>X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >NY Times, February 13, 2000 > >Young and Anarchic, the Angry Left Is Reborn in Mexico > >By JULIA PRESTON > >MEXICO CITY -- During The Cold War, when Latin American leftists gravitated >toward communism, it was easy for them to identify their enemies: local >military dictators or U.S. corporate imperialists. They had an economic >system to demonize -- capitalism -- and an alternative -- socialism -- to >put in its place. And they had a playbook, written by Marx and Lenin and >Fidel Castro, to guide their thinking and strategy. > >But times are different. There still is an activist left in Latin America, >and it still does battle with inequality and poverty and undemocratic >government. But the recent nine-month strike at Mexico's national >university revealed a new kind of leftist movement, one whose new foe is >the global economy. The strike, which devastated Mexico's most important >university and divided its society, gave a preview of the vexing challenges >the new leftists may pose to the region's young democracies. > >The striking students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico >declared that their fundamental purpose was to oppose the worldwide spread >of free trade and the lean government, pro-business policies that promote >it. But the conundrum for their movement was that the new adversary -- >globalism -- was faceless. It was a product of commerce and technology more >than of government or guns. It was emerging everywhere at once, with no >clear alternative in sight. > >If the students were confronting anarchic change, they met it with an >anarchic movement. The strike steering committee took over the campus, >using barbed wire to keep other students out. They elected no outstanding >leaders and took their decisions in chaotic all-night assemblies. Over the >months the university conceded demand after demand, but the strikers only >upped the ante. > >The strikers confounded everyone who dealt with them, from conciliatory >university administrators to conservative intellectuals to lifelong >leftists. In the end, after the federal police marched in on Feb. 6 and >hauled the remaining strikers away to jail, it seemed that the strike had >been an end in itself, a form of complete resistance against social and >economic changes they could never hope to control. > >The new leftism probably emerged in Mexico because this country has led the >charge in Latin America into the globalized age. Since signing on to the >1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico has seen its international >trade explode, its business middle class rise like a phoenix and the >country's northern half become an industrial export powerhouse. > >Complete article at: >http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/021300mexico-leftists-review.html > > >Louis Proyect >Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
