Sunday, 8 March 1998

Mexico Has Abandoned Its Roots

Millions of Mexican Indians live in total poverty, exploited by and isolated from the ruling majority. Five hundred years of western rule has completely ruined the preceeding culture of two thousand years, only the ruined cities remain. Old Maya and Aztec cities are now being re-built nowadays, but the living Indians are abandoned. Exploitation that began already during the colonization is still going on. The aboriginal population is treated as a harmful object, as an obstacle.

The Mexican government has announced a Nafta-agreement that aims to bring well-being, but it has proved to be a failure. Indians are left to be a minority which lives deeply despised in poverty.

The Indians living in the Chiapas area declared a war to the country's one-party government in 1994. The Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN, accuses the government, the police and army of discrimination, poverty and social unequality. The rebels hid themselves in the Lacandon rain forests.

In addition to Spanish there are 55 Indian languages spoken in this multicultural and multilingual country. Most of the Indian languages exist only as spoken languages. The languages and the ideas they convey are considered primitive and useless. The government sees the maintaining of the indian cultural identity as a threat to the independence of Mexico.

The Zapatistas are still not given human rights. The systems for education, labour, and public health service are poor. Now the Indian rebellion is carried out peacefully but the revolution is still going strong under the surface. No one knows why 40 women and children were killed in an Indian community near Chiapas a week ago. The government denies taking harsh measures but still, videos of a woman with a child in her arms, who both have been shot from the state-owned tanks, tell a different story.

Text: Anna Starckman
Translation: Pia Valtanen and Piia Holopainen

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