The Guardian serenade

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400,000 people take part in prodemocracy protests in Mexico

400,000 people take part in prodemocracy protests in Mexico

Having mentioned the “Yo Soy 132” protests the other day I thought I should do a little bit of a follow up, as they’ve now serenaded the Guardian. As the elections are this weekend the BBC seem to have finally decided it’s worth some coverage, though still not mentioning the protests. The Guardian does better and even mentions the student demo’s and the name of the movement, though don’t seem to want to mention the serenade. As the picture above shows this isn’t a small protest movement we’re talking about here, yet coverage really does remain scant, and still the “left-wing” blogs which normally like this sort of thing seem very silent, but then as chtodelat news reports “It’s kind of a weird movement”. That report may hold the key as to why so many blogs and bits of the MSM that one might normally expect to cover this sort of movement are ignoring it “it started in the private universities, in a very upper class Catholic private university”. Private education and Catholics obviously this pro-democracy movement must be a work of evil!! I’m sure I’m just picking the wrong search terms or something, so do let me know if you think I’ve missed it, in the meantime I’ll continue to find the silence on this slightly odd. Though a cynical suggestion was made to me that money lack of boat rocking and protection of oil supplies might explain some of it. I think the silence from certain sections of the blogosphere is more likely explained for the reasons given above.

Anyway I wish Mexico the best of luck with their elections and leave you with a video of the serenade.

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Not in the news

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Yo Soy 132With the recent G20 summit in Mexico you’d have thought all things Mexican would be in the news but oddly not. It would seem that they’ve got a bit of a student protest movement going on over there which has inevitably been dubbed the Mexican spring. It’s got all of what should be the required ingredients to make the news:

  • Student protests
  • Loose connection to the occupy movement
  • Easy to remember group name “Yo Soy 132”
  • Pro-democracy/anti-corruption stance

And yet it’s been really quite absent from the mainstream news as far as I can see. In fact the only reason I know about it is that I know someone in London who’s quite involved with the movement, from what they report this really should be a no-brainer of a news article with all the usual stereotypes of Latin American political corruption being played out. The various left wing groups they’re involved with over here (being a student politics sort as they are) are refusing to give two hoots, not even issuing empty messages of hollow support. Now this doesn’t surprise me (and does rather amuse me as I’m a bad bad person) as the left generally these days seems to be very much about the hippness of the cause, and well Mexico doesn’t have the hipster appeal of the Arab countries. Even worse of course the current president/regime being protested about is socialist in name and so is immune to criticism by the left (If they look past the labels they might have to think after all). Also of course the duopolistic system in Mexico is remarkably similar to the false Conservative/Labour choice we get presented with so again our media are hardly likely to want to rock that boat too much.

I will say that from their Manifesto at least their demands are really fairly reasonable, but again dangerously close to something that could be demanded in much of the west. They also have a mix of some notionally quite right wing/libertarian demands along with

  • We demand real competition in the media sector, particularly with regard to the media duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca.
  • We demand that all media (radio, television, and print) incorporate instruments to safeguard the public interest.
  • We demand that the various schools of communication publicly bid for their public channel’s license.
  • We demand that access to Internet be a constitutional right, under the terms established in Article 1 of our Magna Carta.
  • We demand that there be spaces for debate between youth, academics, and the media about the above demands.
  • We demand the safety for the members of this movement, who express themselves freely throughout the country, and for particular journalists, who have been struck by violence.
  • Furthermore, we express absolute solidarity with the people who in recent days have been suppressed in different states of the republic for expressing their ideas.

With such a superficially reasonable set of demands it’s hardly surprising that they’re being ignored, especially as there hasn’t been that much in the way of trendy media friendly violence. To give an idea of how poor the coverage has been the Yo Soy 132 in London are going to serenade the Guardian for their coverage, mind don’t even bother searching on the BBC.

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Falkland Islands 30 years on

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Falkland Islands flagThirty years ago today British forces liberated the Falkland Islands from Argentinian occupation. Possibly the most justified use of British forces since the end of the second world war (even allowing for the Belgrano). Yet now thirty years down the line the Argentinians are once more sabre rattling over the Falkland Islands, imposing shipping restrictions in the area. Of course I’m sure this has nothing to do with the possibility of the Falkland Islands having oil, nor distracting from local issues in Argentina. So to try to send a clear message to the Argentinians the Falkland Islanders are going to have a referendum to decide if they’d like to continue to be British or if in fact 30 years ago they actually meant to welcome the Argentinians with open arms and it was all a big mistake. I think it’s safe to say that the outcome isn’t largely considered to be in doubt.

Now amongst all this where do those staunch defenders of democracy and our close allies with whom we’ve stood “shoulder to shoulder” through numerous conflicts stand? Why those freedom loving chaps over in the USA hold a position of neutrality and can’t even bring themselves to commit to recognising the results of the referendum – thanks guys, hopefully our glorious leaders will actually remember this next time we’re asked for help. I wouldn’t count on it though as, unlike the Yanks. we’re still voting to lend the Argentinians more money from the world bank! Today would be an excellent day to go and sign the petition against that by the way. If Argentina (a G20 country) does decide to become more aggressive over the matter again, where will we get the forces to respond given our commitments with those afore mentioned staunch supporters of democracy (though as there’s now oil involved…)? In theory the other EU members are obliged to come to our aid, but can you see that happening? And with the way we’ve treated them during our EU love in I’m not sure we could call on the common wealth for help either – still not to worry we’ve got banks to bail out and booze to ban.

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