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Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt

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This very well written book describes the abysmal state of Mexico, how it got to that state and what ordinary Mexicans are doing to try to fix their country. Gibler makes no effort at all to hide his passionate partisanship on behalf of the popular struggles going on in Mexico, particularly those of indigenous peoples. He believes they provide models of libertarian socialist movements that teach very valuable lessons for leftist activists. His presentation of these lessons is pretty convincing and inspiring. If you are a socialist of anarchist inclinations then you will love this book. A big portion of the book is based on Gibler's on the ground reporting in Mexico.

Gibler's story of Mexico is that of the country's marginalized majority's effort to achieve dignity in the face of efforts by hegemonic Euro-centric discourses to consign them to the dustbin of history. Gibler gives an example of a typical Euro-centric analysis made about a marginalized indigenous group in a country other than Mexico. Citing Charles Mann's recent book "1491," Gibler notes the case of Allan Holmberg, a sociologist who lived among the Siriono people in Bolivia from 1940 to 1942. Holmberg portrayed the Siriono as having lived as miserable primitive nomads since time immemorial. However Holmberg never figured out that the Siriono once had a settled agriculture community but in the 1920's white ranchers, with the help of the Bolivian military, violently took possession of Siriono lands and the community was ravaged by smallpox and influenza. The hegemonic ideology of the necessity of achieving "progress" using European influenced political and economic models was so strong that Holmberg apparently didn't feel the need to seriously study the Siriono community's history. Gibler points out that a similar situation existed in Mexico. Indigenous peoples were reduced to semi-slavery or outright slavery by the Spanish conquest. Their slave labor and European plundering of their natural resources provided the beginnings of Europe's economic rise. This fact of slave labor and plunder has been lost in Euro-centric discourses celebrating "progress." Similarly ignored was the fact that indigenous lands were stolen at an accelerated rate and indigenous persons turned into peons in Mexico during the dictatorship of Porifirio Diaz (1876-1910), for the benefit of American and Western European corporations.

The vast inequality of wealth was marginally addressed during the early years of the PRI dictatorship. Mexico averaged annual growth rates of about 6 percent between the 1940s and the 1970's, but according to Gibler, the gains from that growth were very disproportionately concentrated in the hands of a small wealthy elite. The Mexican economy crashed in 1982 and the IMF came flying in to demand an end to subsidies for farmers, privatization of public companies and services, slashing of social spending, lowering of taxes, etc. According to Gibler, 900 of Mexico's 1600 public enterprises were sold off during the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988). Another 300 were sold off during Carlos Salinas's presidency (1988-1994). Carlos Slim went on his way to becoming Mexico's richest man, notes Gibler, when his buddy Salinas sold him Mexico's national telephone company at a bargain basement price along with the right to have monopoly control over Mexico's telephone lines for 7 years. This economic liberalization, which culminated with NAFTA in 1994, threw millions of Mexicans into misery that was so intolerable that they fled in increasing numbers as illegal immigrants to the United States.

Gibler describes in vivid detail the misery of Mexico today. He describes how drug mafias have extensively infiltrated the Mexican government, military and law enforcement at the local, state and federal levels. Torture, according to human rights organizations and the US state department, is endemic in Mexican law enforcement facilities. He travels to villages which have almost become ghost towns because of migration to the United States caused by the destruction of local agriculture inflicted by NAFTA and other economic policies. He describes recent massacres carried out by the army and police against persons struggling for social justice. There was of course the hundreds of protestors shot dead in 1967 and 1968 and hundreds or perhaps more killed during the "dirty war" in Guerrero in the 1970's. Several hundred PRD members were murdered by the Salinas government. After a massacre of farmer activists in Guerrero in June 1995, an investigation of the event by the Mexican federal Supreme Court bitterly denounced the attempt to cover-up the crime and implicated the Guerrero governor and secretary of state in causing the butchery. However neither the governor nor the Secretary of State would be charged with a crime. During the non-violent uprising in Oaxaca in 2006, the corrupt PRI state government, with the quiet backing of Vicente Fox's government, engineered 17 to 20 death squad style killings of protestors and workers at independent radio stations. In 2006, protestors in San Salvador Atenco were severely beaten and female activists were raped by the police. In December 1997, 45 people were murdered by a military battalion in Acteal, Chiapas. In recent years, the governments of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon have granted land and other subsidies to persons in Chiapas who agree to join government backed thuggish organizations that engage in physical violence and encroachments and robbery of the land of Zapatista municipalities.

But Gibler sees great in hope in movements like the APPO in Oaxaca and the Zapatistas, which have given incredible empowerment to previously marginalized people. Such people show incredible bravery in facing very real risks of murder and torture at the hands of state authorities. Particularly interesting is Gibler's interview with an imprisoned female leader of the Insurgent Poor People's Army (ERPI) of Guerrero. This woman and her husband attempted to bring the libertarian Zapatista type administration to their organization; they were placed under a death sentence by the group they splintered from, the rigidly hierarchal Marxist-Leninist Poor People's Army (ERP). She and her husband were arrested in October 1999 and hideously tortured.

Mexico, one of America's closest neighbors, is plagued with corruption. "Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt" takes a look into the history of Mexico and how the country got to where it is today. A country split by a huge financial divide, Mexico is portrayed as a nation of people who don't need much more provocation to be spurned towards rebellion once more. Enlightening and informative, "Mexico Unconquered" is a must read for those concerned about America's southern neighbor.

This is a fine account of the unconquerable spirit of the common person in Mexico against the machinations of the PRI, the USA, various corrupt officials, and against poverty and other forms of disenfranchisement. Chapter 5, alone, on the uprising in Oaxaca, is worth the price of the book. I would recommend this book highly to anyone who loves Mexico and wants to understand its soul more deeply.

This is my second John Gibler book and i strongly recommend it to anyone interested in a truthful, no holds barred accounting of Mexico's powerful elite. The writing is crisp, the facts are presented fairly and without a chaser, and the themes are consistent. Buy and read this book.

I was very impressed with this book. It was insightful, accessible, and educational. Highest marks.