Leading Mexican intellectuals address Global Justice conference
By Mike and Peggy Rivage-Seul (July 21, 2006)


So, who really won the presidential election? Was it Calderón or Obrador? No matter what you think, you’re probably wrong. That, at least, is the likely answer of three leading Mexican intellectuals who will be speaking in San Miguel this weekend. 
All, it would seem, agree that the real winner was subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas’ “Other Campaign.” The election’s outcome shows he was right. There is no real democracy in Mexico—or in the world, for that matter. 

Bishop Samuel Ruiz García, “Don Samuel,” of Querétaro, Miguel Alvarez of Mexico City, and Gustavo Esteva, the “de-professionalized intellectual” of Oaxaca, will bring that message to the Third Annual Conference of San Miguel’s Center for Global Justice. This year’s theme is “Another World is Necessary: Justice, Sustainable Development and Sovereignty.” Esteva will give the keynote address on July 22.

His topic will be “The Other Campaign and the Left: Reclaiming an Alternative.” The “Other Campaign” was launched by the Zapatistas as an alternative to the campaigns for the presidential election currently disputed in Mexico. His remarks will address the theoretical and practical challenges raised by what he describes as a complex, but viable, alternative to globalization. In doing so, he will challenge most of the dominant paradigms of both right and left, explaining his alternative within the context of recent political trends in Latin America. Esteva will also examine the current political juncture in Oaxaca and Mexico, particularly the popular mobilization to throw out the governor of Oaxaca and to challenge the idea that election procedures in Mexico have been or will be “cleaned up.” 

Bishop Ruiz will speak at 5:30pm on July 23. His topic will be “The Contribution of the Indigenous Peoples to Peacemaking.” Miguel Alvarez follows Bishop Ruiz with a presentation entitled “Challenges Facing Today’s Social Movements.” All conference presentations will be simultaneously translated by professional interpreters from the international organization BABEL, who are donating their services to the conference. 

All three speakers deserve to be taken very seriously. Esteva has authored more than 500 essays and three dozen books, including Grassroots Postmodernism: Remaking the Soil of Culture, with Mahdhu Prakash. He founded two vibrant educational programs, The Center for Intercultural Dialogues and Exchanges (CEDI) and Universidad de la Tierra (Uniterra) in Oaxaca, where he continues to work, along with indigenous groups and NGOs, including several organizations linked to the Zapatistas. Esteva has served as an advisor of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas. He exercised major influence in the drafting of the San Andreas Accords, which established an uneasy “peace” between the Zapatistas and the Mexican government.
 
Don Samuel Ruiz García, at the age of 85, continues to provide spiritual and social leadership to millions of oppressed people throughout Latin America. He served as Bishop of the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas for four decades, from the period of the Guatemalan civil war, which forced many refugees to flee the violence of death squads into Chiapas. Afterward, Ruiz served as mediator between the Zapatista rebels and the Mexican government. His tireless work on behalf of the indigenous people of Chiapas angered both the Mexican government and the Roman Curia. In 1993, a year before the Zapatista uprising, the Vatican asked Bishop Ruiz to resign. It withdrew the request, however, when thousands of indigenous people took to the streets in protest. Bishop Ruiz’s bravery and tenacity in fighting for the rights of the indigenous poor led to his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, 1995 and 1996. In addition, he has received the Martin Ennals Award, the Niawano Peace Prize and the Simón Bolívar Prize from UNESCO. 

Since his mandatory retirement at the age of 79, Don Samuel has traveled the world in defense of indigenous populations.

Don Miguel Alvarez is a long-time activist with Bishop Ruiz and Gustavo Esteva. He has organized and led numerous social organizations throughout Mexico. Currently, he is involved with SERPAZ (Services and Technical Help for Peace) and the organization “Peace with Democracy.”

Esteva’s work clarifies key points shared by the three speakers. Like Marcos, Esteva has given up on conventional politics and on “formal democracies” such as the one here in Mexico. The planet’s “grassroots” have given up too, he says—especially after their votes have been nullified in case after case, not only in Mexico, where fraudulent elections are an art form, but even in places like Costa Rica—and (twice recently) in the United States.

