After the Storm Comes... the "Other"
Storm
And by the strength of our
weaknesses
we will be the strongest of the world,
of history and of the right struggles.
- Roque
October of 2005.
I hope you are well. We are,
more or less, recovering little by little from the shipwreck, and worried about
the compas
on the Coast and in all the affected states. Surely those supporters of the Sexta who are still dry will extend bridges below for that
support which is owed between compañeros and compañeras. What is happening above is nothing but a
publicity spot, and, when prime time is over, the histories of the omissions,
lack of responsibility and inefficiencies of the state and federal governments
which aren't even good for entertainment will remain buried (like under the
water and the mud).
Behind the images and the
sounds of the catastrophe the storm provoked down here, one can see the
government program which, with different colors and initials, is being waged up
above: turning our country into a huge disaster zone and the Mexicans into a
large mass of victims, victims suitable for instantaneous media charity
(because one doesn't have to exaggerate, they say, after all, the most
important thing is still the election campaigns).
You know what? You can sense a certain desperation up there. As if the
"respectable" public were increasingly reluctant to consume the
plastic, transgenetic news stories that they're being
offered one after another: a helicopter which fell or "was felled"
and the habitual absence of an official whose death snuffed out that of Miguel Ángel Mesino M. and that of Tomás Cruz Zamora (the latter the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to Parota
- CECOP). In other words, there are deaths above and deaths below. Those of
above deserve headlines, prime time, speculations. Those of below...well, what
better example than the attitude of the Governor of
Guerrero, Zeferino Torreblanca
(who reached the position with the initials and colors of the PRD), who asked
"that these crimes not be magnified." And then there aren't, as they
then said, "favorable conditions": during the celebration of the sub
17 world victory, the rains came to ruin everything and to remind us that
misfortune also has a class predilection and preferentially embraces those who
have little and then lose it.
Fox already said that "after
the storm comes the calm." The only thing he missed was asking "don't
magnify these things." Now the news will go somewhere else, and in the
devastated areas the networks of corruption and complicity, which will ensure
that history repeats itself, will be rebuilt in silence. And
the millions of victims? They will move from being a news item to being
a campaign item: "if you vote for me, this won't happen again...because
others will be the ones to profit from their misfortune."
But up above they don't see
that after the storm the calm doesn't come, but instead an "other"
storm, one that will go from below to above, which will shake this sorrow we
call Patria and which will return to it what it once had: dignity. And, like a
small and weak wind, perhaps just a little cloud, the "other"
campaign will begin to raise up everywhere, from the
irate Suchiate to beyond the
You ask me about the problem
of the compas
from the IMSS, about the media campaign against them (one day they're
"spoiled" workers and the next they're "anti-Semitic" nazis) and about the Other
Campaign's role in this and in other movements.
Well, during the preparation
meetings we heard from some persons (mostly women) who are engaged in that
movement: they don't receive any pay whatsoever for their political work, they
take time from their free moments in order to organize, study and struggle for
their rights, they are more concerned for the generations of workers to come than
they are for themselves (yes, like the student movement of 1999-2000), and we
spoke with that camaraderie of those who know they are engaged in the same
effort. They recently sent us some documents. As far as I understand what they
wrote me (and without trying to replace their voice) about the struggle of the
IMSS workers, and at the risk of being too succinct, I can tell you the
following:
- The premise of a state or para-state owned company is not the same as that of a
private company. While the latter is only interested in profits at all costs
(even extending to crime), the former is interested in social service, service
to the community (or it should be). Private companies seek to benefit the
businessman, the state and para-state owned ones seek
(or should) to benefit the people, the workers, or however they want to be
called.
- Leaving aside the issue of
whether the existence of state or para-state owned
companies are a palliative for social discontent, a means of control, or an
achievement of social struggle (for us, it is, above all, the latter), those
who are employed there are workers (with rights to win and to defend in the
face of an owner (the State, in this case). Ergo, they have the right to
organize in unions, union wings, collectives, groups, circles or however they
want to call themselves and to operate.
- In present-day capitalism,
the thirst for capitalist profits doesn't stop at the State boundaries. That is
why they try to gain control of everything that does, or can, create profits, including
state and para-state owned companies. This
buying/selling of State property is one of the characteristics of
neoliberalism, and it counts on the complicity of officials (who, being
politicians, transform themselves into managers).
- The common premise of
neoliberal governments is: take over a state or para-state
owned company; team up with stupid and/or corrupt officials and corrupt and/or
stupid union leaders, in order to loot the patrimony; make it inefficient and
costly; argue that it has to be sold so it can deliver good service and be
competitive; modify or violate the laws that prevent privatization; sell it;
get rid of the workers and/or their organizations; declare that the country is
making progress because direct foreign investment has increased, "which
reflects the high level of confidence which Mexico has gained at the global
level in an increasingly competitive world" (grammatical infamy, the
responsibility of the current official).
