Street protests that started in Monterrey almost a week ago have now extended to the Texas-Mexico border. / Lo que empezó en Monterrey hace casi una semana ahora se extendió a la frontera tejana/mexicana desde Juárez hasta Reynosa.
Bands of people, mainly youths with their faces covered, sporting baggy pants, headbands, huge draping shirts and regiocolombiano styles, starting shutting down streets in Monterrey last week. Now similar protests (but with women and children in front) shut down the international bridges in border towns from Juárez to Reynosa.
El discurso de los manifestantes es rarísimo. Hablan de una resistencia contra el ejército. Their protest is supposedly against the military. Fighting to remove the military from communities. The same military fighting against the narcos in the drug war. The word on the street is that they are being paid by the Gulf Cartel to protest. Between 300 and 500 pesos per person.
Who knows what is really going on? This video from Reynosa shows what seems to be absurd, postmodern protests against "neonazis" and "fascists." It seems the drug cartels have taken the vocabulary of the Zapatistas and repurposed it to further their cause (con nuevas fallas ortográficas). Parece ser una verguenza extrema. A performance of political protest paid for by pimps. But who really knows for sure. The Zapatista communities fought to rid their communities of the military in the nineties. These protestors use a similar rhetoric to very, very different ends. Cuidado con la solidaridad.