Xenophobia is contagious. Violence, even more so. The “protests” in Mexico City prove it.
Those who claim that this was a legitimate expression of dissent should consider whether they would be ok with having others targeting them when they become the minority.
The recent “protests” which took place in Mexico City this week, purportedly against gentrification and the irregular immigration of foreign-born “digital nomads”, are the latest expression of xenophobia and hate which have both taken over the world –and which have now spread to Mexico in full force.
Peaceful protest or an expression of hate?
As it usually occurs in our country, a “protest” which started peacefully, quickly turned into acts of violence. Passers-by and owners of local business witnessed how groups of thugs harassed locals and foreigners and destroyed private property. These included damaging public and private infrastructure, such as graffitiing of cars, buildings, and Metro carriages, damaging bus shelters, and destroying the facades of businesses –using bricks, rocks, and explosives which were thrown at the storefronts while their customers and personnel were inside. Just to loot them afterwards.
How did they justify it?
Some commentators attempt to justify this violence as a result of the underlying frustration of some inhabitants of Mexico City who have experienced a rising cost of living, purportedly resulting from the influx of wealthy foreigners from the Global North, mainly from the United States. Allegedly, this has led some residents and businesses of Mexico City’s central neighbourhoods to be displaced to the peripheries. It is often argued that the arrival of newcomers to Mexico, has resulted in the increase in rents and living costs in the downtowns, which locals are unable to match due to our country’s comparatively lower salaries, as well as an increase in prices of groceries and services –given the presence of a more affluent population in their local areas.
This phenomenon, referred to as gentrification, is well known abroad, but relatively newer to Mexico, which only experienced it more widely in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis when the influx of higher-income residents to Mexico City and other touristic cities, first led to increased rents, and then resulted in the displacement of existing, lower-income residents. According to some critics, this phenomenon has led to even broader changes to the former “character” of these areas, namely the appearance of services in the English language, and the tropicalization of some products aimed at the new clientele –including the claim that Mexicans sauces are not as spicy as they used to be due to the presence of foreigners.
From catch-all concerns to unjustifiable violence
Such concerns, however, do not justify acts of violence against individuals and businesses –even less so of the xenophobic and hateful kind that occurred this week. Even more unjustifiable is the harassment of passers-by and tourists, and the display of xenophobic and hateful slogans, that were visible in the “march against gentrification”.
These included everything from: “get out, gringo!” and “Mexico for the Mexicans” much in the style of the nativist discourse that Donald Trump has managed to spread to other countries. To even more dangerous ones, such as “go home, puto!” (faggot); “learn Spanish, you dog”; “make pozole out of a gringo” –implying the killing of people from the United States to be used as substitute for animal meat in a popular Mexican dish; and “make ‘hood and kill a gringo” –directly calling to kill US nationals to assert one’s identity and sense of belonging. Or the outright call to “kill a gringo”.
Some media commentators and members of the public claim that these xenophobic and hateful slogans are the direct result of the anger and frustration about the regular and irregular immigration of foreigners into Mexico, which has out-priced locals in tourism-intensive areas, and obliged them to leave for other ones, usually outside the city centres. Using this supposedly underlying discontent as a justification to attack people and businesses is, however, unacceptable.
We have now become the haters
It is surprising that some commentators, some of whom include Mexicans living abroad, think that this violence is somehow justifiable as an expression of social discontent. If they abhor verbal and physical attacks against Mexicans working and living in the United States, they should also be abhorred at groups of Mexicans abusing or intimidating foreigners. Mexicans are quickly to criticize the government and people of the United States, for mistreating our fellow nationals, discriminating against them, and exerting acts of verbal and physical abuse against Mexicans, including deporting people who are working and living there –oftentimes, without the legal right to do so. Yet, when it comes to ourselves, we fail to look in the mirror and see that we are now behaving in the exact same way which we so often criticized.
