Celebrating My Birthday at a FRENA Protest in Mexico City

And looking beyond the police officers, I can see there are normal folks walking around on the other side who might not be part of the protest.

So I’m not letting this ruin my fancy meal at Chilis!

I mean, this is like my fanciest meal I’ve had all year so it has to happen…

So I turn around and basically find a way to walk through a space between Bellas Artes Museum and the little park they have next to it.

As you can see here. 

Where I was able to finally get my fancy meal at Chilis.

As you can see the meal here – it was good. 

A bit interesting and relevant to our COVID times – they didn’t have physical menus for me.

I had to use my phone to see the menu online.

From what I knew, that’s their way of limiting COVID so that so many different customers don’t have to touch the same menu.

Which is a bit illogical I think given they gave me a used piece of paper that had a code on it that I had to have my phone scan to see the digital menu.

So wouldn’t people be exchanging COVID that way also? Is it any different than just a physical menu?

Well, with enough time in Mexico, you realize a lot of things don’t necessarily have to make sense…

They just have to appear like they make sense because so many things down here are often superficial, illogical and only meant to give the impression that it is sophisticated and well-thought out.

Even if it’s not…

A really funny example of something similar in Brazil was written by a well-known scientist named Richard Feynman regarding the education system in that country.

As you can read about here.

Anyway, I digress…

As I am finishing my meal, I can hear the protests just outside my window are getting more intense.

So I figured I might as well get outside and check it out.

Which ended up becoming a 4 hour event for me.

So on the way outside, I got a look into what was going on…

Encountering the FRENA Protest

So I’m outside now right in front of the entrance to the Chilis near Bellas Artes.

I see a large crowd of people standing around each other…

Some dude carrying a sign that you can see here regarding water issues in Chihuahua. 

A woman holding up a sign that says something like “I love AMLO” or whatever with a picture of AMLO’s face on it.

Which I tried taking a picture of from the distance but she kept lowering it out of view every time I did.

Damn it…

Some dude blowing into a horn also…

A bunch of tents around us…

A policeman in the group trying to calm things down from what I saw…

And some homeless looking dude behind me yelling “son maricones!!! Son maricones!!! JAJA JAJA AJAJAJA JAAJAJA JAJAJAJ AJAJAJA JAJAAJA”

Mixed in with all of that were also some street vendors.

One dude in particular who walked right behind the large gathering and put like a wooden stool or something on the ground and placed some small snacks on it…

“10 peso, 10 pesos……!!!!” was his announcement for anyone interested.

Which gave me a chuckle – that’s the real hustle. Making a buck while everyone is at each other’s throat.

So I figured I might as well get a better understanding of what is going on.

Here’s a photo also of the scene so far below here.

So I ask one random dude what is going on and he seems to be like me – not really part of the show but interested.

Some street vendor selling cotton candy from the looks of it…

Tells me “there are two groups here – one for AMLO and one against.”

And he explains how the people in the tents are against AMLO…

But then another group for AMLO came up and are now arguing with the anti-AMLO group.

So I’m watching the event unfold more but curious about why they are protesting against AMLO.

To which I see some random older man with a Mexican flag tucked in his backpack or whatever…

And assumed he was part of the protest.

So I walk up to him and ask him what is going on.

Well, he explains that there is this movement he is part of named FRNEA.

Which, funny enough, I never heard of in my 3 year so far in Mexico.

But I also never paid much attention to the politics of this country outside of the Zapatista movement, which I find interesting.

As you can read about here.

So anyway, there’s this movement called FRENA – which stands for the National Anti-AMLO Front.

That, from what I read later, is basically meant to try and place a lot of pressure on AMLO to resign.

And apparently has support from a guy named Gilberto Lozano who is a businessman and you can read more about him here.

So anyway, the guy with the Mexican flag is explaining to me basically the following as I am listening to him…

That the protest here has people all over from Mexico – from Toluca, Estado, Chihuahua, Puebla, etc..

And while they all have different reasons for why they are here, the main issues that seem to be driving people are:

• A general dislike of AMLO and an effort to encourage him to resign.
• An issue regarding the government not helping enough kids with cancer to get medications and corruption surrounding that.
• A confrontation between protesters and the National Guard in Chihuahua regarding the exportation of water to other countries in a time that Chihuahua is having a drought.

And among the other protesters I talked to later, those three issues seemed to be the common thread among them.

Mixed in with other personal issues each person might have against AMLO.

One last point that this guy wanted to emphasize to me – that “we are not political! We are not funded by anyone!”

Though I never asked if they were funded by anyone, he really wanted to drive home that point to me and repeated it several times throughout our conversation.

