Friday, May 1, 2015

EL POETA | Program Review

A Mexican Poet’s Crusade for Justice
By Gregg Barrios


The work of Mexican writer Javier Sicilia was little known outside of his country although his prize-winning poetry and his fearless work as a political analyst for Proceso, Mexico’s weekly political magazine are must reading. But four years ago, Sicilia came to international attention when his 24-year-old son Juan Francisco became an innocent victim of Mexico’s drug wars. The younger Sicilia along with six other friends were bound and gagged with duct tape. They died of asphyxiation.  

At a press conference, Sicilia told the New York Times: “What my son did was give a name and a face to the 40,000 dead. My pain gave a face to the pain of other families. I think a country is like a house, and the destruction of someone is the destruction of our families.”

All along Sicilia had been reporting on the growing number of innocent casualties after the U.S. backed President Felipe Calderón’s 2006 war on drugs that employed military force to capture or kill cartel leaders. In a face-to-face exchange Sicilia requested that the Mexican president ask pardon from the nation for the lost lives of innocent victims. Calderón responded that if it hadn’t been for his war against the drug cartels the real criminals, there would have been more innocent deaths.

EL POETA on PBS’s Voces chronicles Sicilia’s formation of an activist group (Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity) that began as protests in the capital city. It evolved into a nation-wide movement to unite and inform the Mexican citizenry of the thousands of deaths related to organized crime. Their rallying cry: “No mas sangre!” and “Estamos hasta la madre.” (No more blood; We’re Up to Here!) At one point, Sicilia’s caravan mobilized over 200,000 participants from Juarez, Chihuahua, Durango and Tijuana with great success.

In 2012, Sicilia brought his peace caravan to the U.S. Los Angeles Times journalist Rubén Martínez described it as “a mission to bring to the American people's conscience their shared responsibility for the thousands of dead, missing and displaced in the drug war. Among the broader American public the drug war is perceived as Mexico's, not ours, never mind that the weapons doing the bloodletting are in great part supplied by the United States.”

In Los Angeles, the group held photocopies of their loved ones. In Phoenix, they visited Sheriff Joe Arpaio's infamous Tent City in order to denounce the failed War on Drugs which has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives in Mexico. In D.C., Black civil rights leader John Lewis inspires them by citing the non-violent marches of Dr. Martin Luther King. In Baltimore, Black mothers embrace Mexican mothers both losing sons to the drug wars.

The Mexican government’s war on drug cartels continues as the body count of innocent victims escalates: 160,000 dead, 30,000 missing, nearly 500,000 displaced and the same 98% of impunity as the previous regime.

In late 2014, forty-three students disappeared in Ayotzinapa without a trace. This led to massive disruptions and demonstrations throughout Mexico and a call for sitting President Enrique Peña Nieto’s resignation. The film is dedicated to those missing students.

In his final poem, dedicated to his son, Sicilia wrote: “The world is not worthy of worthy of the Word / they suffocated it, deep inside us /as they suffocated you, as they tore apart your lungs ... / the pain does not leave me /all that remains is a world / through the silence of the righteous, / only through your silence / and my silence, Juanelo.”

Sicilia’s voice has not been silenced. He continues to speak out in a clear, elegant voice of engagement. As the American writer Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind, you draw large and startling pictures.”

EL POETA is necessary viewing. It will enlighten, as it will inform you. Bless Javier Sicilia!


Gregg Barrios is a poet, playwright and journalist. He is a 2013 USC Annenberg Getty Fellow. He serves on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle.


EL POETA airs on Friday, May 1 at 10PM on KLRN. To watch a preview of EL POETA, visit our video player.