On Friday, April 19th, UNAM\u2019s Rectory Tower was violently invaded and captured by about twenty masked youngsters. Among their various demands, the reinstallation of five former students expelled from UNAM\u2019s CCH (College of Science and Humanities; as a result of violent acts committed in February) stands out. The aforementioned expels were confirmed last Tuesday by the University Court and it doesn\u2019t seem likely that the decision will change; however, the Rectory building is still under their control. On the other hand, the university authorities have lodged a complaint to PGR (Attorney\u2019s General Office and, thus, have transferred the responsibility of deciding over the matter to the aforementioned authority.<\/p>\n
It is imperative to place the Rectory takeover within the social context occurring in the last few months. In this regard, the notoriety of violent groups has increased: the anarchists from the December 1st disturbances, teachers from Oaxaca and Guerrero, self-defense and vigilante groups from that same region and the re-apparition of Zapatista groups. It seems that PRI\u2019s return and its government\u2019s first actions have modified the existing social arrangements, causing a reshuffling of all Mexican political forces. Every single of these groups have, more or less, cast doubt over the government\u2019s capacity to uphold the rule of law. The Rectory takeover represents a special case, not for the challenge to remove a small group of youngsters but for the symbolism that involves using public force at a university. Given that scenario, past ghosts emerge, the ones that have justifiably delegitimized the public use of force. A new narrative that reproaches the use of public force under any circumstance has come up and, using the repression argument, it inhibits its use by the government. In that regard, it is not necessary to go back much further in order to find events that support this narrative, for example, the human rights violations (documented by the National Commission on Human Rights) on December 1st of last year.<\/p>\n
The challenge ahead of authorities in charge of public force consists in modifying this narrative, something that was tentatively started with the removal of protestors in the Acapulco highway. It is not a casualty that the aforementioned authorities now have the democratic legitimacy support to use public force (something that didn\u2019t happen on past XX century Mexican governments). However, in order for this change of paradigm to happen, it is necessary to be accompanied by facts that support it, which means impeding the use of force to become excessive. The difficulty of achieving a strategic use of force increases with new similar cases (such as Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) Rectory\u2019s takeover) since the chances of making a mistake that will delegitimize its use and will enforce the current narrative. Maybe this is the true objective of violent groups.<\/p>\n
All that said the following questions ensue: are these a series of coordinated demonstrations or are they independent from each other? Does an objective of defying the government\u2019s authority exist or is this about emerging conflicts occurring in a natural way? Are famous politicians involved or are the protests run by citizens with their own causes?<\/p>\n
Regarding UNAM, once the dialogue option was dismissed and since the legal complaint was lodged, the political costs of delaying police actions highly rise, since it transmits the message of a dubitative authority. The importance of sending the right message, in relation to the government\u2019s capacity to uphold the rule of law, steadily rises with the upcoming energetic debate (the current administration\u2019s biggest hope). Trying to pass such an important reform normally tends to polarize society and to favor the radicalization of specific social sectors. The government hopes to demonstrate its efficiency in responding to risky situations, if it doesn\u2019t happen it will only contribute to the overheating of a pressure cooker. It will be crucial to know the exact nature of this issue.<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Friday, April 19th, UNAM\u2019s Rectory Tower was violently invaded and
\ncaptured by about twenty masked youngsters. Among their various demands,
\n the reinstallation of five former students expelled from UNAM\u2019s CCH
\n(College of Science and Humanities; as a result of violent acts
\ncommitted in February) stands out. The aforementioned expels were
\nconfirmed last Tuesday by the University Court and it doesn\u2019t seem
\nlikely that the decision will change; however, the Rectory building is
\nstill under their control. On the other hand, the university authorities
\n have lodged a complaint to PGR (Attorney\u2019s General Office and, thus,
\nhave transferred the responsibility of deciding over the matter to the
\naforementioned authority.<\/p>\n
It is imperative to place the Rectory
\ntakeover within the social context occurring in the last few months. In
\nthis regard, the notoriety of violent groups has increased: the
\nanarchists from the December 1st disturbances, teachers from Oaxaca and
\nGuerrero, self-defense and vigilante groups from that same region and
\nthe re-apparition of Zapatista groups. It seems that PRI\u2019s return and
\nits government\u2019s first actions have modified the existing social
\narrangements, causing a reshuffling of all Mexican political forces.
\nEvery single of these groups have, more or less, cast doubt over the
\ngovernment\u2019s capacity to uphold the rule of law. The Rectory takeover
\nrepresents a special case, not for the challenge to remove a small group
\n of youngsters but for the symbolism that involves using public force at
\n a university. Given that scenario, past ghosts emerge, the ones that
\nhave justifiably delegitimized the public use of force. A new narrative
\nthat reproaches the use of public force under any circumstance has come
\nup and, using the repression argument, it inhibits its use by the
\ngovernment. In that regard, it is not necessary to go back much further
\nin order to find events that support this narrative, for example, the
\nhuman rights violations (documented by the National Commission on Human
\nRights) on December 1st of last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-3134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-political-analysis","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4617,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134\/revisions\/4617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}