UNAM Alumni Bulletin
School of Philosophy and
Letters
Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de Mėxico
The UNAM International Alumni
Bulletin
Published by Tom Blaise de
Shepherd
Guanajuato
http://www.surfingman10.org/TheBlaiseFamily.html
Reprint from
The Oklahoma Daily,
University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla.,
Wednesday, October 2, 1968
PAGE TEN
A News
Analysis
Mexico City Today:
Political, Social Volcano
By
Tom Blaise de Shepherd
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The
author’s grandparents and parents established El Cedro Silver Mining Company in
Guanajuato, Mexico in 1936, some 30 years ago. He was born and reared in
Joplin, Missouri, several months after his mother was evacuated from their home
in Guanajuato, during a heated 1938 Anti-American political revolution, led by
Mexican Nationalist President Lázaro Cárdenas, who sought to nationalize
Mexico’s petroleum and mining industries. Blaise enrolled as a freshman student
in the School of Philosophy and Letters of the National University of Mexico in
1956, where he pursued studies in The History of Foreign Investments in
Mexico. He has returned to Mexico City frequently during the past 12 years
to further his studies. He also served with the Coast Guard in Hawaii, as a photographer
aboard a British-owned steamship in the Caribbean, and as a news reporter for
his hometown newspaper, The Joplin (Mo.) Globe. He studied and worked as
an actor on the East Coast, prior to enrolling in 1966 at OU, where he is a
student of sociology, political science and regional and city planning.]
October
1968
In July, a fight broke
out among a group of students at the preparatory school of the National
University of Mexico, located several miles from the main campus in Mexico
City.
When a police riot control squad
encroached on the premises of the University in order to try to break up the
riot, thus jailing several of the students allegedly involved, a voice of
protest was heard loud and clear from students and professors alike on both campuses
of the university, which has a current enrollment of 80,000 students.
Why the protest? The National University
of Mexico, which was founded in 1531, acquired autonomy when its new Organic
Law went into effect in 1945.
Up until recently, through autonomy, the
university had enjoyed full control over its internal affairs without
interference from the government. In addition, student organizations have been
free from control by university authorities. In addition, students, through the
use of the strike, have had a strong voice in affecting university policies.
Government Petitioned
In July as in times past, the students
implemented the strike as a form of protest. During the strike, a smaller group
petitioned the government to answer charges of police state tactics, demanding
that the government: 1. Disband the police riot control squad, 2. Dismiss three
top police officials, 3. Release student prisoners, 4. Repeal an
anti-subversion law, 5. Reaffirm university autonomy, and 6. Pay indemnity for
deaths and injuries.
With unrest fomenting, a university
professor who had long been seeking reform of Mexican labor laws, seized what
he said was an “opportune moment” to demonstrate for his own cause. With the
eyes of the world focusing on Mexico City, host to the 1968 Olympics, the
professor had every reason to think his was an opportune moment. What he and
others like himself perhaps did not foresee was the participation of other
pressure groups, some anarchists, some Marxists, who likewise felt they were
seizing and opportune moment to advance their causes.
When Mexican President Diaz Ordaz ignored
the 6-point petition and called in additional troops to counter a threat to
sabotage the Olympic games, anarchist forces and Marxist-oriented groups appear
to have joined forces to stage one of the bloodiest riots that Mexico has seen
since the overthrow of the Diaz regime in 1910.
Troops Evacuated
However, the rains came, the rioting
subsided and autonomous rule was returned to the university as troops evacuated
the campus.
Mexico has long been known as a land of
volcanoes, and Mexico City has had a history of social upheaval–from the
arrival of the Spanish conquistadors who murdered the Aztec King Montezuma, to
the expropriation of foreign oil holdings as late as 1938. Significantly, Mexico City 1968
presents to the historian and political scientist a new framework with which to
view the future of Mexico.
For Mexico City is not only the political
capital of Mexico, it is the industrial center, the financial hub, the
intellectual Mecca and the urban center of a nation of nearly 50 million
people. The greater metropolitan area of Mexico City has a population approaching
eight million. This amounts to 16 percent of the country’s people enmeshed in
one sprawling urban complex.
If we are going to use the term “urban
crisis” to describe the dilemma of our cities in the United States, then
perhaps we should use the term “urban volcano” to describe what is happening in
Mexico City.
With all of the building that has taken
place in the past decade, including the construction of freeways, subways,
high-rise apartment buildings, suburban subdivisions, and the noticeable increase
in hospitals, social security medical centers and recreation centers, one would
expect to see a relative decrease in slum housing. Nevertheless, the slum
areas, perhaps pushed further to the perimeter of the city, have seemingly
increased proportionately with the amount of building that has taken place.
