[We must organize within Morena, and we must organize in the
streets. Young people must be patient and persevere. We must fight all
our lives to transform reality. With AMLO, hope returned to us. I’m
ready. ]
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MORENA YOUTH: A PIPELINE TO THE FUTURE  
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Meizhu Lui; Alejandro Torres
November 9, 2022
Mexico Solidarity Bulletin
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_ We must organize within Morena, and we must organize in the
streets. Young people must be patient and persevere. We must fight all
our lives to transform reality. With AMLO, hope returned to us. I’m
ready. _

,

 

I got a new car in 2014, the same year Morena became a Mexican
political party. This new car — my first-ever brand new one — had
me thoroughly excited. No scratches, no noises, no problems!

Fast forward eight years. My car has problems. OK, some count as my
own fault, like the time I left the car in drive when I exited and the
car promptly propelled itself into a ditch. I blame other mishaps on
acts of nature, like those mice that ate all the wiring. And don’t
get me started on that faulty AC that crashed as soon as the warranty
expired.

Morena, meanwhile, began life as a party of a brand-new design, as a
civil society organization based in México’s social movements.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador led the way. He had left the PRD party,
itself a democratic breakaway from the PRI, México’s long-time
ruling party. Other left-leaning PRD militants joined Morena when its
members voted to register as a political party.

Did this new Morena come with design flaws? Sure did. In an attempt to
be as democratic as possible, for instance, the party allowing anyone
and everyone to become a member and run for office under the Morena
banner. The more popular that banner became, the more opportunists
rushed into Morena and ran for office under it.

Did Morena run into problems beyond the party’s control? Most
certainly. As always, the United States wants a servant south of the
border, not a neighbor. US officials right now are threatening to sue
México under existing free trade rules if the Morena government moves
to take control of its own energy sector. 

Is Morena facing problems caused by its own actions and inactions? Of
course, perhaps most notably by failing to maintain and strengthen its
social movement base.

But problems always become inevitable as time passes. I’m not ready
to junk my eight-year-old car. And within Morena we can see a new
fix-it spirit. A younger generation of activists, young people like
Alejandro Torres, our interviewee this week, have the technical skills
and visionary creativity to do much more than just keep the old buggy
running. They’re building a vehicle for real revolutionary change.

MORENA HAS A YOUTH SECTION. WHO PARTICIPATES AND WHY?

The murder of the Ayotzinapa students in 2014 electrified young people
of my generation and turned us from passive dissatisfaction into an
activist social force. Students, particularly from the public
universities, became determined to stop authoritarianism and the use
of violence to silence anyone who disagreed with those who held
governing power. 

That’s _my _story. And when the PRI government tried to privatize
my school, the Polytechnical Institute, which has mostly working-class
students, my outrage became personal.

The new Morena party formed in 2014, and AMLO’s election in 2018
gave young people for the first time in history the space to
participate directly in politics, not just in social movements. Morena
has a youth secretary who is ensuring that we’re organizing in every
state.

The voting age in México currently sits at 18, but you can join
Morena at 16. Our Youth Section includes young people from 16 into
their 20s.

_Anti-PRI demonstration in 2012. Photo: Gustavo Sánchez_

STUDENTS WORLDWIDE OFTEN STAND AT THE FOREFRONT OF REVOLUTIONARY
MOVEMENTS. THAT TRUE IN MÉXICO?

We see the student generation of 1968 as our precursors. Those wanted
more democracy and more public services like education. They suffered
brutal repression. 

No one knows for sure how many students were shot or hunted down back
then, probably hundreds. But many others continued to resist and
helped form Morena. One example from that generation: author Paco
Taibo. AMLO appointed him to head the State Publishing House.

In the 1980s, university students at UNAM in México City once again
rose up, and some of those students — like Claudia Sheinbaum, the
mayor of México City — are now helping to lead Morena. 

_Students in 1968 at Tlatelolcom Plaza. Getty Images._

Then the 2014 student generation denounced Mexican president Peña
Nieto for his violent suppression of dissidents and subservience to
foreign capitalists. In 2018 we students voted and helped oust the
PRI. This third generation of student activists also holds influential
positions within Morena. Citlally Hernandez now serves as Morena’s
general secretary. 

So Morena contains the veterans of several generations of student
activists.

DOES THAT GIVE MORENA A STRONG BASE AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE?  

We have a problem today, especially in the cities where neoliberal
thinking is influencing many of the young. They’ve become, as we
say, “young people with old minds,” more individualistic, less
involved in social movements than previous generations. They prefer to
work in the private sector. This tendency exists even within Morena, a
party that operates as a broad united front. 

Right-wing think tanks are consciously attempting to influence
students away from Morena’s transformational project, and within the
party we have moderates and even neoliberals who do not want to see
structural changes in our country. Some have started a big internal
debate over the word “leftist.” They want to eliminate this word
from our description of who we are! For now, they have been defeated.

WHAT NOW NEEDS TO BE DONE?

We need a new political culture within Morena, to avoid getting
contaminated by the political culture of the past. We need to become
more self-critical and communicate our break with that culture.

We need to transform ourselves and better embody our principles of
service, collectivity, and honesty.

_Students protest femicide at Universidad Iberoamericana,
2020 (Valentina González/IBERO)_

Our challenge as young people: to do all this at the same time, to be
more active in traditional spaces, to use the media well, to formulate
good policy, and, at the same time, to fight internally within Morena
to keep on the right track. 

On some issues important to youth, Morena has been both backward and
late: the environment, LBGTQ issues, women’s rights. And the party
has not focused on the social movements. We will fail if we remain
distant from those movements.

WHO CAN BEST KEEP MORENA ON TRACK POST-AMLO?

Let’s look at what the two leading candidates for Morena’s
nomination to succeed AMLO as president represent. Marcelo Ebrard has
a good record on social issues, He fought for gay marriage and
abortion rights. But he’s an economic conservative. AMLO, for
instance, proposed a new public technical school, but Ebrard made it
private. 

Claudia Sheinbaum developed her political orientation in the social
movements. As a UNAM student, she fought for public education. And as
an engineer, she uses a science-driven approach. Her successful public
transportation system in México City, for example, integrates metro,
buses, and bicycle paths and encourages electric cars.

HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR FUTURE?

I want to travel so I can hear the people, and to internationalize the
fight. We must organize within Morena, and we must organize in the
streets. Young people must be patient and persevere. We must fight all
our lives to transform reality.  With AMLO, hope returned to us.
I’m ready.

_Alejandro Torres, a 23-year-old university student majoring in
international affairs at UNAM, has already been a left activist for
some eight years. He’s worked to defend public education and gain
justice for the disappeared Ayotzinapa students. He’s connected with
political and social movements throughout Latin America and now serves
as a leader in the Morena party’s Youth Section._

_Co-Coordinator Meizhu Lui's experiences as the daughter of Chinese
immigrants and as a single mom led her to focus on addressing
inequalities based on race, gender, and immigration status. A hospital
kitchen worker, she was elected president of her AFSCME local. She
coordinated the national Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative, and
co-authored The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial
Wealth Divide. Liberation Road, a socialist organization, has been her
political home_

_THE MÉXICO SOLIDARITY PROJECT is powered by those who voluntarily
contribute their energy and expertise. It's a labor of love that
reflects our love of labor — on both sides of the border. Our
participants come from varied backgrounds, but all share a life
mission dedicated to ending global capitalist domination and
exploitation, especially by the nation that many of us call home, the
United States.  Don’t miss an issue. SUBSCRIBE
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