Such developments have led the earth’s new “social subjects” to conclude that they must ignore politicians and look to themselves and their immediate communities for solutions to the problems politicians falsely promise to fix.

According to Esteva, to believe otherwise is to succumb to the “development drug.” Face it, he says, “development” is a dope. The idea that the world’s “social majorities” can attain levels of consumption anywhere approaching those of the United States and Europe is nothing more than an opium den illusion. It is contradicted by the results of four development decades when the “Two-Thirds World” has fallen further and further behind the “developed world” in terms of income and purchasing power. And all the while they’ve been promised a bigger share of the pie. It’s just never going to happen. 

Besides that, the very concept of development is contradicted by the example of the so-called First World. Crime, addictions of all types and environmental and cultural destruction reveal a deep despair even in the most “advanced” countries. “What is called happiness there,” Esteva says, “is merely episodic at best. It’s like the momentary highs of drug addicts. So any alleged right to development is like claiming a right to daily doses of heroin or cocaine. Our drug addiction is destroying us all.”

To counter the illusions of development, Esteva advocates what he calls “grassroots post-modernism.” It refers to the rejection of the modern world and its 200-year-old superstitions about development. It is “grassroots” to distinguish it from the academic post-modernism of the well-to-do “social minorities.” Academic post-modernism has questioned the scientific worldview along with its certainty and belief in technology, objectivity, rationality and domination by a single culture of “progress.” Meanwhile, however, the academics in question have accepted the globalism behind the ideologies of scarcity, market self-regulation, liberal democracy, rugged individualism, the universality of human rights and the need to “think globally.”

Esteva likes to illustrate all of this with examples drawn from his own experiences in Mexico. During the presidency of Luis Echeverria Alvarez (1970–76), Esteva worked at the top of the Mexican government to organize development programs for peasants. These programs helped distribute basic subsidized staples through 18,000 shops run by people in the villages. “They were beautiful programs,” says Esteva, “but we knew from evaluations that these programs were damaging to the people. The logic of the government and the logic of the people never coincided. So I quit.” From the time that Esteva made his exit from the upper echelons of Mexican government, he has committed his life to creating “autonomous niches” in civil society. 

In fact, Esteva has opposed Mexico’s governments for the past 30 years. For example, at the end of 1994, the first year of the Zapatista uprising, the people of Chiapas organized against a fraudulent election for their governor. They set up a tribunal against the state. Esteva was the judge, along with a popular jury to evaluate the elections. Not surprisingly, they pronounced a sentence against the government. The trial had no legal standing, but the governor only lasted eight days in office. Such is the strength of autonomous niches in society. 

Respect for indigenous community life is central to Esteva’s philosophy of development. It is naive to “think globally and act locally,” he says. No one has the necessary cultural knowledge, and hence the evaluative data, to “think globally.” The most humans can do is think locally and act locally within their own spheres. All the while they must be humbly aware of the existence of many other spheres—each with its own frame of reference, values and ways of operating. Moreover, global emphasis is disempowering. It impotently awaits the emergence of planet-wide movements and solutions before acting. It thus plays directly into the hands of the elite, who alone possess the infrastructure and finances for grandiose projects. In contrast, the grassroots think small and value the beautiful in the little. 

Esteva credits the Zapatistas for his own insight into the limits of national government. Early in 1996, the Zapatistas invited Esteva and others to create small dialogue committees to discuss what they could do without political parties and without government. After several months of dialogue, the committees jokingly concluded: “There is only one thing we really need someone in Mexico to make a decision about, that we cannot decide on a local level: how to designate Mexican ambassadors in other countries. All the rest we can do ourselves.” 

For Esteva, formal democracy has come to an end. Its modern notion continues the age-old practice of surrendering decision-making power to a self-serving elite. This relegates the non-elite to the role of voting occasionally for those who are presumed to “know better” and who therefore are allowed to make decisions regardless of the wishes of their would-be constituents. If the right wing wins an election, it institutes a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; if the left wins, it’s a dictatorship of the proletariat. By way of contrast, grassroots post-modernism attempts to solve local problems locally. 

