Fue El Estado, Estupido (It Was the State, Stupid@)

Fue El Estado, Estupido (It Was the State, Stupid@)

The disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa and the numerous mass graves found in the search for them have moved the global human rights community to make unprecedented statements like this one: “There have been many people disappeared in the history of Mexico, but I don’t know of a single case of this magnitude in real time (in all of) Latin America in the last 30 years.” Despite these declarations, the US media has not given the crisis in Mexico what it gave other crises in the Americas or other parts of the world: serious coverage.

What little coverage of the Ayotzinapa disappearances and subsequent developments that has trickled down into English language US press coverage has taken the all-too-familiar Spanish language telenovela approach to reporting the story: the evil Mayor and his wicked wife did it.

.

While the eventual trial of former Mayor Abarca and his wife may find that they did in fact play a definitive role in the disappearances of the Normalista students, mostly limiting the reporting, as the U.S. media has, to the story of the manhunt, arrest and arraignment of the Abarcas runs afoul of the core political message coming out of Mexico in the face of the crisis uncovered in and around Ayotzinapa and beyond: Fue El Estado (It Was the State).

Billboards, banners, legislative meetings, Facebook pages, Twitter backgrounds, newspapers, streets, cities, towns and millions of marchers–all overflow with this singular message from the vast social movements of Mexico, most of which have been ignored here in the US. Such a situation inspires a variation of former US President Bill Clinton’s oft-quoted dictum, “It’s the economy, stupid,” only the focus is more on the state, “Fue El Estado, Estupid@.”

That this central message emanating from Mexico has largely escaped the US media, and therefore has also escaped the US public, is why we decided to launch #UStired2. For us, Mexico isn’t just “foreign policy.” Mexico is familia, something very intimate.

Some of us have grown up watching a few too many telenovelas and, like our friends, family and loved ones in Mexico, we’re tired too. We’re tired of all the death; tired of horrific stories of the more than 25,000 disappearances; tired of the lack of attention on the tragedy of Mexico; And tired of knowing that the tragedy is using our tax dollars and giving them to the “State” of Mexico. Ya basta! Enough! The time to change US policy in Mexico calls us, and we hear it as an echo of the message from the south, only we will translate it: It Was the State–With the Support of Our State.