Well, I wished him the best and carried on watching the protest unfold.

With another homeless person – this time a bit more drunk or on drugs – yelling a bunch of random shit behind all of us and laughing – JAJA JAJA JAJA JAJA !!!!!!

At this point, I figured I should check out other areas of the protest.

As you should know this protest basically was set up all along a long street.

From where Bellas Artes Museum to very close to where the Revolution Monument is.

With tents set up all along that.

So I walk towards the direction of where Bellas Artes Museum is.

And see some interesting signs that you can see here below. 

Anyway, at this point…

I was really starting to wonder if this protest was funded or not…

For some reasons we will get to below when I talk with someone else..

But also because, up to this point (and afterwards as well), they constantly were trying to reinforce the idea that they are not funded.

Even though it was never brought up to me.

It’d be like a nervous criminal who is sweating and telling a cop “uh….no officer….I don’t have any cocaine…uh no….no….I PROMISE YOU!!”

Even though the cop was just chilling and didn’t even suspect it or bring it up.

Sp I’m starting to have my doubts because the constant unprovoked emphasis on how they don’t have any outside money just seemed a bit much.

But anyway…

They both go on about other reasons why they don’t like AMLO.

One of them being insecurity and bad cops.

Which, again, is a fair point to a degree.

You can definitely argue that AMLO has fucked that up – in situations like when he released the son of El Chapo.

As you can read here.

But you can also ask yourself – how much of this is AMLO’s fault?

We’ve had drug violence in Mexico for decades now and while it has been going up…

And while the buck does stop with the president as most say…

The president isn’t a dictator either – and he’s going up against powerful cartel groups with billions of dollars behind them.

And here’s the thing – AMLO can take them on with violence and you will have more bloodshed in the streets guaranteed.

Now you can argue that is the right approach because they are criminals.

But that bloodshed in mass will be there.

Plus, when you take out one cartel, other cartels can form and then they compete with each other in bloodshed for the territory lost from the cartel that was eliminated.

To a outsider perspective, the drug cartels look like a Hydra – cut one head off, you get another one.

Or whack a mole – ht one mole…

Well fuck you, here’s 5 more!!!

I always wondered if it would be better for the Mexican government to play favorites – pick one cartel you want to align with it and team up with it to kill the other ones.

Then let the one you aligned with to control the distribution of drugs but then legalize them or decriminalize them and redirect the money spent on fighting cartels to help those addicted to not be addicted to drugs.

Then let the leaders of the cartel you aligned with to basically be a business owner of a more legal company that distributes those drugs but regulate it and take tax money from it.

While also encouraging a policy of getting the former low ranking members of the winning cartel to give up their guns so they don’t try to fuck shit up again – similar to what was going on in Colombia here.

But I’m not an expert on this topic – that’s just a theory on what may or may not work in regards to this situation.

Because the alternative to just playing whack a mole doesn’t seem to be very effective either.

But I digress…

Back to the story.

Corrupt Cops & Drug Cartels

So I brought up some of those thoughts above regarding how to handle the cartels and the decades long issue Mexico has had with them before AMLO.

They both understood where I was getting at but applied the old “the buck stops with the president” idea..

Which is fair enough.

But then I bring up the corrupt cop situation.

How do you deal with corrupt cops?

The response of one of the guys?

“Fire them!”

Ok….sounds legit.

But I brought up my own experience with corrupt cops in Mexico.

As you can read here where on corrupt cop got me to pay a bribe of about 20 bucks near Cuatro Caminos area.

How do you deal with that?

Or better said – how would I have handled it better when reporting it to the police station probably wouldn’t have done anything?

You know, you got to have a process where ordinary citizens can have a reasonable expectation that reporting it will get the corrupt cop fired.

And where we won’t have to pay bribes from cops who can just accuse us of random crimes with no evidence and threaten us with jail time.

There’s a lot wrong with a criminal justice system that allows this type of behavior.

His response?

“Just throw them out wey!”

Which – yes, that would help – but I don’t think he had a real answer for how AMLO specifically can address it.

Which again goes to the fact that AMLO isn’t some god who can snap his fingers and fix everything over night.

At any rate, their response to just “throw them out!” felt like a similar response to how you end dementia.

How do you do that?

“Just end dementia bro. It’s easy. Fuck that AMLO bitch – he hasn’t ended dementia yet?!”

So their response didn’t seem very nuanced, realistic or detailed but that is what you can usually expect from those with a very hard ideological or partisan view.

Similar to the US – people who side hard with democrats or republicans and treat politics more like a football game than anything else.