For Gustavo Esteva, Bishop Samuel Ruiz and Miguel Alvarez, the Zapatistas have opened a door of hope: “Hope is the very essence of popular movements; people mobilize only when they have hope. Hope is not a conviction that something will happen. Hope is the conviction that something makes sense whatever happens.” 

Surely those who gather to hear Bishop Ruiz, Miguel Alvarez and Gustavo Esteva this weekend will find that kind of hope to work for justice in a world that begs for change. The Center for Global Justice requests a contribution of $50 pesos at the door; for teachers and students, $10 pesos.

Global Justice Conference speakers
Saturday, July 22, 5:30pm, Gustavo Esteva
Sunday, July 23, 5:30pm, Don Samuel Ruiz García and Miguel Alvarez
Recreo Cultural Center, Recreo 4, 50 pesos

Mike and Peggy Rivage-Seul are professors at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. Mike directs the Peace and Justice Studies Program and Peggy chairs the Women’s Studies program. Both are research associates at the Center for Global Justice. Peggy also works with the Center’s Intern Program. You can contact them at Mike_Rivage-Seul@berea.edu and Peggy_Rivage-Seul@berea.edu. 



The Cubans are coming! The Cubans are coming!
By Cliff DuRand

Eight of Cuba’s leading thinkers and researchers will visit San Miguel for two weeks as part of an ongoing exchange organized by the Center for Global Justice with our Caribbean neighbor. While here, they will be offering a free, day-long symposium on “Cuba Today” for the general public. This is your chance to ask your questions and hear about all aspects of the Cuban Revolution and life in Cuba currently. It’s the next best thing to being there.

The visiting Cubans are leading thinkers and researchers from several institutions in Cuba: the University of Habana, the Institute of Philosophy, the Center for the Study of the US, and the Cuban Society for Philosophical Research. They are specialists in US-Cuban relations, Cuban politics and civil society, the socialist transition, public policy, and higher education, among other areas. They will also be discussing issues of leadership, how Cuba practices solidarity, and how Cuba survived the Special Period, among other topics.

The “Cuba Today” symposium will be presented in English July 26 and July 27, then repeated in Spanish, Saturday, July 29. These events are open to the public and free of charge. For further information, contact cliff@GlobalJusticeCenter.org.  

“Cuba Today” Wednesday, July 26, 1–5pm (English)
Thursday, July 27, 10am–1pm (English)
Saturday, July 29, 10am–1pm (Spanish)
Sala Quetzal, Biblioteca Pública, Insurgentes 25, Free


Beyond the blitz
By Kathy Frankel

It was a new idea for Amigos de Animales: Go directly into a smaller colonia for two days, rather than stay near Centro for three or four days, to spay and neuter the cats and dogs of owners who cannot afford to pay for such surgery. Socrates Kindergarten in colonia Olimpo was chosen as the site of the blitz. And what a site it was! Owners waited under a tent in the playground overlooking a greening valley. Surgery, recovery and intake took place in tiny classrooms amid covered stacks of small chairs and children’s artwork.

Animals were weighed as they came in and later checked out in the central courtyard when they were ready to go home. 
We were a bit anxious that Mexico’s playing in the World Cup Soccer game would keep people away on Saturday. But, no. Almost 100 animals were operated on that day, and between 60 and 65 animals the next day. In addition, information was given out about pet care, the city laws that were passed in 2004 that govern domestic animals’ welfare, and where to get pets sterilized all during the year, paid for by Amigos de Animales.

“Watching the families and children tenderly caring for their pets, the gratitude when their pets wake up and they get to take them home—gratitude mixed with relief. I loved it,” said volunteer Pauline Chapman.

Also at the blitz, we received a darling female Golden Retriever I’ll call Sweetie. As a purebred, she represented an “easy” source of income for her owners who thought nothing of having her impregnated every few months and selling her puppies to unsuspecting buyers who had no idea of Sweetie’s suffering. 

By the time she found her way to us, she was emaciated—her many litters having deprived her own body of all its valuable nutrients, she was nursing, and she was in heat again. Fortunately we were able to sterilize her and put an end to the brutal cycle of unending pregnancies that she had been forced to endure. 

While it is possible to find reputable breeders who take great pains to ensure the health and happiness of their animals, behind the eyes of your cute puppy may lurk the untold horrors of a mass dog-breeding facility.

