Mexico is heating up...

The Other Campaign is Growing in Oaxaca
Mexico’s Majority Indigenous State on the Verge of Subcomandante Marcos’ Arrival

By James Daria, Nick LaPoint, Daniela Lima and Dul Santamaria
The Ricardo Flores Magón Brigade, Reporting for Narco News

We are the Ricardo Flores Magón Brigade bringing you coverage of the first steps of “The Other Campaign” here in the state of Oaxaca. We are Mexican, Gringo, Brazilian, and French reporting in up to four languages.

We have chosen the name Ricardo Flores Magón in memory of the Oaxacan journalist and revolutionary who became one of the main ideologues of the Mexican Revolution. Through the publication of “Regeneración” and other newspapers, Magón carried out a journalism of combat that attacked the corrupt and repressive regime of Porfírio Diaz and propagandized the struggle for land and liberty. Forced into exile to the USA by the Porfirian regime, Magón led a revolutionary struggle, as much national as international, which sought to build a classless, stateless society from the bottom up. Born in the community of San Antonio Eloxochitlán in 1873, Magon died under suspicious circumstances in 1922 in Leavenworth Prison, Kansas, USA. His radical critique of electoral politics has much in common with the EZLN’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle and “The Other Campaign” being built in Mexico today.

Based in the capital, Oaxaca City (Valles Centrales Region), we are documenting the emergence of “The Other Campaign” in the weekly regional and statewide assemblies being held in preparation for the arrival of Delegate Zero and the Sixth Commission.

One of the poorest states in the country, Oaxaca is home to the largest number of ethnic groups and indigenous languages in the Mexican Republic. Ethnicity, land, education and repression are the foundational issues of the Oaxacan struggle. The Zapatistas, as well as the legacy of the Oaxacan Ricardo Flores Magón and other revolutionary figures, have been a key reference point for pueblos, organizations and individuals alike who struggle here to create alternatives to the existing social order.

From the indigenous and mestizo communities that still govern without political parties through their “usos y costumbres” to the queer “mux’e” communities of the isthmus, Oaxacan social movements have created varied forms of social struggle. It will be our attempt to relate to the readers how these forms of social, cultural and political organization contribute to and grow with “The Other Campaign.”

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