The attempt who at midnight last Thursday suffered Ciro Gomez Leyva it was not, cannot be attributed as such, to a attack by government forces against the renowned driver of Picture Y formula radius. But it was the product of a weather created, every morning, from the National Palace in against communicators, media, journalists of all kinds. The same Friday, after sympathize with Ciro, President López Obrador returned to the charge against intellectuals and journalists, in a litany that sounds more incongruous and intolerant every day.
A Cyrus it literally saved his life that his vehicle, which was shot nine times, was armored. The attack against Cyrus becomes, impossible to be deceived about it, from its journalistic work, but it occurs because there is a climate of confrontation, of attacks and insults against journalists and the media that permeates everything, but that is born from the highest levels of power.
The attack itself can have many reasons or objectives, from provocation to revenge, but this type of action is facilitated and even tries to justify it, given the climate of grievance and polarization that has been created.
It is not the responsibility of the media or communicators to guarantee the safety of each one of us who make news with the most different points of view and often with critical and uncomfortable information for the National Palace: it is the exclusive responsibility of the State and those who must provide that security. A security that has been left aside in an incomprehensible way.
This same week, Mexico was declared the most insecure country in the world to practice journalism, even above countries at war, such as Ukraine. In this 2022 there are 17 journalists killed and many more who have suffered attacks and assaults.
Guaranteeing the safety of journalists means putting an end to the climate of aggression and grievances and ensuring the conditions for a practice of journalism free of violence. Statements of solidarity are welcome, but they are not enough. Much less when the choruses of those who manage the media in the National Palace replicate the attacks against the victims of this violence themselves. It is revictimized because, once again, there are no reasons, because the grievance is the only response that is used as an argument.
We have 17 journalists murdered in 2022 and in no case have the masterminds of these crimes been arrested. Is any more forceful argument needed to describe the state’s dispensation with these crimes?
In 1994 we said that it was the political climate that led to actions such as the murders of Luis Donaldo Colosio and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, at a time when violence was much further from everyday life than it is now. It was neither Salinas de Gortari nor Camacho Solís who orchestrated those crimes, it was not the fight itself for the presidency or the candidacy, it was the climate created, where violence was permitted, where any action was possible because everything seemed to be legitimized. And then we were very far from what we have come to now.
Just one day before this attack against Gómez Leyva, President López Obrador said that Ciro, Loret, and Sergio Sarmiento should not be listened to because that “caused cancer.” And we all know that for many people a cancer simply has to be removed.
Words have weight, they are important, they influence life and politics, the mood and the social climate. President López Obrador believes that he can daily attack, polarize, aggravate those he himself considers his adversaries without any consequence.
It is deeply striking that the government does not even remotely spend the same amount of time criticizing drug trafficking and organized crime bosses as it does the media and communicators. When do we hear the president speaking critically of the Mencho, the Mayo, the Chapitos, the Toad, the Fish or the Strawberry? These are, among others, the men who are responsible for 140,000 murders in the six-year term.
When do you talk about them, when you point to their first and last name, when do you call for a major national effort to crack down on organized crime? Why can journalists and communicators be attacked daily and at the same time ask them not to call Guzmán Loera Chapo or greet his mother with a handshake that journalists or critical intellectuals are always denied?
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Today, dissipating that climate of violence and polarization should be an absolute priority for everyone, starting with the statements from the highest levels of power to the most pedestrian communications on social networks. It’s good that Claudia Sheinbaum and Omar García Harfuch have declared themselves determined to find out who attacked Ciro and to do justice.
It is very important, but it is not enough. The power itself must dissipate, for its own convenience and security, the climate of intolerance and polarization that has been created from there.
From here, our solidarity with our colleague and friend Ciro Gómez Leyva and with all the journalists who, on a daily basis, suffer attacks of all kinds.
#attack #intolerance #polarization