The Humane Society of the United States calls them puppy mills, and for good reason. Puppy mills frequently house dogs in shockingly poor conditions, particularly for the “breeding stock” animals that are caged and continually bred for years, without human companionship, and then killed, abandoned or sold to another “miller” after their fertility wanes.

Like Sweetie, these adult dogs are bred repeatedly to produce litter after litter—without hope of ever becoming part of a family. The result is hundreds of thousands of puppies churned out each year for sale at pet stores, over the Internet, and through newspaper ads. This practice will end only when people stop buying these puppy mill puppies.

Instead, when you’re looking to add a pet to your life, consider adopting a homeless animal from the SPA www.spasanmiguel.org or SAMM (Save a Mexican Mutt) www.samm.petfinder.org, both here in San Miguel, or consider RPA in Jurica near Querétaro, http://mx.geocities.com/rpa_qro/

Whether you want a puppy or a more mature dog, a purebred or a one-of-a-kind mixed breed, even a horse or a rabbit, shelters have the best selection of animals anywhere. Most shelters will even help you with spaying and neutering.Above all, don’t ever buy a dog if you can’t physically visit every area of the home or breeding facility where the dogs are kept. Puppy mills will continue to operate until people stop buying their dogs.

Your contribution to organizations like Amigos de Animales works to end pet overpopulation. For more information on our organization, volunteering or donations, visit our website 
www.amigosdeanimalessma.org. 


Amigos’ fundraiser: Don’t sit and stay at home

Does your dog know how to sit, stay, and retrieve wads of cash out of your pocket? Well, get out of your Bark-o-lounger and find out by coming to the Second Annual Amigos de Animales Fundraiser on Wednesday, August 2, from 5:30–7:30pm at the Instituto Allende. Famed Certified Animal Behavior Consultant Charlotte Peltz will use positive reinforcement techniques to conduct a sit-and-stay demonstration with local doggie divas “Sweetie,” “Triscuit” and “Katie.” The friendly volunteers of Amigos de Animales will work on your wallet.

All two-legged San Miguel residents and visitors are invited to attend this casual, free event. Snacks and beverages will be served, and information about Amigos de Animales will be available. 

Come hear about Amigos’ ongoing work on behalf of our community’s dogs and cats. We continue to work in el Centro and now are reaching out to other colonias. Our recent campaign in colonia Olimpo was highly successful—163 animals were spayed or neutered in two days. 

We have new goals for our educational program, including working with children both in and out of the classroom and community outreach to raise awareness and teach responsible pet ownership.

You won’t have to sit or stay forever, though our volunteers will try to get you to roll over and make a donation. Come and go as you please—you’re on a long leash. We promise a good time with just a couple of short speeches. 

We appreciate your support to help Amigos de Animales eliminate pet overpopulation and suffering in San Miguel. Visit our website at www.amigosdeanimalessma.org for regular updates and more information.

Amigos de Animales Fundraiser, Wednesday, August 2, 5:30–7:30pm
Instituto Allende, Ancha de San Antonio 20



San Miguel Opera House announces major changes
By Bruce Rossley

Earlier this year, RWR Productions announced the development of the first opera house in San Miguel de Allende. The original plan was to add 200 seats to a movie theater that had already been partially constructed.

In February 2006, the Café de la Opera at Rancho los Labradores was opened adjacent to the theater. Over 300 residents of San Miguel attended the Café de la Opera opening and participated in tours of the partially constructed theater. The comments were overwhelmingly positive regarding the need for an opera house in San Miguel de Allende but were also overwhelmingly negative in terms of the size of the theater. The developers had already recognized the fact that creating a state-of-the-art opera house would require adding a stage house larger than the audience hall itself.

At that point, RWR Productions and their partners, the Cházaro family, which is developing luxury homes at Rancho Los Labradores, met to reassess the plan. The result was that the existing theater will be completed by the Cházaro family and will revert to its original intent, an art cinema and small performance space. 

RWR Productions will lease land to build a new opera house with sufficient seating. RWR Productions will raise the funds to build the new opera house and will own the theatre on behalf of the resident opera company, the National Concert Opera Company of Mexico. 

