If you see a kid eating a sugar skull, watch yourself in a death cartoon or read a funny little verse on how death will take you, you are probably not dreaming, you are experiencing the Mexican “Day of the Dead” celebration. The Day of the Dead is a millenary tradition from the ancient Aztec and Mesoamerican civilizations. These cultures conceived death to be a part of life and the transition to a better existence. When the Spanish conquered these civilizations, the merging ofindigenous and Catholic celebrations gave birth to a mixedfestivity that has prevailed over time. During the first two days of November the streets, houses and cemeteries of Mexico are dressed with candles, flowers and food to receive the souls of our beloved ones. We honor them and delight them with their favorite food, beverages and objects; placingtheir pictures, as well as copal incense and the aromatic cempasúchil (marigold) floweron the altars
This year however, we are no longer celebrating death. This year we are devastated and outraged at theviolent deaths that have been occurring in Mexico, becoming a part of our day-to-day life. Ever since the war on drugsbegan in 2006, more than 90,000people have died.
One recent event in Mexicohas pushed Mexican society beyond its limit andturned the eyes of the international community. On 26 September, a group of students from the rural teaching school Raúl Isidro Burgos inthe small town of Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero – one of the poorest states in Mexicoand the region - were traveling to the city of Iguala 258 km away. The students were travelling thereto collect money to fund their trip to Mexico City to participate in the protest for the memorial of the student’s movement and repression of2 October 1968. They were students, just as we are, studying to become rural professors to bring education to the poorest and most marginalized communities of Mexico.
That night they were attacked by the municipal police; six people were killed, threeof them students, and 43 more disappeared.During the following days, several mass graves were discovered containing tortured and burned corpses. Even if the identities of the bodies have not yet been discovered by forensic tests, the brutality of these events is indignant. This crime reveals the lack of governability that prevails in many states of Mexico where authorities and police forces are controlled and infiltrated by drug cartels and where impunity reigns as well as the law of the strongest.
Under the slogan “alive they took them, alive we want them back” thousands of Mexicans have been protesting in massive demonstrations on the streets. Mexicans are demanding justice for the 43 students, but also for the 90,000 dead people and the 20,000 that are still missing throughout Mexico.
We cannot continue to celebrate death anymore because we have to face these unnecessary and brutal deaths every single day.
Ursula Sánchez
School of Public Policy
Mexico
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| Altar commemorating the missing students in Mexico in the Laptop Area |
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