A Mexican Poet’s Crusade for Justice
By Gregg Barrios
The work of Mexican writer Javier Sicilia was little known
outside of his country although his prize-winning poetry and his fearless work
as a political analyst for Proceso, Mexico’s weekly political magazine are must
reading. But four years ago, Sicilia came to international attention when his 24-year-old
son Juan Francisco became an innocent victim of Mexico’s drug wars. The younger
Sicilia along with six other friends were bound and gagged with duct tape. They
died of asphyxiation.
At a press conference, Sicilia told the New York Times: “What my son did was give a
name and a face to the 40,000 dead. My pain gave a face to the pain of other
families. I think a country is like a house, and the destruction of someone is
the destruction of our families.”
All along Sicilia had been reporting on the growing number
of innocent casualties after the U.S. backed President Felipe Calderón’s 2006
war on drugs that employed military force to capture or kill cartel
leaders. In a face-to-face exchange
Sicilia requested that the Mexican president ask pardon from the nation for the
lost lives of innocent victims. Calderón responded that if it hadn’t been for
his war against the drug cartels the real criminals, there would have been more
innocent deaths.
EL POETA on PBS’s
Voces chronicles Sicilia’s formation of
an activist group (Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity) that began as
protests in the capital city. It evolved into a nation-wide movement to unite
and inform the Mexican citizenry of the thousands of deaths related to
organized crime. Their rallying cry: “No mas sangre!” and “Estamos hasta la
madre.” (No more blood; We’re Up to Here!) At one point, Sicilia’s caravan mobilized
over 200,000 participants from Juarez, Chihuahua, Durango and Tijuana with
great success.
In 2012, Sicilia brought his peace caravan to the U.S.
Los
Angeles Times journalist Rubén Martínez described it as “a mission to bring to
the American people's conscience their shared responsibility for the
thousands of
dead, missing and displaced in the drug war. Among the broader
American public the drug war is perceived as Mexico's, not ours, never mind
that the weapons doing the bloodletting are in great part supplied by the
United States.”
In Los Angeles, the group held photocopies of their loved
ones. In Phoenix, they visited Sheriff
Joe Arpaio's
infamous Tent City in order to
denounce the
failed War on Drugs which has claimed tens of thousands of innocent
lives in Mexico. In D.C., Black civil rights leader John Lewis inspires them by
citing the non-violent marches of Dr. Martin Luther King. In Baltimore, Black
mothers embrace Mexican mothers both losing sons to the drug wars.
The Mexican government’s war on drug cartels continues as
the body count of innocent victims escalates: 160,000 dead, 30,000 missing, nearly
500,000 displaced and the same 98% of impunity as the previous regime.
In late 2014, forty-three students disappeared in Ayotzinapa
without a trace. This led to massive disruptions and demonstrations throughout
Mexico and a call for sitting President Enrique Peña Nieto’s resignation. The
film is dedicated to those missing students.
In his final poem, dedicated to his son, Sicilia wrote: “The world is not worthy of
worthy of the Word / they suffocated it, deep inside us /as they suffocated you, as
they tore apart your lungs ... / the pain does not leave me /all that remains is a world
/ through
the silence of the righteous, / only through your silence / and my silence, Juanelo.”
Sicilia’s voice has not been silenced. He continues
to speak out in a clear, elegant voice of engagement. As the American writer
Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the
almost blind, you draw large and startling pictures.”
EL POETA is necessary viewing. It will enlighten,
as it will inform you. Bless Javier Sicilia!
Gregg Barrios is a poet, playwright and journalist. He is a 2013
USC Annenberg Getty Fellow. He serves on the board of directors of the National
Book Critics Circle.
EL POETA airs on Friday, May 1 at 10PM on KLRN. To watch a preview of EL POETA, visit our video player.
We held a panel discussion with notable local scholars Amelia Malagamba Ansótegui, Kathy Vargas and the film’s producer/director, Ray Telles as well as John Phillip Santos. John is an author, journalist and filmmaker from San Antonio, Texas. He produced more than 40 documentaries in 18 countries for CBS News and PBS. Currently, in conjunction with New York’s WNET, he is collaborating with Harvard scholar Davíd Carrasco in producing “Ancestral Journeys to Now,” a film for PBS that examines the mythic legacy of migration in ancient Mesoamerica, and its links to the experiences of Mexican migration today. He teaches cultural studies, writing and media theory and production in the Honors College of UTSA.