The site of the new opera house is adjacent to the existing theater. Award-winning architects Hector Martinez Cesias Rodriguez and Adrián Vázquez Chavolla have designed a spectacular theater in the “Mexican contemporary” style. The opera house will feature a full orchestra pit and have 900 seats and 14 private boxes. There will be a gently sloping mezzanine loge at the rear of the orchestra level. In front of the theater entrance, the Opera Plaza Theater will allow space for 1,200 removable seats for outdoor performances. 

The San Miguel Opera House will be situated in the desert with spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. The theater will be only a 15-minute drive from the center of San Miguel de Allende. Parking will be adjacent to the opera house, and buses for all performances will provide transportation to and from downtown San Miguel.

The theater will be developed and managed by RWR Productions and its principles, Susan Weiss, managing director and executive producer, and Bruce Rossley, president and executive producer. The artistic director emeritus of the Connecticut Concert Opera Company, Wayne Rivera, will serve as artistic director of the opera company for which the San Miguel Opera House is being built. The developers are working with the best acoustical, lighting and theater design company in the country, Teletec, Mexico. It is anticipated that the grand inauguration of the San Miguel Opera House will take place in the fall of 2007. 

Plans will soon be announced regarding the international fund-raising campaign to begin this summer. The funds to build the opera house will come from music and opera lovers in Mexico, the United States, Canada and beyond. They will have the opportunity to be a part of history and have their names associated with the San Miguel Opera House in perpetuity. Naming rights for seats and the private boxes will be sold to corporations and individuals: Names on brass plaques will be permanently attached to seats. The public will also have the opportunity to buy engraved bricks, which can simply state a name or commemorate a marriage, birth, graduation or the life of a deceased loved one. 

A major boost to the capital campaign to build the opera house came in May when Platinum Broadcasting of Florida chose Rancho Los Labradores and the San Miguel Opera House over cities in Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua to be featured on their television program showcasing the best retirement communities in the world. The San Miguel Opera House website address is www.sanmigueloperahouse.com. 

Biblioteca board meeting date changed
The Biblioteca Pública’s board of directors announces that the monthly public meeting for July has been changed to Thursday, July 27, at 11am due to event scheduling. The meeting takes place in the English classroom on the second floor.



A night in Casablanca
By Paul Piazzese

Morocco has fascinated many creative people: the painters Delacroix and Matisse, author Paul Bowles and designer Yves Saint Laurent. On Friday, July 28, Patronato Pro Niños recreates Casablanca for its annual fund-raising auction and raffle evening. Proceeds from this event, to be held in a new venue this year, fund a wide range of medical and dental services for children in San Miguel and surrounding communities.

The magic begins at 5:30pm with the bidding on silent auction items, accompanied by hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. A Moroccan-inspired sit-down dinner with wines begins at 7pm, along with the live auction. Full-service, open bars will also be provided. 

Among the treasures up for auction are artworks by Alejandro Rivera, Jeanie Gooden, Gary Slipper and Keith Miller, jewelry by San Miguel’s finest designers, trips to various international destinations and specialty items such as an Afghanistani rug. There are 52 items up for bid. Both live and silent auction catalogs are available at the Patronato Pro Niños office, San Francisco 1, Interior 4, and here: 
www.patronatoproninos.org/auction_raffle.html. 

The evening closes with a drawing of raffle prizes. First prize is a week for two in Hawaii at the luxurious Turtle Bay Resort on the legendary North Shore of Oahu. Round-trip airfare is included. The second prize is a Broadway Getaway to New York City, including three nights in a hotel and three theater performances for two. Round-trip airfare is also included. Raffle tickets are US$100.00, and the winners need not be present to collect their prizes.

For ticket purchases or further inquiries, call Lily at 152-7796 or 154-9708 and she will have your tickets delivered to you. You can visit the Patronato Pro Niños office or purchase tickets from Patronato Pro Niños board members and friends. Nonresidents can order tickets from the website. Cash, checks, MasterCard, Visa and American Express are accepted.

Patronato Pro Niños Auction and Raffle
Friday, July 28, 5:30pm, Salon Acuario
Cardenal 4, Residencial La Luz, Salida a Querétaro, US$75