen the storm and turns it into utopia. So that the struggle in the streets is not coopted by the state and never serves their false mask of pluralist and tolerant democracy.

For the Combative Anti-Capitalist Coordinator it is important to forge links of committed efforts and interaction with similar collectivities and individualities who don’t sell out to the highest political bidder; who continue resistance outside of the state, of capital and of its institutions; who condemn the wheeling and dealing of collectives who call themselves “revolutionary” or “left” but who in reality only play with the system. We believe we should get coordinated, as our name suggests, so that together resistance against the state and capital grows, to build viable alternatives based on autonomy and self-management, on horizontalism and mutual aid. We will fight from each one of our trenches, coordinated and together, for other ways of living, for social revolution, for freedom, for anarchy. Here we are, here we continue, and here we await you and tell you: Cheers and freedom!

FOR THE FREEDOM OF POLITICAL PRISONERS!

FOR AUTONOMY, SELF-MANAGEMENT AND SELF-DETERMINATION!

AGAINST ALL FORMS OF DOMINATION!

FREEDOM NOW FOR FERNANDO SOTELO, FERNANDO BÁRCENAS, ABRAHAM CORTÉS, MIGUEL PERALTA, ROQUE COCA!

WE CALL ON EVERYONE TO JOIN THE COMBATIVE ANTI-PRISON ACTIONS:

VISUAL ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT ALL CITIES (GRAFFITI, BANNERS, IMAGES) DEMANDING THE FREEDOM OF OUR IMPRISONED COMPAÑEROS

TO STRENGTHEN TO POLITICAL-CULTURAL EVENTS ON OCTOBER 8 AT 2:30PM AT NORTH PRISON AND OCTOBER 9 AT 2:30PM AT SOUTH PRISON.

Information Commission, Combative Anti-Capitalist Coordinator (CCA)