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In the wake of what is now largely understood to be a massacre, it is crucial that the protestors\u2019 response directly implicates the state. While it might be politically expedient for president Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto to blame the violence on individuals, like Jose Luis Abarca, the mayor of Iguala who originally ordered police to take action in Ayotzinapa, or the cartel members who have since confessed to murdering the students and burning their bodies<\/a> the repeated assertion that \u201cIt was the State\u201d rejects those individualizing tendencies. The slogan refuses to view Ayotzinapa as an isolated event, or as the result of a few corrupt individuals abusing their otherwise justly exercised power.<\/p>\n By proclaiming, \u201cIt was the State,\u201d the protestors directly recall the relationship between the government and the violence that has racked Mexico over the past decade. The phrase \u201cFue el Estado\u201d incisively levels the assertion that, in these repeated instances of repression, the state is at the root of the violence. Indeed, this proclamation points directly to the ways in which the Mexican government has been enacting low-intensity warfare (in ever more intense ways) in collusion with paramilitary forces and drug cartels against its own population over the past decade, littering its path with tens of thousands of victims of the \u201cdrug war.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYa me cans\u00e9,\u201d another phrase repeated by protestors and proliferated through social media, adds further dimension to claims about the state. By saying \u201cI\u2019m tired of this now,\u201d Ayotzinapa is presented as the proverbial straw that broke the camel\u2019s back, not an exceptional occurrence that requires more of a response than the horrific\u2014and growing\u2014history of state violence that precedes it<\/a>.\u00a0In fact, numerous mass graves found in the search for the 43 students stand as a chilling testament to the impossibility of writing Ayotzinapa off as the exception.<\/p>\n Importantly, the protestors make no appeal to the Mexican government to find the perpetrators of this crime or to enact justice. Indeed, they already know who the perpetrators are. Rather, protestors condemn the government for its widely acknowledged complicity in the Ayotzinapa massacre. This condemnation is one of a system (not an individual) for its ongoing violence (not an isolated incident).<\/p>\n As claims of \u201cIt was the State\u201d reverberate with mighty condemnatory force, we in the U.S. must ask: which state was it?<\/p>\n In an excellent op-ed<\/a> in the L.A.Times<\/em>, Rub\u00e9n Mart\u00ednez states that<\/p>\n \u00a0It has become something of a truism to point to how deeply the United States is implicated in the drug war. American demand, Mexican supply. American guns, Mexican bloodbath\u2026What Americans can\u2019t face is precisely that we\u2019ve broken bad together with Mexico.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As Mart\u00ednez suggests, the United States is deeply implicated in Mexico\u2019s state violence<\/a>. But it is not just through individualized modes of demand and the illegal arms trade that the U.S. is the second state with Ayotzinapa blood on its hands. Nor is it really a truism, yet, to point out that, through programs like the M\u00e9rida Initiative<\/a>, Mexico has received billions of dollars from the U.S. in military and police aid. Thus, it is under the guise of combating drug violence that the U.S. has funneled capital and weapons into the hands of the Mexican state and, by association, drug cartels, in the process funding the repression of social movements and dissent.<\/p>\n This cannot be overstated: When Mexican protestors proclaim that \u201cIt was the State,\u201d the U.S. is implicated, too.<\/p>\n It is convenient to blame what is happening in Mexico on drug violence without looking at where the capital behind that violence comes from. Yes, the disappearance of the 43 in Ayotzinapa was the state, but not the Mexican state alone. It was the capital-S State, the collaborative, neoliberal U.S.-Mexico State, the militarized and repressive State that ensures the continued flow of drugs, weapons, and money at any cost.<\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2014who, tellingly, travelled to Australia recently for the G20 summit (where protests followed him<\/a>)\u2014has said little about Ayotzinapa, though he pledges to bring to justice those who committed the crimes. The irony of this statement is not lost on those who shout \u201cFue el Estado\u201d: in order to bring to justice those responsible for the disappearance of the 43, the Mexican state would have to implode. Perhaps, with mounting mobilizations against the government, it will.<\/p>\n But what about that other state?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thursday November 20, 2014 is a global day of action for Ayotzinapa. Wear black in solidarity and join the protests going on around the U.S<\/a>. And keep in mind that it was the state \u2013 the U.S. state, too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSe compran colchones, tambores, refrigeradores, estufas, lavadoras, microondas, o algo de fierro viejo que vendaaaaan!\u201d So goes the distinctive call of the trucks that circulate many neighborhoods of Mexico City, buying such items as old refrigerators, stoves, and washing machines … Continue reading