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posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 24 2016, @05:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-might-be-paradise dept.

In Mexico, organised crime reaches everywhere, even into the smallest village - except for one small town in the state of Michoacan. Led by local women, the people of Cheran rose up to defend their forest from armed loggers - and kicked out police and politicians at the same time.
...
Early on Friday 15 April 2011, Cheran's levantamiento, or uprising, began. On the road coming down from the forest outside Margarita's home, the women blockaded the loggers' pick-ups and took some of them hostage. As the church bells of El Calvario rang out and fireworks exploded in the dawn sky alerting the community to danger, the people of Cheran came running to help. It was tense - hotheads had to be persuaded by the women not to string up the hostages from an ancient tree outside the church.
...
The municipal police arrived with the mayor, and armed men came to free their hostage-friends. There was an uneasy stand-off between the townspeople, the loggers and the police. It ended after two loggers were injured by a young man who shot a firework directly at them. And Cheran - a town of some 20,000 people - began its journey towards self-government.

"It makes me want to cry remembering that day," says Margarita. "It was like a horror movie - but it was the best thing we could have done."

The police and local politicians were quickly driven out of town because the people suspected they were collaborating with the criminal networks. Political parties were banned - and still are - because they were deemed to have caused divisions between people. And each of the four districts of Cheran elected representatives to a ruling town council. In many ways, Cheran - a town populated by the indigenous Purepecha people - returned to its roots: to the ancient way of doing things, independent of outsiders.


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @12:42PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @12:42PM (#418505) Journal

    It doesn't really encourage any intelligent discussion, though, does it? It precludes intelligent discussion by trying to establish an echo chamber. That, or it will incite a flame war, which never leads to intelligent discussion.

    It seems to me that intelligent discussion is a place to employ sharp logic rather than coarse language. That's why I laughed at reading your post. You started off with an interesting observation, and then blew the chance for a good discussion with "Gay Bay." I mean, I don't care but others certainly do, especially young'uns who've never known a time without political correctness.

    Just a thought.

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    Washington DC delenda est.
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