The two Mexican lefts: Lessons from Oaxaca

Abstract

The Oaxaca crisis is exemplary not only as a manifestation of popular resistance but as a point of visibility of the new configuration of political forces and of the challenges facing Mexico’s two lefts. The Oaxaca conflict not only comes from afar, evoking the history of rebellions in Mexico, but also announces the future of social struggle against a neoliberal, conservative and reactionary government. Its reactionary dimension is evident in the case of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), in continuity with the repression in Atenco and Lázaro Cárdenas and in the prospect of the iron fist promised by Felipe Calderón.