Generation Z: Communitarian youth participation in Morelos at the end of the XXth Century

Sous la direction de

MADELEINE GAUTHIER et CLAUDE LAFLAMME

TOME 2 :Ancrage de I'identitĂŠ et lieux de participation

INRS

Universitk d'avant-garde

Generation Z: Communitarian youth participation in Morelos at the end of the XX' Century Juan MachĂ­n

1. INTRODUCTION In the historical process, diverse youth segments are called on to live or survive in many different ways and to make specific contributions to rheir social system. Each generation creates its own character, often in a dynamic of resistance and opposition to those who preceded it. Analyzing "rhe Mexican y o u t h at the end of >M'h century, in a panorarnic way, - even though we know that the youth doesnt exist as an homogeneous group but rather as an eclectic one -we can identify, in a very simple but useful manner, eight generational' axis, extending a proposal o: Luis LeĂąero (Lefiero, 1990: 34). We focus on the last one, the called for us, Generation 2, an important sector of youth population that has been <ignificantlyinfluenced by the sprouting of the Zapatista National Libera1

characteristics of a ?he generation concept used here takes into account the segment of youth or the way by which a group has shaken aii the socid system.

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tion Army (denominated neozapatism) in 1994. We describe how the Generation Z youth sector in the State of Morelos has had an active participation in its communitarian contexts and national life. With a strong diverse commitment in the construction of a different world, defining their new identity, updating it, and re-signi@ing it in a globalization context, paradoxically in appearance, through the affirmation of its historial roots and the traditional culture.

2. GENERATION OF THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY: "THE REVOLUTIONARIES" 'They are represented by young people who were born at the end of the XWhcentury. 'This generation, formed mainly by poor peasants, participated in revolutionary movements and believed in a necessary rupture from the past for the rise of a new society. Arnong them we find extraordinary representatives, such as Emiliano Zapata or Francisco Villa, who becarne the guides, the teachers and the symbols of new generations to come.

2.1 Generation 29: the "re-founders" 'They are the young people from the middle class and peasantry, effusive and idealist, who participated principally in the vasconcelist m ~ v e m e n t . ~ 'They are a group who spoke out loud and questioned the adult world of this period, especially the old militaries, promoting no more violence. 'They supported a national reconstruction project, based in the education of the masses, which will be mostly led by a third generation who surpassed and replaced this one, and headed the process towards modernization.

2.2 Haf Century Generation: "&e rebels without a cause" 'This generation is formed by the youth who were educated by the time of the "institutionalized revolutionyy(from the oxymoronic official party's name) and who cherished the project of a "modernyyMexico: urbanized, 2.

The movement leader by Jose Vasconcelos, (1882, 1959), a Mexican philosopher and politician who supported the Mexican Revolution of 1910 headed by Francisco 1.

Madero. After the Nationai Convention, Vasconcelos was elected minister of education. After a brief exile in the USA, he returned and directed the National University of Mexico (1920) and created the Ministry of Public Education in 1921. He promoted the education of the masses oriented along secular, civic, and pan-American lines. He ran for president in 1929 but lost in a controversial election process and again exile.

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industrialized and bureaucratic. Living in the postwar era, they are the famous companions of the rebellious beatnik3 and the first viewers of "Rebel without a cause"* of the United States. They lived the peek of the existentialist philosophy and the aspiration of the middle class to material progress. Many peasants immigrated to the cities and participated in the construction of great national infrastructures as workers in the new industries or domestic workers in the new urban homes. They are the construct~ of "development and progress", o r ~of the "Mexican m i r a ~ l e "examples until ...

2.3 Generation '68: "the rebels with a cause" This generation is composed by young people who criticized the so thoughtfully called "Mexican Miracle". This generation, also, is idealist.

Born in the postwar era (1945 and on), the members of this generation are known as bah-boomers, children of the atomic bomb. Composed by peasants, workers, and jipitecas (a neologism composed by "jipi", from the hippie movement, and "tecas", from the Aztecas, precolumbian people (Agustín, 1990)), these junior-high and college students created a national student movement with international bonds. It was also a generation ferociously repressed, including the "Tlatelolco massacre," in October 1968, when hundreds of demonstrators were killed or wounded and thousands arrested.

