The year is 2006.
Oaxaca, Mexico. A city that will unexpectedly become ground zero for one of the most radical movements Mexico has seen in the 21st century.
May 22.
Teachers strike across the state, against dismal resources for schools, kids, and themselves.
They are met with widespread repression. At least 90 people are injured by police forces.
So, backed by community members and organized over community radio stations, they found APPO, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca.
They start holding people’s assemblies. They take over the city. Their movement is compared to the Paris commune. It’s been called the first popular revolt of the 21st century.
Roadblocks line city streets. A clip from a documentary from the time, Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad, “A little bit of so much truth,” says roughly a thousand barricades cover the city each night for more than two months.
And they also take their fight to Mexico’s capital. A group of teachers go on a hunger strike, demanding respect and the resignation of the Oaxacan state governor.
Police and armed gunmen respond. They unleash widespread repression, attacks, disappearances, killings.
Among those killed is Brad Will, a US documentary filmmaker and indy media activist. He’s shot filming a protest in a street just east of Oaxaca City on October 27, 2006. The footage you’re hearing is from the camera he was holding at the time.
The month after Will is killed, the federal police surround the APPO encampment, cracking down and detaining hundreds. Many are tortured. Some are disappeared.
“It was a really repressive environment,” says human rights defender Aline Castellanos Jurado. “You never knew if they would raid your home. Or where the disappeared were. Or what they were doing to the detained.”
Arrest warrants are issued for hundreds. Many go into hiding. Some flee the country.
By the end of the year, the local government had largely crushed the physical resistance…
But their spirit remained. They would inspire others in Mexico and abroad. And within a decade, Oaxacan teachers would again be in the streets. Organizing, protesting. Marching for their right to teach.
For their children’s and their students’ rights to education.
Resistance in the name of the peoples’ right to learn, and the teachers’ right to be compensated fairly and respected.
On May 22. 2006, teachers struck across the Mexican state of Oaxaca against dismal resources for schools, kids, and themselves. They were met with widespread repression. It would kick off months of protests that would unexpectedly turn Oaxaca into ground zero for one of the most radical movements Mexico has seen in the 21st century.
They started holding people’s assemblies. They set up barricades across the city. Teachers, housewives, Indigenous organizers, health workers, and students took over 14 different radio stations to defend their struggle.
This is episode 37 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.
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Written and produced by Michael Fox.
Resources
Oaxacan teachers strike against Governor, 2006: https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/oaxacan-teachers-strike-against-governor-2006
The Long Struggle of Mexican Teachers: https://jacobin.com/2016/08/mexico-teacher-union-strikes-oaxaca
Documentary: Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (Many of the clips in this episode came from this documentary):
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.