It has been an honor to procure the Weary Bystanders project for the last three years. The blog was born out of the need to counter prejudice in the news pieces that were being published in English. My founding partner David Colmenares and I have the conviction that this war needs to be covered respectfully, portraying Mexico in all its complexity.
Better coverage has emerged, although in part because there have been more scandalous acts of violence to report on. President Peña Nieto’s strategy of letting reforms and alimentary campaigns tame the need to seek justice and a revision of the current strategy of the war against drugs is failing.
I end my involvement with the blog because I lack the time and energy to keep up with the war and maintain a good standard of publishable posts. My life and intellectual pursuits are still with the drug war victims, and devoted to researching how a hurt society can muster strength and resources to face the catastrophe.
For the past five years I have met an array of very talented persons committed to understanding violence and working towards peace in a very conscientious way. Needless to say all my colleagues at Nuestra Aparente Rendicion are outstanding activists and professionals of peace. Their work inspires me and makes all the rough patches along the road, learning events.
To end the war and rebuild this country all of us are needed.
As for my closing blog post, I wish to advocate the reading of a blog that rigorously translates news from trusted Mexican media outlets, Mexico Voices. This is a project that Jane Kingman Brundage and Reed Brundage started. They are a couple from the United States who know the violence-laden state of Michoacan very well, and share many first-hand accounts of the current situation of the state.
http://mexicovoices.blogspot.mx/
The second group of texts I wish to share are a few essays written by Nuestra Aparente Rendicion’s editor Alejandro Velez and his sister Doria Velez on the meaning and impact of disappearances. Both are novel specialists in the subject of disappearances in Mexico and whose work we ought to monitor to gain understanding of the current crisis.
http://www.missingblog.net/tag/mexico/
Given the outrage after forced disappearance of the 43 students from the rural teacher’s college from Ayotzinapa, I want to acknowledge that the British newspaper The Independent had already covered the recent disappearances in Mexico. There is a tendency to make it look as though these recent events that finally made people turn their eyes to Mexico are the beginning of something when they but a manifestation of a years-in-the-making dismantled state.
I am grateful to those who entrusted me their texts and put their minds and efforts at the service of this project, and to Lolita Bosch and Alejandro Velez for never doubting its pertinence. This blog has been a work of love and it ends as a work of love.
