Selma Holo
Oaxaca has suffered a terrible crisis in the last eight months. Thousands of striking school teachers and their supporters fought police and the state's autocratic governor street by street, building by building. As many as a dozen people died. One hundred demonstrators are still under arrest and human rights groups claim that some have been tortured and "disappeared."
Oaxaca has suffered a terrible crisis in the last eight months. Thousands of striking school teachers and their supporters fought police and the state's autocratic governor street by street, building by building. As many as a dozen people died. One hundred demonstrators are still under arrest and human rights groups claim that some have been tortured and "disappeared."
Francisco Toledo, Oaxaca's most famous artist and activist, had vowed recently to remove himselfcompletely from civic life and re-dedicate himself exclusively to being an artist. The tourism-destroying political turmoil has, however, pushed him to re-engage even more deeply to help rescue Oaxaca. His celebrity has long been a part of the thriving civic life of the region, as I discussed at a Norman Lear Center Celebrity, Politics & Public Life seminar (notes available here). Now he's a key figure in the re-writing of the constitution.
Of his renewed political activism, Toledo says "It's a necessary evil," laughing.
Of his renewed political activism, Toledo says "It's a necessary evil," laughing.
