From Iguala to Ferguson, Resistance requires a Global Movement against US Imperialism
by Danny Haiphong
“US imperialism never ceased its attack on Mexico's sovereignty.”
US imperialism has historically held an abusive colonial relationship with Mexico, dating back to the American proclamation of "Manifest Destiny." Manifest Destiny was Washington's declared right to expand into Mexico and Latin America under the holy orders of white supremacy and capitalist expansion. The US settler state glossed over its economic motivations with the notion that expansion into Mexico would "civilize" the "savages" of the former Spanish colony. What the US slave-owning capitalist class really desired was to maintain its slave order in the era of industrialization. The only way to obtain the land necessary to balance the power between the growing "free" industrialized states and the declining "slave" planter states was to steal it. US imperialism proceeded to declare war on Mexico, killing thousands for the purpose of annexing large sections of the nation into statehood.
Decades after the war, the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) struggled to end the deplorable conditions imposed by US-sponsored neo-colonialism. Despite the successes of the revolution, US imperialism never ceased its attack on Mexico's sovereignty. The most recent tragedy in Iguala is case in point. The streets of Mexico City have been flooded with resistance to the 43 kidnapped students who attended the teachers college of Ayotzinapa. According to multiple sources, the students were kidnapped by police forces on orders from the local mayor. Resistance forces have since demanded President Nieto step down and for a full-scale investigation into the missing students. Under the rule of Nieto, it is estimated that 30,000 have gone missing from Mexico since 2012. Yet, the US has supported his regime since day one.
The tragedy at Iguala must be placed in the context of US imperialist intervention in Mexico. US imperialism has spent millions of dollars in the so-called “War on Drugs” in Mexico. Much of these funds have gone to the militarization of the Mexican state. According to the Foreign Policy journal, drones hover over Mexico and US-style "fusion centers" have been built throughout the country. In collaboration with US Special Forces and intelligence, Mexico’s security forces receive close to a hundred million dollars per year from the same drug cartels that Washington claims to be fighting. Indeed, the “War on Drugs” has from day one been designed to protect imperialist interests in the region by keeping the nation in a constant state of repression and instability.
“Drones hover over Mexico and US-style ‘fusion centers’ have been built throughout the country.”
The proliferation of US-sponsored militarization in Mexico is directly connected to US imperialism's economic interests. US imperialism promoted the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to expand economic hegemony throughout the continent. NAFTA was a comprehensive policy of robbery that redistributed the lands of farming and peasant communities to US and Canadian corporations. The displaced were forced to migrate to overcrowded cities, only to find unemployment and poverty. This led to an upsurge of immigration to the US and the subsequent US investment of billions of dollars toward the militarization of the US-Mexico border. With US multinationals successfully exploiting cheap labor costs and land deals through NAFTA, the "War on Drugs" was revived to repress indigenous resistance to imperial domination in Mexico and along the militarized border.
Policies like NAFTA are impossible to enact without the participation of partner governments willing to serve the interests of US imperialism. And US imperialism never misses the opportunity to create and/or support such governments. This is well known in Mexico and in most places around the globe. From the very moment the Ayotzinapa students were reported missing, resistance forces and their international supporters assumed them murdered by security forces. Popular mistrust is confirmed by the mass graves that have found in Mexico since the disappearance.
US imperialism’s complicity in the mass murder of Mexico's students and workers should not come as a surprise. Since 1945, US imperialism has overthrown over 50 foreign governments.
This list includes the millions who were killed by US bombs in Vietnam and Korea beginning in 1950. In 1953, the US put the fascist Shah regime into power in Iran. During the struggles of national liberation in Africa, US imperialism supported coup-regimes in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Apartheid South Africa. It moved quickly to install fascist regimes in Latin America to prevent the spread of Cuba’s socialist example. This includes the 1973 CIA coup in Chile that led to the installation of the fascist Pinochet regime. In short, US imperialism’s quest to reign in the colonial possessions of the European capitalist powers following World War II resulted in the mass graves of millions of people.
In this current historical juncture, US imperialism is directly involved in propping up the coup regimes in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In Latin America, progressive and leftist forces in Venezuela and ALBA countries are under the constant threat of US-sponsored destabilization. In Africa, the colossal footprint of the US military command (AFRICOM) maintains a presence in all but two countries on the continent. US imperialism continues to expand the terrain and brutality of global warfare to unprecedented heights as a counter-weight to independent development, socialism, and the geopolitical march of Russia and China.
“US imperialism's Black Mass Incarceration State is an outgrowth of its murderous national roots.”
Black America, indigenous America, and oppressed people inside the US imperial nation-state know a thing or two about mass graves. The foundation of the US imperial order is mounted upon the mass graves of millions of indigenous nations and enslaved Africans. US imperialism's Black Mass Incarceration State is an outgrowth of its murderous national roots. The murders of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and the hundreds of Black youth at the hands of US police forces are an extension of the capitalist profit-motive's insatiable need to socially control the super-exploited and exploited alike. At the same time that Black people are murdered nearly every day by the police, one of eight prisoners in the world are Black Americans. Martin Luther King’s conclusion that the "bombs in Vietnam explode at home" is just as relevant today as it was when he said it.
The primary challenge in this period is to build a united revolutionary movement against US imperialism. Palestine, North Korea, China, and numerous African nations have shown their solidarity with the movement in Ferguson. However, the developing social movement against police brutality in the US has yet to develop into an internationalist force. From this vantage point, the rebellion in Mexico is particularly important. The consciousness of Black America and the working class in the US will continue to develop revolutionary potential as the conditions of US imperialism become increasingly unbearable. Racist police brutality in the US and the struggle in Mexico are related in this way. The people are refusing to lie down and die to US-sponsored terrorism.
These developments have the potential to activate the internationalism needed to truly defeat Empire. But it is the task of a the revolutionary movement in the US and around the globe to connect the graveyard conditions imposed on Black America to the same imperialist system committing state-sponsored mass murder in Mexico. The exploited share a common enemy in the genocidal imperialist ruling class and our organizational work must carry this idea forward. US imperialism's contempt for humanity must be met with an equally strong force of revolutionary justice. Ferguson and Iguala have already provided a historic opportunity to seize the time and strengthen the worldwide movement against imperialism.
Danny Haiphong is an organizer, writer, and case manager in the Greater Boston area. You can contact Danny at: wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com.
This week’s featured author is Biko Mandela Gray. Gray is Assistant Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. His book is Black Life Matter: Blackness, Religion, and the Subject.
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