Same shit here too.

Anyway….

Talking About the Protest 

Well, I see this one woman and decide to get her opinion on why she doesn’t like AMLO.

Which, she definitely seem much more enthusiastic about her dislike of AMLO.

One of her issues with him was the argument that he violates the constitution all the time.

When asked how he violates the constitution…

She goes on about educational issues in Mexico and how AMLO has violated the constitution but didn’t go into too much detail but did give some examples.

Then she brings up some other folks standing around – another older woman, a random dude and two young Mexican folks – who looked a little bit younger than me in their 20s.

The other Mexican lady was nice but we didn’t get into a conversation.

The random dude she presented me to wasn’t able to go into detail very much about why he doesn’t like AMLO.

Then the two younger Mexican folks were basically speechless when I asked why they don’t like AMLO and also how they think AMLO could do better.

To a degree, I was starting to wonder at this point how many of the Mexicans here actually dislike AMLO or have real reasons against his policies.

If this protest was paid for to have hired protesters – which is the accusation some have – then I would suspect there’d be plenty who would not be very passionate about this and also not have much of an opinion.

Which, in hindsight over my entire experience that night…

It felt half-half roughly – like around a half or slightly more than that seemed to have a real opinion and the other half didn’t.

But keep in mind this isn’t a scientific study obviously – I only talked to a handful of people.

Though it would be something to consider if you were curious to look into if this protest is paid for anyway.

And that was a topic I brought up with the lady who was enthusiastic about this protest and who had an issue regarding AMLO’s policies on education.

Though obviously I didn’t say “are all of you just paid protesters?!”

The answer to that would be obvious – of course nobody would admit that.

But I asked her for example – “how did you guys afford all of these tents?”

There were tons of them all across the street – and, as you know, salaries are not high in Mexico.

Most job offers I see on the street are for jobs that pay like 200 to 300 bucks a month.

Of course, a tent isn’t necessarily a high purchase item but just in general..

The tents.

The sleeping bags.

Any food costs..

The trip from faraway places like Chihuahua and all over Mexico to here..

To also taking time away from work especially to protest here..

And from what she said, they will be here until AMLO resigns.

Which could mean months or years if he never does.

So the question on how everyone here can afford did should be brought up.

“Oh, we paid for it ourselves! Everyone here used their own money for this.”

Which, to be fair, might be true – the overall cost per person to attend this protest definitely wouldn’t be much.

But given the salaries in Mexico and the time away from work…

It still leaves doubts in my mind – especially given the fact that every single person was tripping over themselves to convince me they weren’t paid for even though I never brought that topic up.

Either way…

My conversation with her came to an end and I wished her the best of luck.

While I looked around me to make some simple observations so far…

For one, the police seemed bored and not really paying much attention to the protesters.

Looking at the phones, making jokes with each other, etc…

It didn’t feel like the intense protests you have been hearing about in the US these months.

Everything very peaceful.

Second, the women were still singing something in front of the police.

Third, there were a few older guys trying to have a conversation with the police about whatever.

Fourth, a few more tents were being set up – one behind me even as I was looking around.

Fifth, the movement as a whole definitely had a patriotic feel to it given the amount of Mexican flags everywhere.

Similar to what that one guy way before said about how “we are not ANTI-AMLO, we are FOR MEXICO!!!”

There definitely was a patriotic feel to the movement to a degree based on my conversations with the people here and the amount of flags.

Like the last woman I spoke to was telling me how “she is here to make sure young people like these two have a better Mexico!”

In reference to the two young Mexicans – a young woman and a young man – I mentioned earlier.

Anyway, I am looking around to see what is happening when I see this much older man walking by…

With a sign that he is carrying as you can see here below..

Essentially calling AMLO a lying dictator and he should go to jail…

One thing I found funny about the sign was the play on his name from AMLO to MALO.

MALO meaning bad.

Obviously, he is more creative with words than I am…

Well, I got talking with this guy also with the same old questions and a few more about his time here..

This guy has own issues with AMLO – in particular, the feeling that he is a dictator.

Now his logic for AMLO being a dictator is that the guy has control of the Legislative branch because, according to him, his party MORENA has more control there.

But though I didn’t ask – I did think to myself – that doesn’t necessarily make him a dictator. Assuming his MORENA party won the elections fair and square to control the Legislative branch, then that’s democracy.

The people voted. They won.

Better luck next time.

But given it is Mexico, I’m not sure if they won the elections fair and square – Mexico doesn't have the perfect democracy and has election issues like in other countries as you can read here for example.