Economy Expands
“While the rich are getting richer, the
poor are getting poorer,” is a typical comment made about Mexico City. However,
there is a more scientific explanation for what is happening. While the urban
economy is expanding, urbanologists tell us, the rural people of Mexico, people
who for the most part have never been a part of a money economy of any sort,
but of a subsistence economy, are being attracted to the city in droves.
Most of these Indian migrants from the
surrounding countryside do not speak Spanish. They speak an assortment Native
American dialects. Of those who do speak Spanish, few can read and write the
language. Thus unequipped with the tools for living in an urban society, these
social misfits are relegated to the slum.
What is every bit as alarming is that a
large number of those who are and have been for a long time a part of the urban
money economy still cannot afford the basic conveniences and luxuries produced
by their culture. For instance, newly built two-story, seven-room concrete
houses in middle income neighborhoods are selling for $32,000 (American
dollars), and are available for a moderate down payment and monthly payments as
low as $360! Yet skilled blue collar and white collar workers are being offered
unbelievably low starting salaries: an automobile mechanic, $165 monthly; a
bilingual secretary, $160 monthly; a receptionist, $72 monthly; a typist, $96.
Luxury Considered
Plainly enough,
skilled workers can afford very few of the most basic conveniences, let alone
the luxuries, of urban living. And in Mexico City, a telephone is considered a
luxury. To become a subscriber, depending on the location of the neighborhood,
ordinarily one must get on a waiting list. But before telephone installation
can take place, the prospective subscriber must purchase a minimum amount of
stock in the telephone company, an amount equal to three months’ paychecks for
some workers.
The fact is that what has been heard about
the rising new middle class in Mexico is still a dream, or to be concise,
skilled workers are still at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Those who
can afford the basic conveniences and at least a few luxuries, for the most
part professionals (doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers and scientists),
businessmen and university professors (most of whom engage in other professions
on the side due to the inadequacy of salaries), are among those who consider
themselves to be the upper class, and these are largely the middle income
people. At the other end of the upper class are the “super rich,” those who
could make a Dallas millionaire feel inadequate.
A managerial revolution has not yet taken
place, although there is one in progress. Management is not yet divorced from
ownership to the degree that it is in the United States. The general manager of
a Mexican corporation is typically the owner of his concern, or at least one of
the five main stockholding officers.
While a state welfare program is developing
at an impetuous rate, the Mexican government makes it comparatively easy for a
Mexican citizen to go into business for himself. Tax incentives and government
financing enable a still competitive free enterprise system to exist side by
side with welfarism, under the name of Mexicanism.
The National Financiera, a government
institution created in 1933 for the promotion of industrialization, allocates
funds to private individuals and groups for establishing businesses.
Nevertheless, it reserves for itself a regulatory hand by guaranteeing itself a
51 percent voice in annual stockholders meetings. In addition, the state has
passed legislation requiring certain types of businesses of a certain size to
set up a profit-sharing plan for its employees.
While the federal government’s affirmed
policy is to insure the greatest material comforts for the greatest number of
citizens, minimum wages are still less than $3 a day, and the younger
generation, of which those under 25 years old represent 58 percent of the
country’s population, is getting impatient. Although cries of protest are being
made by a militant minority, they claim to be acting in the interest of a
majority. However small their actual numbers may be, one thing is certain: They
seem willing to take other lives, as well as to give their own, for their
cause.
No Freedom Absolute
What has become more
evident than ever before at the University of Mexico is that no freedom is
absolute. The same power that grants autonomy to the university can take away
that autonomy. And if pushed far enough, that is to the extent that the safety
and welfare of others is threatened, as in the case of the Olympic games, the
federal government will surely exercise its police power.
What else has become evident is that the
interests of more than one minority group are represented within the framework
of the National University of Mexico. Other groups lurk in the vicinity. And
while there is widespread unrest and dissatisfaction with the status quo of
Mexico today, there is nevertheless widespread disagreement as to how to
accomplish change. While there seems to be little disagreement over the desire
for a better society, the paramount questions are how and how fast. And who is
willing to compromise?
As for the rest of the world, perhaps it
is time we began evaluating Mexico in terms for her own assets and liabilities,
not with rose-colored glasses in a comparison with the rest of Latin America.
For while it seems evident that Mexico shows a remarkable stability and level of
industrialization in comparison with the rest of Latin America, her
vulnerability to stress is perhaps no less than that of any people across the
face of the earth.
* * * *
http://serpiente.dgsca.unam.mx/rectoria/htm/demo2.html
International School of Philosophy
and Letters
National University of Mexico
http://www.surfingman10.org/Tom1971.html