Mexico continues its attempt to create a more tolerant, pluralist civic culture and national image. Accordingly, an increasing number of Jews occupy key government positions and the Jewish community is gaining visibility. Antisemitism remains at a record low, and anti-Jewish manifestations are isolated incidents.
Demographic data
Total population: 97.56 million
Jewish population: 40,000-44,000 (mainly in Mexico City)
Other minorities: Mestizos (Mexican descendants of the miscegenation between European and indigenous people) (60 per cent); indigenous Mexicans (30 per cent); European origin (9 per cent); others (1 per cent)
Religion: predominantly Catholic (89 per cent); Protestant (Presbyterians, Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostalists and Jehovah's Witnesses) (6 per cent); other religions (2 per cent); no religion (3 per cent)
Political data
Political system: federal presidential democracy with a two-chamber parliament (senate and chamber of deputies) and an independent judiciary
Head of state: President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (since December 1994)
Government: Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, Institutionalized Revolutionary Party), which has controlled the government since the party was founded in 1929
Other political parties: Partido del Centro Democrático (PCD, Party of the Democratic Centre (launched in February 1997), Partido Acción Nacional (PAN, National Action Party), Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD, Democratic Revolutionary Party), Partido del Trabajo (PT, Labour Party), Partido Verde Ecologista Mexicano (PVEM, Mexican Green Ecology Party)
Mid-term federal and local elections (6 July 1997): after six decades of almost unchallenged rule, the PRI lost its historical dominance: PAN made significant advances in the states of Nuevo León and Guanajuato, and the PRD candidate, Cuahutémoc Cárdenas Solzárzno, became the first elected mayor of Mexico City.
Thirty-two of the 128 seats in the senate (upper house) were contested: PRI won 76 seats (thus retaining control), PAN 33, PRD 16 and other parties 5.
PRI lost its overall majority in the chamber of deputies (lower house) for the first time in its history: it now holds 239 seats against 261 held by opposition parties (including 125 held by PRD and 121 held by PAN).
Next parliamentary elections: 2000
Economic data
GDP 1997: US$402.54 billion
GDP per head 1997: US$4,260
Inflation 1997: 20 per cent
Unemployment 1997: 3.9 per cent
Antisemitism in Mexico first emerged in debates about immigration policies during the late 1920s. Groups such as the Anti-Chinese and Anti-Jewish National League, founded in 1930, and the Honourable Traders, Industrialists and Professionals lobbied the government to restrict the immigration of Jews. In May 1931, 250 Jewish pedlars were expelled from the Lagunilla market. The National Day of Commerce was proclaimed on 1 June 1931, on which date Mexicans protested about the Jewish presence in commercial life.
Throughout the 1930s Mexico experienced outbursts of antisemitism drawing on economic and racial themes. Gradually, the racial theme became dominant among right-wing groups. Among such groups was Mexican Revolutionary Action, which was founded in 1934 and operated through its paramilitary units, the Golden Shirts.
During the late 1930s the antisemitic Pro-Race Committee and the Middle-Class Confederation waged antisemitic campaigns and exerted pressure on the government to marginalize Jews. In the decades that followed antisemitism was confined to fringe groups.
The financial crisis of 1982 and the social upheaval caused in 1985 by earthquakes in Mexico City led to the expression of anti-Jewish sentiment in the media. Articles in the influential national daily newspaper Excelsior accused Jewish factory-owners of profitting from the 1985 disaster and of leaving their workers to die while saving themselves and their property.
Indigenous Mexicans have long been the object of discriminatory treatment. They do not live on autonomously governed land, although some communities exercise considerable local control over economic and social issues. They remain largely outside the country's political and economic mainstream and, in many cases, have minimal participation in decisions affecting their land, cultural traditions and the allocation of natural resources.
The 1994 uprising by the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN, Zapatista National Liberation Army) in Chiapas, fuelled by frustrations about the unequal distribution of wealth between peasants and landowners, and continuous discrimination against the indigenous population, focused unprecedented attention on demands of indigenous people for increased social and economic rights. The EZLN called on the government to protect indigenous cultures, provide more opportunities for employment and education, and provide legal and social assistance programmes. The government is working to implement many of these demands and around 130 other organizations are dedicated to the promotion and protection of indigenous rights.
Some forty-five indigenous Mexicans, the majority of them women and children, were killed in Chiapas in December 1997 by paramilitary gunmen reportedly linked with the ruling PRI. In the aftermath of the massacre, the interior minister, Emilio Chuayffet Chemor, and the governor of Chiapas, Julio César Ruiz Ferro, were forced to resign for failing to stem rising violence in the state. There were also demonstrations demanding the withdrawal of the army from Chiapas and the dismantling of paramilitary groups in the region.
Hostility towards foreigners has increased since the killings brought international attention to focus on the state of Chiapas. President Zedillo is being closely scrutinized by foreign governments in his attempts to bring peace to the state, and the wrath of government supporters is increasingly directed at thousands of young resident foreigners. In a speech in January 1998 to Maya Indians, Zedillo accused foreigners of exploiting tensions in Chiapas to further their own causes. In February 1998 a newly elected Chiapas mayor, Pedro Mariano Arias Perez, said during his inauguration in Chenalhó: 'We are tired of seeing so many foreigners around here.'