Anyway, we keep talking but then get interrupted a few times by others..

First, there were two folks who were not part of the protest but were travelers from outside of CDMX that seemed very lost.

We pointed them in the direction they should go to get out of the protest.

Then another guy came around – this time to talk about why he also doesn’t like AMLO.

His reasoning?

“AMLO fucked up the COVID response.”

Which, to be fair, you can argue that.

And I asked what AMLO should have done and he responded “more testing, close all flights to Mexico, have a forced curfew for everyone, etc.”

Then he pulls out his phone and pulls up a website showing the amount of COVID cases per country.

In particular, he wanted to show me how Africa is doing better than Mexico by clicking on random African countries and showing the amount of COVID cases they have.

In hindsight, I’m not sure that is necessarily the best comparison but I let it slide.

For one, some of the countries he brought up like Libya…

Well, as you can read here, Libya is currently in a civil war.

How many tourist visitors are they getting that spread COVID compared to Mexico?

“Welcome tourists to Libya! Where ISIS can pretend to cut your head off or blow you up with a fake bomb in a photo that you can post to Instagram for the likez, brooooos!”

Second, a country with a civil war probably isn’t doing as much testing and you could argue many of the African countries he compared Mexico to might not necessarily be doing lots of testing either.

So the amount of COVID cases over there are likely to be underrepresented.

Either way, the COVID guy had to run off to do something…

And as I got back into conversation with the older gentleman with the sign….

A woman from Monterrey came by to update him about something happening nearby.

And then asks if he has been in contact with some guy named Jessy.

Well, the older gentleman pulls out his phone to look at his messages on Whatsapp.

And I couldn’t help myself, I was looking at his messages while he was looking for something.

Where I saw some text message he got that said “the deposit has been sent.”

Now, whatever that means, who knows..

But it was with some conversation with some guy part of their movement I would assume since she was asking about someone.

But what was the deposit for? Was it for the movement? Who knows…

That is simply up to speculation – I can’t confirm or deny that.

Obviously, it would be weird for me to say to him “huh, deposit, huh?!? For WHAT?!?”

But, like the other protesters, I didn’t need to bring up the topic of being funded by others.

He brought it up himself to emphasize to me that they are not funded by anyone else!

Though, in this case, I had to ask – how did the protesters get the funding to come here, skip work and also buy all the things for the protest like the tents?

Either way, the guy repeats the line that they are all self-funded.

Which, given I don’t have any direct proof otherwise, we will leave it at that.

Anyway, the guy tells me that they will be bringing in new protesters the following morning as they are all coming in from bus.

Finally, the conversation with this older gentleman ends soon…

He talked states that AMLO was given money to release the son of EL Chapo.

And one particular issue about his beliefs…

Was that, he wants AMLO to better address the security situation on the cartels.

But also didn’t like AMLO arresting the son of EL Chapo because he believed it sparked more violence than necessary.

To me, I struggle to see how you can put those two views together.

It is true – if you go after the son of El Chapo, then more violence will happen.

But if you want to be tougher on crime and the cartels, shouldn’t you then be targeting them more?

I asked him about that but it seemed the response was not very clear.

Like others, you know, it’s sometimes hard to get real policy ideas from average folks who might not think about this every day and don’t always have non-contradictory opinions.

Like we all do at times to be fair.

Anyway, one last question I had for the guy…

Due to my experience with previous social movements, this one idea came to mind…

“Are you worried there might be informants for the government or the police in your social movement?”

Because that does happen!

He said that yeah it does but they have ways to identify them…

“Like how?”

He goes “oh, they ask too many questions, questions to identify us, etc…”

“Are you worried I am an informant?” I felt like asking that since it would be ironic given I am also asking all of these questions to him but I didn’t ask that.

“What about police taking pictures of everyone here? Worried about that?”

Because that can happen also where the Mexican government tried to spy on activists..

As you can read about here..

“Well, yea, that happens and probably does here…”

I nodded and asked one more question…

“How do you guys organize all of this? Do you have specific leaders or those in organizational roles to handle all of it?”

I assumed they did obviously because how else would they get everyone here in one place and also they seemed a little bit organized using Whatsapp for communication.

Well, like he was anyway as I said before.

Anyway, he said yes and that they have people for specific roles in organizing things like where to go to the bathroom, how to set things up, the needs of others, etc.

I nodded and didn’t ask anything more.

I wished him the best of luck and carried on.

Walking Towards the Revolution Monument

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how far the line of tents go.

In the moment, I was surprised by how far I was going – I thought it would end after passing by 5 other streets or so but it kept on going until the Revolution Monument.

