And someone mentions the international team of human rights observers who are in Oaxaca to observe the situation. The rest of the table erupts in fury. Why are they protecting the rights of people who have hijacked buses, burnt buildings, held the city hostage? What about our human rights? The right to go to school, to university, to work, to cross the city without having masked men demand money from you, the right to walk the streets at night, to go out of an evening, to enjoy a coffee in the zocalo? Who's asking about our human rights? My friends mutter angrily into their drinks. Someone else mentions the protest in Edinburgh in support of the Oaxacan teachers. They latch on to this at first in astonishment, then delight. "You can be our ambassador!" they decide. You can create your own protest, set up a barricade, you've seen how it's done. Tell them what's really going on.
This would be hard. Even after 10 weeks here it's impossible to work out what's really going on. But I'm with them on one thing for sure. The politicians, the journalists, the human rights observers, the international networks of radical protest groups - they all portray the conflict as being two sided, a fight between the protestors, and the state government. The third and most important group - the people of Oaxaca - are by and large invisible and unheard.
And so my friends try and continue with the business of living. Slowly getting back to normal. To work, to study, to school.
Tired. Frustrated. Angry. Cynical. Broke.
Ignored.
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