Octubre 28, 2006
Murder of a Media Activist
Brad Will, an indymedia videographer based in New York, was shot dead in Oaxaca, apparently by paramilitary PRI party supporters. The best story on the event I have seen is in Narco News. It's all over mainstream media too, which is horribly spinning it, saying it was a shoot out, gunfire coming also from the side of the APPO barricade (APPO being the teacher's union organization leading the strikes against Oaxaca governor Ruiz that have been going on for months and have shutdown the city).
I didn't know Brad but I knew of him. I can't reminisce about him. In fact the first I heard of him was not a positive anecdote at all. But he apparently did a lot of good work, and a lot of people knew him and are grieving. And I'm sad, even if just in principle. This I fear is a watershed moment for media activism and the indymedia movement. This has never happened before, not quite this way - it's really just incredible, like a nightmare. we all think, those of us priveleged with whiteness and 1st-worldness and with expensive cameras to hold up to our faces, that we have a shelter from being beat up or killed by thugs in corrupt "third world" lands. This has always been an illusion, and it's been proven an illusion before in small ways, but this does it in a big way.
I guess my hope is that this at least has some positive impact in the struggle, and serves to bring to light the horrible things going down in Oaxaca right now, and in larger sense, more of Mexico, and maybe the U.S. will do something, condemn this somehow.
Well, I'll stop there. I can't say anything else useful. There's a page on nyc imc where people are paying their respects.
Posted by steev at Octubre 28, 2006 08:58 AM