Remember NAFTA? It’s little talked about now. It’s almost as outdated a subject as, well, Monica Lewinsky. But while it’s no longer on the nation’s news pages, or on the lips of the latest political pimp running for president, it’s alive and well south of the border.
Several months ago, tens of thousands of folks in Mexico City rallied in the Zócalo, or city square, to protest the skyrocketing price of tortillas, a staple of the Mexican diet. While most Americans rely on wheat for bread, the tortilla is the fruit of ground corn. And the price of corn is going through the roof, because of corporate interests in ethanol, a biofuel that may be used to run hybrid cars.
What’s up with NAFTA? When NAFTA was signed into law in 1993, it opened Mexican markets to U.S. products, and depressed Mexico’s agricultural sector, mostly corn producers. You want to know why immigration is growing? Over one sixth of Mexico’s agricultural workers have been driven off the land, sending wages down there but also sending many northwards to the U.S. But Mexico’s loss is also its gain, for Mexican immigrants send billions back home. In 2002 alone, nearly $16 billion came in from remittances from immigrants. This amounted to more money than that brought in by tourism and industrial exports. It’s almost rivaled Mexico’s oil exports. NAFTA crushed a whole slew of small businesses to make room for U.S. imports. Faced with massive protests, Mexico’s government enacted price limits on tortillas, but who knows how long these will last?
Meanwhile, the logic of the so-called “free market” eats into every corner of consciousness, making corn more precious as a fuel than as a food. In Mexico City, those tens of thousands chanted, “We want tortillas, not PAN,” a play on the Spanish word for bread, but also against the ruling party, El Partido Acción Nacional, or PAN, the National Action Party. In Mexico, people are fighting—for their food. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are produced by Noelle Hanrahan for Prison Radio.