As César Cravioto, Mexico City’s Secretary of Government, stated: “this city is a city of migrants. [This protest] was not against gentrification. There were horrible expressions against people who already live in or spend time in the city. And we also disagree with any protest affecting third parties. There are always ways to take a seat at the table, to listen to and debate public policy. We do not accept this type of [violent] protests”. On the opposite, it undermines otherwise legitimate social claims about very complex problems –and just shows how misdirected many of them are.
If Mexicans are angry at the rising cost of living, the protests should be held in front of the National Palace, at the Plaza de la Constitución, calling for swift government action against inflation, the setting of fair wages, to mobilize the authorities to better manage Mexico’s economy.
If Mexicans are angry at the hoarding of real estate, their anger should be directed at the Secretariat of Public Security, to demand swift action against the organized crime syndicates, which forcibly evict people from their homes, to take over their properties. It is the Cartél Inmobiliario (the Real Estate Cartel), and not the “digital nomads”, who violated laws to enable developers to displace locals, build more households than those legally permitted, and to change land use from residential to commercial, at the detriment of the public.
If some Mexicans are angry at people not speaking the local language while in Mexico, why are they (we) not speaking one of the 68 languages indigenous to our country? Spanish might be widely spoken in our country now, but it is as much of a foreign language as English is. A fact which the protesters conveniently forget.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt…
In their defence, these protesters might not have been the ones which conducted these violent acts. Historically, in Mexico, interest groups which aim at slanting social movements have sent provocateurs to infiltrate peaceful marches or protests, to turn public opinion against them and invalidate their legitimate claims. The violent acts which took place in Mexico City might as well be an instance of such a practice.
Some examples: a video taken during the recent protests, shows a person off-camera using a loudspeaker to make a call for “no violence”. The call falls in deaf ears, and a group of thugs starts attacking a shop’s windows. Another video shows a thug breaking a bank’s windows, while a staff member watches helplessly from behind the counter. Yet another shows masked thugs destroying a restaurant’s entrance, while terrified customers take refuge inside. The same video shows the same people turn into looters just moments later.
Unsurprisingly, the same thug in the two videos referred above, is the same one shown in a photo from a violent protest which took place in 2013 (!) against a proposed education reform. It is evident that some of these individuals have made of violent crime their business. Hence, it cannot be ruled out that powerful interest groups may be interested in delegitimising the concerns on rising living costs and low salaries that many inhabitants of Mexico City and other touristic cities in Mexico denounce. And that a criminal group (or groups) used violence to disrupt this protest.
…does not entail forgiving hateful discourse.
Yet, claiming that the xenophobic and hateful language used throughout the protest was somehow justified and forgivable is mistaken. Those who claim that this was a legitimate expression of dissent from “the people” should consider whether they would be ok with finding themselves or their properties unduly subjected to violence, based on someone else’s misdirected anger caused by diffuse socioeconomic concerns –over which they had no decision-making power or control. They should also consider whether they would be ok with someone targeting them when they become the minority –either socially, economically, or linguistically.
Clearly, they have forgotten about the saying which was so popular elsewhere in Mexico after so many Mexico-City dwellers emigrated to other cities and states, following the earthquake of 1985: “Haz patria, ¡mata un chilango!" (build the motherland, kill a Mexico City dweller!).
At the time, some locals in other Mexican states were quick to spread hate against those people coming from the recently-devastated capital city, to denounce supposed socioeconomic changes to their communities, and call for the expulsion –or outright murder, of the newcomers.
It was this kind of hateful calls which, in 1987, resulted in the death of Juan Israel Bucio Venegas, a Mexico City-born, 11-year old, who had moved to Hermosillo, the capital of the northern state of Sonora, with his parents. “Guacho, get away from here! Guacho, die!”, two kids yelled at him, as they beat him to death. The justification? Being a “guacho”, i.e. someone who came to Sonora from the central or southern Mexican states and who should be expelled from the community, at any cost.
“Make ‘hood and kill a gringo” is just the modern version of the same old hate that killed Juan Israel.