Shouting “narcogovernment!”, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Mexico, this Saturday, November 15, to protest against the leftist president, Claudia Sheinbaum, accusing her of links to drug cartels.
The mobilization has been triggered after the murder of the mayor of Michoacán, Carlos Manzo Rodríguez.
The protesters have even gone so far as to tear down part of the fence of the Presidential Palace, demanding justice and holding the government of the populist communist Sheinbaum directly responsible for the insecurity and impunity that affects the country.
Days ago, Sheinbaum highlighted that Mexico still expects Spain to apologize for the Conquest of Mexico.
The march began with a group of young people from Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, who have forcefully denounced the growing crime, corruption and impunity in Mexico. Quickly, the mobilization was supported by adults and supporters of opposition parties, becoming a unanimous outcry against the communist president Claudia Sheinbaum.
The Mexican Generation Z, inspired by similar movements in countries such as Nepal, Serbia, Morocco, the Philippines or Peru, has shown that it does not only act on social networks: its protests combine digital activism with massive mobilization in the streets. In Nepal, these demonstrations even forced the resignation of the prime minister after a social media ban, and in Mexico young people show their frustration at unpunished violent crimes and the lack of security.
The entire country: Mérida, Chiapas, Jalisco…
There have been protests throughout Mexico: in Mérida, Yucatán, the pirate flag flew atop the Monument to the Homeland, and hundreds of young people gathered in Chiapas, Jalisco, Puebla, Oaxaca and Michoacán, uniting their voices in a message of national indignation.
Sheinbaum has faced pressure from Generation Z, the anti-drug movement led by Mayor Grecia Quiroz, widow of the murdered Carlos Manzo Rodríguez, protests from teachers, close to the former president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and pressure from the United States against the cartels. Faced with all this, Mexican youth has managed to put the Government in check, showing that digital connection, visual creativity and mass mobilization are powerful weapons to demand changes.
Generation Z in Mexico thus joins a global trend: young people born between the late 90s and early 2010s who become key actors in protests against corruption, inequality and democratic retreat. In Mexico, the movement is still under construction, but its impact is already evident: streets taken over, pirate flags at the top and a Government increasingly cornered by youth.