2.4 Generation of the 1980s: "the civil society's rice" The generation of young people that were born at the end of tiíe 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s has witnessed the earthquakes of 1985 in Mexico City, that mobilize the people because the governmental inefficacy.

Once again, this generation will react against the previous one. This will be done in a realistic and day-to-day basis. As Carlos Monsiváis, one of the most important Mexican theorists on civil society, wrote: "the first social participation of these young people was through fists, shovels and picks" (Monsiváis, 1987: 35), participating actively in the rescue and relief of 3.

From Beat, as in exhausted, defeated, deceived - (Ginsberg, one of their gurus, suggests that the term comes from beatific) -, and spumik, first space satellite set in orbit.

4. From the Nicholas Ray's film and staring by Jarnes Dean: a ~ o u t hwho has no judicial cause, and had no legal process, living in the borderline of law but not yet considered a delinquent.

5. http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/mex9.html.

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earthquake's victims. Students and intellectuals will leave aside the rhetoric of the previous generation and put their hands to work.

The popular sector of society and peasants formed the immigrant population of cities, who, actually, looked for accommodation in the new urban society. This generation lived the process of the 1980s economic crisis while they were still in school. This generation lived the neocardenism's movement%d the electoral expectations of a true political in 1988, change, partially frustrated with the "break down of the systemYy7 while seeking to fit in that new urban sociery.

2.5 Genention X.&e great incognito The first generation of the 1990s, Generation X, was named afier the name of Douglas Coupland's novel (Coupland, 1993). This author, as did others such as Easton Breton Ellis (Ellis, 1991) and Elizabeth Wurtzel (Wurtzel, 1995), portrays in this book the north-American generation of the end of the century as hopeless, depressed, drug addicted, condemned to "Mcjobs" and experiencing a profound dehumanization. Just like the USA'S generation X, in Mexico, this generation was restricted to a certain sector of young people, although some characteristics are cross-sectional to all. They are the children of crises: babies boudeurs8rooted in their parents homes with no possibility of employment; they have lived the divorce of their parents, and endured the constant insecurity installed in their lives.

Born in the abundance, they are now forced to be an adult in a time of generalized social crisis. While many of their parents militated for sexual revolution, they must conform themselves to making love bordered in barriers of latex. Their parents pleaded to change the system and to be realistic at the same time of requesting the impossible; the young resign themselves seeking a place in a rave9, in a school or even (only dreaming) a job. They are ovenvhelmed with light artificial paradises. Dancing is no longer a shared diversion and politics seems trivial. Used to technological revolution, they have no surprise for anything.

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This rnovernent was leaded by Cuauhternoc Cadenas (son of the most recognized president of Mexico, Lazaro Cardenas, responsible of the oil industryls natioiaiisation) for a dernocratic change, against the official party and the perrnanent fraud in elecrions. The leadership of Cardenas gather together rnostly the wing side of the political spectrurn.

A fraud in the elections of 1988 justified a failure in the vote counting systern (a break down).

It is an expression used in France in opposition to "baby-boomers"(note the airnost hornophony).

Techno music party.

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Nevertheless, the Time magazine warns: "Be careful, thus called "lazy" they have become true hunters of opportunities, which obtain what they want, in their own way. .. Don't be deceived by their passive or cynical attitude: they are making waves, in the nenvork (Internet), films in and out of Hollywood. Making money, spending money; they are e-Xciting, e-Xact, and expansive." (Hornblower, 1997: 38).

2.6 Generation Y: the one that follows Generation X For some, generation Y (girls and boys that were 13 to 2 1 years old in the 1 s t decade of XXIh century) has the form of biological appendices of telecommunications devices: this one is patched to the television; that one, to the radio; this one, to a video game; that one is running with a walkman. They are young Mexicans with cultural preferences made in the USA. They are those whose greatest fear is not to be able to obtain a good job, in spite of their excellent education.

