Voices of Mexico no. 106

Our Voice

October 2 On the night of October 1, the esplanade in front of University City’s Central Administration Building was dressed in mourning, and the iconic structure revealed its grandeur with a moving, impressive light show: a peace dove, stabbed, injured, and bleeding was pictured together with the Olympic Games logo and the forceful phrase, “Never Again.”

October 2, 2018 was an autumn morning on which, as only infrequently is the case nowadays, Mexico City was still the most transparent region. At a solemn session of the Chamber of Deputies, the gold-letter inscription on the Wall of Honor of the Legislative Palace was unveiled, with the National University of Mexico (unam) and National Polytechnic Institute (ipn) communities as witnesses. It reads, “To the 1968 Student Movement.” The ceremony, an act of commemoration and vindication, takes place in a university and polytechnic atmosphere: you could hear the traditional cries of “Goya!” (unam) and “Huelum!” (ipn). But, from 1 to 43, other students are remembered as the crowd shouts out the numbers of the missing Ayotzinapa students, thus joining the past to the present.