“Ayotzinapa is in every corner of the planet,” Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, EZLN

With the statement AyotzinapaSomosTodxs, We are all Ayotzinapa, we have marched down city streets, thousands of miles away from that little town that has been the site of repression by the Mexican government since the 1960s. We have done this to demand justice for the disappearance of 43 students and the murder of 7 of them. The students attended the Raul Isidro Burgos Normal School, a teachers college located in Ayotzinapa, a small town in the southern state of Guerrero. Many ask why has the abduction of 43 students sparked a national and international movement unparalleled in Mexican history? Why did we not unite when hundreds of women were raped and buried in the desert of Chihuahua or when dozens of indigenous women and children were murdered in broad daylight? The list of murders and disappearances stretches the mind to levels that are difficult to express: over 100,000 killed and 23,000 disappeared in the last 8 years and yet there had been no uproar until now. The truth is that there is no simple answer to these questions. What is true is that the brutal attack on the students and their subsequent kidnapping by the collusion between narcos, federal, and military entities reached the epitome of impunity, corruption, and the disregard for human life in Mexico.

The blindfolds that we have been hiding behind have been torn off violently and we have been forced to look at Mexico as a country that is spilling blood from the depths of its soil; Mexico is drowning in the blood of its own people. Buried in mass graves are the dreams of hundreds of people whose lives were decimated by economic and political decisions made by its government. Ayotzinapa is a symbol of that. It represents the pain and sorrow of millions of oppressed people who have been reduced to cheap and disposable labor by the interests of capitalists. Ayotzinapa hurts deep inside the heart of those of us who have had to flee our country due to mass hunger and violence. Ayotzinapa is the spark that has awakened the sleeping pain of those who are people of conscience. Ayotzinapa is the reminder that we are not free, that we are not safe, that the Mexican state does not regard us as human beings who have the right to live.

The cry of pain and sadness that was awakened in Ayotzinapa has travelled across the globe. Now we are aware, now we are awake, and now we are in this struggle. Since October 8, the first national day of action called by the normalistas and their parents, the world has not stopped speaking against the disappearance of the students. Hundreds of committees have sprung across the world to work in this solidarity movement. Thousands of people across the United States have created a large network of immigrants who seek to bring justice to Mexico, the country that we were forced to flee. Ayotzinapa has united fronts that were previously untapped and dormant. The Normal School calls itself the “cradle of social consciousness” and it has indeed been the cradle for the resistance to state-sponsored terrorism and oppression. The missing students have become the seed of hope for a people who seek to live in a world where all lives are of equal worth. All lives do matter and, for that reason, we will not stop until there is justice.

¡Ayotzinapa Vive, La Lucha Sigue! Ayotzinapa Lives, the Struggle Continues!

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Laura J. Ramírez,PhD Candidate Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago.

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