25 Apr 2011

For people without memory

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me." Martin Niemoller. Still as true today in Mexico as it was then in Germany.

What will happen now? First they told us that it was necessary to reform education, then, we had to close down a bankrupt company, leaving thousands of workers to fend for themselves, we've been the victims of terror from the war against the "narco", now, the President wants to be the only one deciding about our rights as citizens. A security law as he proposes that will allow him, by decree, to declare a state of exception, suspending our civil liberties, a law that would make it illegal for us to gather in protest, to have meetings, to have parties after 10 pm. A law that would bring the military force all at once into the streets; a military force that does not know how to read and write at grade level; a military force that has suffered from social marginalization and is now resentful, willing to take it out on the civil population; a military force that has been trained to shoot to kill, not to arrest, not to question, but to interrogate with brutality and torture; a military force that has proven to be responsible of thousands of violations to human rights, violations to civilian laws, violations to military laws, violations to criminal laws; found responsible, but not guilty, immune to all weight of the law. Those animals are going to be turned loose onto the streets to "protect" the civil population. Every time they are turned loose, we later get the news of rape, murder, beatings, torture, abduction, false arrests, forced disappearances.
When are we going to make the m stop? How long are we going to stay on the sidelines? What are we willing to endure? The most dangerous person of all is the one that does nothing, that takes no side, that has no opinion, we need to watch out for that person, the one that will not say anything when they come for us.

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