2.7 Generation 2: "the suppoaers of Zapata rebellion" O n January the 1" 1994, when the North Arnerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) benveen Canada, United States and Mexico became operational, after ten years of preparation in secret, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) -mainly formed by young people from the ethnic groups tzeltal, tzotzil, tojokzbal, cho'l and mam (al1 of them Mayan indians) -officially declared war against the Mexican government, simultaneously taking hold of five municipalities of the south-easterly state of Chiapas: San Cristobal de Las Casas, Altamirano, Ocosingo, Las Margaritas and Chantal. The young indigenous fighters, with their wielded fake rifles made of wood and led by Subcomandante Marcos, the visible leader and official spokesman of the EZLN, using a humorous proclaim10announced their plan to march towards Mexico City and sent the First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, chanting the eloquent motto "Hoy decimos: Ya basta!" ("Today we say: Enough is Enough!"). This was the first public manifestation which has been called the "prototype of the social nenvar of the century XXI" by the Rand Corporation (Arquilla, 1996) and "the first informational guerrilla warfare" by Castells (1999: 95).

10. The proclaim include, for example, the order "Don'tstop until reach the "TresMarias" village, to take breakfast", because that village near Mexico city is very famous for delicious meals.

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As a result of these manifestations, consisting in a peaceful massive presence of yo;ng people marching down the streets and organizing meetings in the City of Mexico and in other cities, as well as international pressure, president Carlos Salinas de Gortari ordered, on the 12thof January, a unilateral cease-fire of the military forces in Chiapas.

Caravans were organized everywhere in the country, formed, in their majority, by young people. They transported food, clothes and medicines to the neozapatists. For these young people, it was their first contact with the extreme poverty in which live the Natives. In August, the First National Democratic Convention was held in Aguascalientes, Chiapas, the first of a series of events aiming the elaboration of innovating political proposals, where the numerically predominant participants were youth.

O n December 1994, the government presidency changes. Ernesto Zedillo, of the official party,ll assumes this charge. O n February 1995, the federal government resumes war against the EZLN, revealing the supposed . identity of its leaders in mass media and extending apprehension orders against its members. As a reaction to this, the civil society carried out a series of massive protests in the city of Mexico and in other important cities around the country. Participants of these protests, once again, were in their majority young people. They began to use, in public places the motto "We al1 are Marcos!", makirig allusion to Subcomandante Marcos, whose revealed identity was the Mexican government argument to restart the war. This could be a modern interpretation of Lope de Vega's play "Fuenteovejuna" in which the people of the Fuenteovejuna village kill the evil local authority, the comendador, and when the royal authority ask who kill the comendador, al1 the people answer: "Fuenteovejuna did it!", everyone did it, everyone is Marcos.

Manifestations in support to the EZLN, favouring peace and condemning the Mexican government were held in front of different Mexican embassies in several European countries. Because of the pressure exerted, the President ordered the delay of the military advance. O n the summer of 1996, the Intercontinental dialogue for humanity and against neoliberalism was held in the community of Oventic, Chiapas. Summoned by the EZLN, this event constituted one of the direct antecedents of the alternative globalization or altermondialization (from the french alternondialisme) movement (Adamovsky, 2003) called by antagonists "globaliphobia".

Adherents of this movement will later meet in Seattle, on November 1999, to protest against the World Trade Organization; in Prague in September 2000, against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; at 11. Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI in Spanish acronym).

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Porto Alegre, in 2001, the first World Social Forum as a parallel and opposite meeting against the World Economic Forum of Davos, Switzerland, where will be adopted the slogan: "Another world is possible".

Three other World Social Forums followed: in 2002 and 2003 in Porto Alegre, and in Mumbai, India, in 2004. These events demonstrated that the deceit of the myth of the "end of history" and the "inevitability" of a new world-wide (dis)-order has been transformed into a massive encounter of associations and persons from al1 around the world who reject the neoliberal globalization, and the leading role as "police of the world" that the United States have maintained and sustained.