- In
- For two decades the Mexican
Institute of Social Security (IMSS) has been one of the principal objectives of
neoliberal governments. On the one hand it has carried out a policy of looting
and undercapitalizing the IMSS in order to justify its privatization. The idea
isn't just to have the IMSS "run out" of funds, but to "transfer"
them to the big capitalists. With the approval of the Reforms to the Social
Security Law - in which pension funds were privatized by creating AFORES - a
profit of 60 billion pesos has been created, which has gone into the coffers of
big banks which today are already in the hands of international financial
capital. The employer's contribution for illness and maternity insurance was
reduced by 33%. In addition, instead of investing in the maintenance and
modernization of equipment in the IMSS, they have put it into private hospital
medical services such as ambulances, surgeries and clinical studies (in other
words, private companies being financed with public money). In addition, there
is the following: salary reductions of up to 70%; precariousness in employment;
budget reduction; increase in salaries and benefits for top officials; the
toleration of the extension and evasion of employer's contributions.
- When the Reforms to the
Social Security Law were approved in 2004, the Federal Labor Law and the
Collective Labor Contract were violated, because two labor regimens were
established: one for those who had already been working prior to the
reform and another for those who entered the workforce afterwards. There
are worse provisions for retirement for the latter than for the former.
- All of this demonstrates to
us a conscious policy by businessmen, politicians and union bureaucrats of the
pro-management unions to undercapitalize the IMSS in order to deliver it the
final blow and to carry out the privatization of public medical services.
- This is aimed not only at those
who are working at the IMSS, but also at all workers and their families.
- The workers in the IMSS who
are struggling against this plan of destruction are for: turning back the 2004
reforms; not allowing the existence of two kinds of labor relationships; making
an audit of the IMSS finances in order to detect the dirty deals of successive
boards; carrying out mobilizations in order to prevent pro-management unions
from betraying the accords; defending the IMSS and the demands of its workers;
preparations for a national strike if the neoliberal plan doesn't back off;
wage increases of 10%; and earmarking 50% of surplus oil profits for
financially strengthening the IMSS.
- The struggle of the IMSS
workers is nothing less than the defense of health care, of social security, of
labor rights, of collective contracts and of the unions.
- As might be expected, this
movement has been the object of a real slander campaign in the media. The
common argument is that the IMSS workers, and the pensioners in the IMSS
regimen, are "privileged" workers as regards pensions. A pensioner
from the IMSS regimen receives close to 22,000 pesos per year (less than 2000
pesos a month), while the Fox government supports the truly
"privileged" : the banks (during the administration of
"change" close to one billion, 400,000 million pesos will be paid out
for debt service); the ex-presidents (there are 4 of them, and they receive
close to 45 million pesos each per year - or more than 2 million pesos a
month); the ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (more than
133 million pesos a year for each one of those living or for their widows - or
more than 10 million pesos monthly).
In summary: these compañeros and compañeras of the
IMSS have managed to raise an intelligent and dignified struggle in order to
check the privatization offensive of above. On the other hand, pro-management
unions don't have it easy: if they take the side of the workers, they will be
of no use to management and the government; and if they take the side of
management, they'll be of no use to the workers. And, looked at carefully,
these movements are also useful for that: for demonstrating the uselessness of
the charros
[the term means both cowboys and also pro-management unions] for anything other
than folklore for bewildered tourists.
And if the government does
not stop, and it insists on imposing its privatization, then it will be
confronting not just the IMSS strike, but also the support which the entire
Other Campaign in general, and the EZLN in particular, will have to offer them
as the compañeros
we are.
As for the rest, what can I
tell you: that the Other continues to grow (as of October 2 there are now 64
political organizations of the left, 118 indigenous organizations. 197 social
organizations, 474 NGOs/groups/collectives and 1898 individuals), slowly but
inexorably. The assessments of the Plenary are beginning to arrive, the
opinions on the 6 points of definition and the proposals (some of them
including weight loss diets) for "Agent X's" first trip.
We believe that the eagerness
for self-purification when we've just begun will soon be overcome, and the
stage of "ismos"
(sometimes as praise and sometimes as insult) will pass when it becomes
understood that to be of the left in the Mexico of today is to be, at the
least, not in the center, but to the left of the right. I don't know very well
what will happen, but, believe me, the results will not be a left agreeable to
the right, it will be an "other left."
I'll say goodbye now. Be sure
to write, since sometimes we also walk in words.
Vale. Salud and may the wind which we are continue to grow.
From the
mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.