Event: Mexico Mothers of Disappeared & Haiti Insurrection
Another Haitian Revolution? Margaret Prescod reporting from Haiti
Saturday 5 October 2019, 4pm Crossroads Women’s Centre 25 Wolsey Mews, Kentish Town, London NW5 2DX
Fully accessible All welcome
***Please pass on to lists and contacts***
Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Program, is available to speak on Mexico’s transformation, immigration, the movement of families of the disappeared, human rights and the feminist movement, international relations with the US and Central America, the war on drugs.
Mexico bucked the trend of rightwing governments in Latin America on July 1, 2018, when Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador won the presidential election by a landslide. The geopolitics of the Hemisphere shifted and the promises of a “radical transformation” in the nation that was once the laboratory of neoliberalism raised expectations, not only in Mexico but around the world.
Where are we now, more than a year later? What has changed and what has not?
As Mexico attempts major anti-corruption, redistribution and national development programs, the U.S. government is moving rapidly toward openly white supremacist, patriarchal and oligarchical rule—with widespread popular support. Antagonism toward Mexico, the left and especially immigrants of color have been the cornerstone of the Trump administration and now intensifies with his re-election campaign.
How much margin of maneuver does the AMLO government have? International financial markets and investors threaten to punish any small step that reforms the market-based model and Trump’s tariffs and other threats have already modified especially immigration policy. On the other hand, how much change does the president really want? Some indigenous organizations criticize development plans as the same models of megaprojects and extractivism that has threatened their land and their peoples. The government has achieved gender parity, but feminists point to continued violence against women and attacks on rights. As we see some advances, human rights abuses and corruption are proving more intractable than many thought, and crime-related violence has flared.
Join us to discuss the Mexico that the mainstream media hides—what’s happening, government strategies, how citizen organizations are responding, the U.S. role, and the changing connections that bind the region.
The CIP Americas Program seeks university and community-based sponsors to host events during our 2019 Speaking Tour, September 28-October 10. ***Please book events as soon as possible***
(All proceeds go to support the work of the Americas Program www.cipamericas.org and partner organizations in Mexico)
Laura Carlsen is a bilingual, binational (Mexico-United States) political analyst, journalist and media commentator in Mexico. She holds a Masters from Stanford University in Latin American Studies, and has written extensively on NAFTA, the drug war, immigration and gender issues in The Nation, Le Monde, USA Today, the New York Times, Truth Out and others. She edits the Americas Updater and is a regular columnist for Desinformémonos, Foreign Policy in Focus, Counterpunch, and a commentator with KPFK, Al Jazeera, CGTN, Democracy Now!, NPR and other Mexican television and radio stations. She hosts the TV programs Hecho in America, Interviews From Mexico and Updates from South of the Border on The Real News. She is author and co-editor of Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico and has participated as an analyst and activist in the movements against militarization and for human rights on both sides of the border.
Ms. Carlsen is available to speak on Mexico–the situation from above in national politics and regional geopolitics, and from below in grassroots responses and resistance– in English or Spanish. Specific presentations can be tailored to the interests of the host organization; presentations can include brief videos, accompanying slides; questions and dialogue with the audience is encouraged.