“Quisieron enterrarnos. No sabían que somos semillas.”

On Sept. 26, 2014, the municipal police of Iguala, a small city in southwestern Mexico, rounded up and subsequently “disappeared” 43 students. On Sept. 27, 2014, Mexicans began clamoring for their return. “¡Vivos se los llevaron!” they shouted at their government. “¡Vivos los queremos!”

Since then, thousands of people across the globe have joined Mexicans’ protests in mounted indignation. Ironically, the 43 students were en route to Mexico City to participate in the commemoration of the murder and disappearance of an estimated 300 students in 1968. The 43 students, originally from Ayotzinapa, made a pit stop in Iguala to acquire additional buses to get to the heart of the country. In a saddening turn of events, thousands of chilangos clad in black gathered in Tlatelolco (the site of the 1968 massacre) on Nov. 20 to demand the return of the 43 students.

The 43, as Francisco Goldman notes in The New Yorker, were college students preparing to become educators in some of Mexico’s most impoverished communities. Many of them were the first in their families to go to college. For them, the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa not only represented an opportunity to break from cyclical poverty, but also the chance to serve as a resource in traditionally underserved areas.

I will not delve further into journalistic details I did not uncover.* Rather, through this post, I hope to underscore what the protests throughout Mexico and around the world have made clear: Contrary to what the Peña Nieto Administration initially asserted, the disappearance of the 43 students is not solely a horrific local crime. Given Latin America’s long history of “disappearing” its dissidents and Mexico’s particularly gruesome record of crimes against humanity, the missing 43 students is simply la gota que derramó el vaso. Justice, therefore, will not be served by incarcerating the former mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, and his wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda.

Through strategic use of social media, Mexican protesters have showcased and garnered support for their plight against the routine violations of human rights in their country. They have created a plethora of hashtags, among them:

  • #YaMeCansé (IAmTired)
  • #AcciónGlobalPorAyotzinapa (GlobalActionForAyotzinapa)
  • #20NovMx (November20Mexico)
  • #TodosSomosAyotzinapa (WeAreAllAyotzinapa)
  • #FueElEstado (ItWasTheState)
  • #renunciaEPN (EnriquePeñaNietoQuit)
  • #NosFaltan43 (WeAreMissing43)

By tapping on these hashtags, people around the world witnessed the recent Nov. 20 protests throughout Mexico, including the burning of an enormous Enrique Peña Nieto papier-mâché doll in the capital’s main square. The hashtags also took onlookers to Mexico City’s streets, which protesters renamed to ensure that the 43 are not forgotten. Protesters placed replica placards on top of the street signs reading:  “estudiantes” (students); “desaparecidos” (the disappeared); “justicia” (justice); “normalista” (teacher’s college student); and “dignidad” (dignity).

The posters the protesters carried—some humorous, some haunting—were the most telling. A man in Chiapas sported a sign that read: “Estoy Feo Pero No Pendejo” (I’m ugly, but I’m not a dumbass).  In Jalisco, a woman carried a banner that read: “Si no marchamos juntos, ¡nos matarán por separado!” (If we don’t march together, they’ll kill us one by one). And in Mexico City, protestors blocking the entrance to the metro stations carried signs that read:  “Disculpe las molestias, pero nos están matando” (Excuse the inconvenience, but they’re killing us).

Of all the banners I saw on social media, I was most struck by one that read: “Quisieron enterrarnos. No sabían que somos semillas.” Roughly translated, this reads: “They tried to bury us. They did not know we were seeds.” Ever since the 43 students “went missing” on Sept. 26, the Mexican government has uncovered and presented pit after pit of mangled bodies to the parents of the missing students in hopes of getting them to give up their search—yet none of the corpses have been confirmed as belonging to them. Inadvertently, the disappearance of the 43 students, which has attracted worldwide media attention, has served to shed light on hundreds of other nameless bodies, dismembered and long forgotten.

*For more information and great analysis on the disappearance of the 43 students in English, I urge you to read Francisco Goldman’s pieces on the subject in The New Yorker:

 

In Spanish, Sinembargo.mx, an online news organization, can provide you with on-the-ground coverage of the protests in Mexico. Directed by Alejandro Paéz Varela, Sinembargo.mx and its staff has been subject to numerous threats and defamation attempts in retaliation for its coverage on the 43 students.

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