Here’s some photos anyway of some of the stuff the protest people had that I saw while walking towards the Revolution Monument.

Anyway, I get to the other end near the Revolution Monument.

And see some guy singing something but didn’t get it on video unfortunately.

But he was yelling stuff into something and there was another guy who walked up some steps to yell “FUERA AMLO!!!”

I felt like asking them some questions but they seemed more busy than the other folks I was talking with.

And I see the police next to me who seemed pretty chill just standing there.

After a bit of watching this, I felt like I should walk back to where I was and maybe go home.

Here’s a photo anyway near the Revolution Monument area of the protest.

Walking Back to Bellas Artes

If I had to guess, the walk from Bellas Artes to the other end of the protest is maybe 10 minutes more or less but I walk fast.

As I was walking, I saw this interesting sign that I felt was funny.

As you can see here of the sign as a whole. PHOTO

And here’s photos of most of it up close.

So first, I found it funny they included Obama in it. Just being an American, I guess it was funny to see an ex-president included in our protest.

And also how they included AMLO and Obama in with Hitler – I mean, regardless of your politics, I don’t think either of them are Hitler.

If you think so, please include why below – a guy who kills millions of people to the other two.

But it is funny either way that they included Hitler – such a stereotypical thing to do in the US when people don’t like each other’s politics – “you are Hitler!!!”

Though, in my experience, it is usually people on the left who throw that accusation around more often, so I suppose it is funny to see a group of people more to the right to use that as well.

In Mexico nonetheless!

I guess the “you are hitler!” took no mañana time to get down here.

Next, you will tell me we have described “femininazis” here..

Oh wait…

Next, I found it interesting that they seem to be suggesting that AMLO is a free mason or whatever by this part of the sign here. 

Speaking of racism in Mexico, here's an interesting video that came out recently some few weeks ago that got blown up on social media of an Argentine women saying "india" to a Mexican chick.

Final Thoughts

Most of my thoughts from this are included above.

First, I feel they definitely have a reason to be angry about AMLO – it is true he has fucked some things up like the attempt to take the son of El Chapo.

There’s no question about it – I don’t particularly have a favorable opinion about the guy either and find him to be a more ineffective president for the most part.

Though I do hold the view he isn’t responsible for all the issues in Mexican society and obviously can’t fix everything over night.

Second, like I said before, everyone in the protest was very nice and cordial with me.

Despite any differences in opinion, everyone was peaceful and not aggressive either.

Though I did try to hold back my opinions in most of the questions I had since I more interested in hearing what people had to say than argue anything.

Third, when it comes to if this protest was funded or paid for by others…

I did ask the guy with the sign how much it would cost to buy someone to protest for you.

And he said around 300 pesos or so per person – not sure if he was talking from experience or not but who knows.

And on that note, I don’t know for sure if they were paid or not.

But based on my limited experiences there, I would feel maybe 55% confident they are and 45% that they are not.

Based on a few things…

The text message I saw.

How much everyone emphasized to me that they are not paid for despite me never bringing it up myself.

To how did everyone afford these supplies and the trip and also taking time from work despite none of them looking particularly rich.

To the fact that they have very wealthy Mexican individuals like Gilberto Lozano and apparently others supporting them.

On another note, if it only costs 300 pesos (or 15 bucks) to hire a protester…

I did wonder to myself if I could do the same – just hire maybe 100 people at 15 bucks a person or 1,500 bucks to spend a day blocking an important road and yelling in bullhorns….

“MATT IS AWESOME! FUCK YEAH, MATT IS AMAZING!”

That would have been a nice experience for my birthday – but that’s already over.

I can save it up for my next birthday, I suppose.

If the cost is only 1,500 bucks, seems reasonable.

Maybe another 100 for supplies – a bullhorn, some picket signs, etc.

But either way, that’s a more sarcastic point…

I ended my night walking back to my apartment..

Grabbed some of my beer and my vodka bottle.

And enjoyed watching the movie Wallstreet as you can see here.

Good movie!

And was a good end to my night – I got back to my place at around 11:30 PM or so.

Finally, I may or may not look more into this movement if they happen to still be around my area.

They probably will be as long as AMLO is still in office, I imagine.

So if any of you enjoyed this article and want more on the grounds content about them, let me know below in the comment section.

I plan on doing more on the grounds content anyway about life in Mexico soon on other topics but can cover this again if anyone found it interesting.

I did anyway – I used to look into social movements all the time and find this stuff interesting to learn about.

Or if you have any questions or comments in general, drop them below.

Thanks.

And follow my Twitter here.

Best regards,

Matt