All across the world youth are rising up and creating powerful movements, fighting for their future and the rights of the poor and dispossessed. “We are the 99%” is the rallying slogan of this global movement of youth, against the corporations and of the financial takeover by the banks that threaten our democracy. It started with the Arab Spring in 2011, and thereafter with Spain’s Indignados, followed by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S.
Recently, this global movement has been further energized with student strikes in Quebec and now the “Yo Soy #132” or “I am #132” in Mexico. Youth are standing up to fascist governments and clamoring for fundamental needs such as jobs and affordable education.
Yo Soy #132, which some are calling the Mexican Spring, is a movement in Mexico that calls for true democracy and fair media coverage, instead of what is coming from ruling class controlled media conglomerates like Televisa and T.V. Azteca. Outraged by the way the media has pronounced the Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I.) Presidential Candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto the clear presidential winner, and incensed by the media’s refusal to even cover the presidential election, while instead covering soccer games, youth in Mexico are creating their own story and possibly, their future.
On May 11, hundreds of students booed and shouted Peña Nieto off the stage at the Ibero-American University of Mexico City, a private Jesuit university. He had defended violent military assaults against the residents of San Salvador Atenco, an action he ordered as governor of the State of Mexico. Students were incensed by Peña Nieto’s statement: “I repeat with emphasis that I made this decision—for which I assume personal responsibility—to re-establish order and peace by means of the legitimate right of the Mexican State to use public force.”
The student outrage led to Peña Nieto being slapped in the face and shoved off stage. Later, the press demonized the student actions claiming the action was completely staged by the Revolutionary Democratic Party (P.R.D.). In rebuttal, students, went on YouTube to denounce the lies.
Since, thousands of students, union activists, and others have marched in the streets shouting slogans like, “We are not one, we are not 100. Televisa, count us!” There have also been protests outside of Televisa offices in Mexico City and in other states. An ongoing electronic Twitter campaign denounces the corporate backed media and interests that Nieto represents.
This movement is congealing to make objective demands such as calling for jobs for youth (a promise Peña Nieto is now trying to own). Yo Soy #132 is championing a spectrum of social causes such as the demand for an end to femicide and solidarity with indigenous movements.
This movement like other global movements, speaks to something that all have in common, and this is that youth have no future in this new-technologically driven economy. A new class that includes students is being formed, and the ruling class has only repression to offer.
Just as the industrial revolution created the industrial worker as a new section of the working class, today’s electronic revolution is creating a new section of the working class. This is a class which has lost everything it once had, and its ranks grow daily. The demands of this new, impoverished class for food, housing, education, health care and an opportunity to contribute to society are summed up as the demand for a cooperative society.
How will Peña Nieto create the new jobs he is promising when so many jobs are being automated and replaced by robotics? Students, like many other poor people and permanently unemployed, are being pushed to the bottom. The tweets students are posting criticize the fact that Peña Nieto only represents the upper class. The movements that are forming are a clear opposition to fascism, to the so-called “legitimate use of public force” against those who would stand up against injustice.
Youth are a clear hope for the future. With their energy and creativity, with their substance and moral compass, with their imagination of what could be, they are brightening the future for everyone. The possibility of a new society, a new world where people don’t suffer from hunger, military repression, or the want for jobs, and the light that illuminates our path, all comes from the youth.
In the next few weeks, they could turn the tide of Mexico’s political system. My vote is with them.