Members of the Generation Z are opposed to the fact that the multinationals have more power than the governments. Seizing democracy from the citizens, they have criticized the idea of leaving everything in the hands of the market. They are those who do not want privatization, nor to continue living in a world that puts economy beyond human beings. They are going against those who do not take care of the ecosystems and whose motor is simply to seek benefits and profits at any cost. They reject a system that transforms the world, people's life, into simple merchandise (De la Fuente, 2004).

These young Mexicans have attended different manifestations associated with the sprouting of the EZLN. This juvenile population has begun to consider reality not as the outcome of fatality but as the result of an imposed and unjust order. This vision enables them to participate as active subjects of history. Their projects have impact, not only in the long term, but immediately, such as peace, justice and dignity, as well as the survival of the marginalized ones. It is a generation living in a country whose population has been expropriated. Their future and their hopes have been constantly threatened. Even the word "solidarity" has been prostituted by viscera1 political marketing in the president Salinas's governmental campaign against poverty. And still, regardless to this, they have been able to survive, embracing the true concept of solidarity, and striving to gain back their country, their future, their hopes. It is a generation that has been taught, by the youngest - those without a face or a name, the neozapatistas Indian young people -, the definitely profound meaning of the most simple and beautiful word: dignity.

Members of this juvenile segment have an active participation in their community and national lives. Their strong and commitment is the construction of a new world, hence defining their new identity in a strongly globalized form. Paradoxically, they are also defining themselves by re-

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affirming their historical roots and their traditional culture, updating it and re-signifting them (Machin, 1999): for exarnple, revaiuating the Indian people, the communitarian organization forms, the nationai history.

Generation Z is part of a wider social movement that resists the neoliberal globalization, and therefore, takes advantage of the technologicai revolution in information and communications. Their manifestations are, as to say, glacal (global-local).

Jan Aart Scholte (cited by GimĂŠnez, 2003: 383-389) established four types of globalization: internationalism, market liberation, universdization, and occidentai-modernization (neocolonization, macdonaiization).

Furthermore, there is a fifih one that Scholte states and that Castells (1999) writes about. Castells considers that the opposition between globalization and identity is molding our world a n d o u r lives. We must, according to Castells, understand the term globalization as a process of territorial disintegration (proliferation of dissociated relations from aii territorial logics that gives origin to a radicaiiy new type of social structure, the network society). Globalization simultaneously co'ntain mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, integration and migration, selection, polarization and sociai inequalities.

It is Generation Z who lives more intensively the phenomena related to globalization, such as migration, the revolution of mass media, social exclusion, etc. They are also, the ones with new proposals in videos, internet, etc. using a vast expression of traditional culture, to promote social inclusion and equality. In the state of Morelos, cradle of Zapatism, Generation Z has encountered echo and, since 1994, it has become visible in communities through creative forms: fanzines,I2 cultural festivals for peace, workshops for children on the street, marches, concerts, filmforums, electoral obsetvation, centers of human rights, ecological groups, student movements, street theater, graffiti, and the guard barricades installed by the young at Tepoztlan, an indigenous town, against the construction of a golf club (Rosas, 1997).

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Al1 of theseglocalactions are made in hope that everything will change.

Generation Z is seeking a life with dignity, liberty and justice for all, a world where everyone has its place. Those who love life. They are those who fight - for freedom and juitice, those who desire a world where al1 humans, not only a few, have an uncountable meaning, - where nobody is forgotten, where death is not a personification of repression, horror, and immunity, where Native women can speak out about their threatened 12. Fanzine, from Fan - Magazine, a thematic amateur publication made by fans to fans with low cost technology (photocopies).

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rights to live, to study, to have hospitals, medicines, schools, food, jusrice.. . dignity.

They dream of a world with no military forces, a world where peace, justice, freedom are such common words, that when pronounced, the lips of the speakers are not slashed and burnt by the fear they impose. It is a generarion which dreams are not settled in the past but in what may come, as the result of each firm and determined step.

