How does Oaxaca fit in? What does Oaxaca mean to the rest of Mexico?
The Mexican people have completely lost faith in the country’s institutions (electoral, judicial, financial, etc). That came to a head in 2006. And Oaxaca is a classic example of that national discontent. It’s a state that has been ruled by the PRI for almost eighty years straight; a state that has suffered the economic, cultural, and social injustices of the “perfect dictatorship.” But because of Oaxaca’s indigenous nature, it’s also a state with concrete, historic experience in popular government. Not only has the state successfully toppled four governors (prior to their current attempts to unseat governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz), but it’s the only state in the country where communities are legally allowed to practice consensus-based, indigenous governance through community assembly. Oaxaca’s refusal to accept bad government, and its experiment in alternative, popular government, was in many ways a manifestation of the social discontent brewing on a national scale. The Oaxacan movement’s