If we keep silent and make a necessary halt we will perceive, in the air, the essence of that dream, which sits at our table. Enlightens our homes.

Grows in our land. Will engage the heart of our children. Will wipe our forehead, will cure our history.. . Ir is their only hope, their desire.. . only this. No more. And will never settle for nothing less.

3. CONCLUSION In the present text the category of Generation Z sets out to group and to characterize an important sector of youth population in Morelos, that is part of an alter-globalization social movement. 'This youth segment experiences the strong tension due to the opposition between globalization and construction of identity in the complex context of massive migration, the revolution in media and information technologies, generalized social exclusion, etc. and, also, is the ones who are creating new answers, defining their identity mainly by the commitment in the conformation of a different world (in which one can include and co-exist many worlds), through the affirmation and redefinition of their historical roots and the traditional culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adamovsky, Ezequiel (2003), Anticapitalismo. La nueva generación de movimientos emancipatorios, Buenos Aires, Era naciente.

Agustín, José ( 1 990), Eagicomedia mexicana l. La vida en México de 1940 a 1970, México, Planeta.

Arquilla, John and David Ronfeldt, (1996), B e Advent Of Netwar, USA, Rand corporation.

Castañeda, Nicté (2003), Identidad, cultura y desarrollo: propuestas de la juventud organizada de Tepoztlan Morelos, México, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.

Castells, Manuel (1 999), La Era de la Información, Vol. 11, México, Siglo XXI.

Coupland, Douglas (1993), Generación X, Barcelona, Ediciones B. de la Fuente, Víctor Hugo (2004), "De Porto Alegre a Mumbai y Santiago de Chile", en Foros Sociales Altermundistas, Santiago de Chile, Editorial Aún Creemos en los Suefios-Le Monde Diplomatique.

Ellis, Easton Breton (1991), American Psycho, USA, Vintage.

EZLN (1997), Documentosy comunicados, México, ERA. Giménez, Gilberto (2003), "El debate sobre la prospectiva de las ciencias sociales en los umbrales del nuevo milenio", Revista mexicana desociolog2á, 65,2: 383389.

Hornblower, Margot (1997), "Great Xpectations", Eme, 149, 23, Junio 9: 38.

Lefiero, Luis (1990),jóvenes de hoy, México, Pax-IMES. Machin, Juan (1999), Chamucos, Cahcas y Chinelas, Cuernavaca, Cultura JovenConsejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes.

Monsivais, Carlos (1987), Entrada libre. Crónicas de Id sociedad que se organiza, México, ERA. Rosas, María (1997), Epoztlán. Crónica de &sacatos y resistencia, México, ERA. Rosas, María (200 1) ,Plebqas batalh. La huelga en la Universidad, México, ERA. Steinsleger, José (1997), "La generación Y", Lajornada, 23 de junio: 40.

Wurtzel, Elizabeth (1995), Prozac Nation, USA, Riverhead Trade.

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e rapport au territoire peut marquer de son empreinte une identité en formation et la place qu'y occupent les jeunes. ela se vérifie dans cet ouvrage qui tente de répondre aux deux questions suivantes: y a-t-il interaction entre les lieux d'appartenance et la construction identitaire? La nature de la participation sociale des jeunes se ressent-elle des caractéristiques des lieux ou elle s'observe?

Les lieux étudiés sont des quartiers de grandes villes ou les jeunes doivent trouver et bien souvent faconner leur place, parfois dans la peur et la violente, parfois dans des lieux fortement encadrés par des adultes. D'autres jeunes sont en quete d'un territoire auquel s'identifier. Et, bien que ce soit sous des appellations semblables, la participation sociale et politique des jeunes prend souvent le visage de son ancrage territorial.

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Tome 1 : Migrations Tome 2: Ancrage de I'identité et lieux de participation Tome 3 : Expériences en lien avec la migration (obsjeunes.qc.ca)

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B gauche et B droite - iStockPhoto, au centre: Htlhe Saillant

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