The General Education Act states that 'teaching shall be promoted in the national language [Spanish] without prejudice to the protection and promotion of indigenous languages'. However, many indigenous people speak only their native language (there are more than fifty indigenous languages) and non-Spanish speakers have considerable difficulty in finding employment.
The government works with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees. In 1997 it helped to settle 31,000 Guatemalan refugees, mostly in Chiapas, Campeche and Quintana Roo.
Throughout the history of modern Mexico, with the exception of the 1930s, the far right has not occupied the mainstream of political life. Nonetheless, however marginal, it has always proved to be fertile ground for the growth of racist and antisemitic attitudes.
In recent times the activities of the far right have lessened. Organizations such as the Federación Mexicana Anticomunista (Anti-Communist Federation) and Los Tecos are rarely heard of. The Partido Laboral Mexicano (Mexican Labour Party), established in the 1970s and inspired by Lyndon LaRouche's international network (see USA), continues to circulate its antisemitic publication EIR Resumen Ejecutivo (see Publications and media).
An exception to the far right's low-key activity is the Partido del Pueblo de las Aguilas Mexicanas (PPAM, Mexican Eagles People's Party), formerly the Partido de las Aguilas Mexicanas (PAM, Party of the Mexican Eagles). PPAM's ideology of 'neo-Mexicanism' promotes an idealized image of Mexico's indigenous past and condemns Europe's role in forging the prevailing national identity. In the past the party has painted the external walls of Mexico City's cathedral with graffiti claiming that Mexican Jews control the country's politics and finances, and are responsible for fomenting conflict in the state of Chiapas (see Racism and xenophobia). In 1996 PPAM tried to register as a political party but its application was rejected in January 1997 by the Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE, Federal Electoral Institute) which condemned the group's racist and antisemitic views.
Members of PPAM participated in the EZLN demonstration of September 1997 in Mexico City, where some 40,000 people demanded greater indigenous rights, and in the November 1997 'March of Silence', also in Mexico City, at which thousands of people protested against the prevailing social and economic instability. On both occasions, anti-Jewish posters were displayed.
Antisemitism remains at a record low and anti-Jewish manifestations are isolated incidents.
In 1997 there were several instances of anti-Jewish graffiti in the Jewish neighbourhood of Polanco (Mexico City) and on the wall of a Jewish school.
In March 1998 an anonymous hoax bomb-threat was received at the office of the Magen David community in Mexico City. The building was evacuated and searched. Another anonymous hoax threat warned in July 1998 that a car bomb would explode at the Bonds office in Mexico City.
In August 1998 swastikas were daubed inside the Tarbut school in Mexico City.
Mexico was for many years one of the most active publishers and distributors of antisemitic literature in the Spanish-speaking world. The fight against such literature has been one of the most pressing concerns of the representative institutions of Mexican Jewry. Consequently there are relatively few periodicals published by the far right. In 1997 no antisemitic articles appeared in the Catholic press and the mainstream media were also devoid of the anti-Jewish prejudice that had sometimes appeared during the 1980s.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The International Jew continue to be available in some bookshops, particularly where far-right literature is sold. The antisemitic Masters and Slaves of the Twentieth Century by Traian Romanescu (pseudonym of the far-right activist Carlos Cuesta Gallardo) is also available in some shops.
In May 1996 a case brought against the publishing house Editorial Epoca, a major Mexican supplier of antisemitic literature, by the German government was successfully concluded with an out-of-court settlement. Editorial Epoca undertook to stop publishing or advertising Hitler's Mein Kampf. It also offered to cease publication of two other antisemitic works, The International Jew and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The case was initiated in 1989 when successful action was taken by Tribuna Israelita and the German government to prevent the publication and circulation of Mein Kampf in Mexico. It became apparent during 1996, however, that the ban was being ignored by Editorial Epoca and the book was once again being published and sold (sometimes in bulk) around the country. Representatives of the Jewish community and the German embassy are continuing their efforts to prevent the publication and circulation in Mexico of Mein Kampf.
Periodicals published by Lyndon LaRouche's far-right Ibero-American Solidarity Movement, particularly EIR Resumen Ejecutivo, have recently included articles about 'international Zionism' and the 'Jewish identity' of George Soros.
The far-right monthly Surge suggested in an article in 1997 that Cuahutémoc Cárdenas's election as mayor of Mexico City (see General background) was part of an anti-Christian, international Jewish plot instigated by the FBI and the Pentagon.
A further antisemitic publication, La Hoja del Combate (Combat Newsletter), established in 1968 and produced by the far-right publishing house Editorial Tradición, is edited by the veteran neo-Nazi Salvador Abascal. La Hoja del Combate has recently published articles by the former journalist Salvador Borrego, one of the country's most prolific antisemitic writers. Many bookshops refuse to stock Editorial Tradición publications.
Of the 892 editorials, letters and cartoons on Jewish issues that appeared during 1997 in the 8,923 publications monitored by Tribuna Israelita, almost 9 per cent described Jews negatively (compared with 11.3 per cent in 1996); 1.3 per cent conveyed positive feelings towards Jews, an increase on 0.3 per cent in 1996.
Mexico has legislation protecting the fundamental rights of citizens regardless of gender, creed or race and has signed various international human rights treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination. However, the country lacks specific anti-racist legislation. Tribuna Israelita continues to call for legislation to define racism and antisemitism as crimes punishable by law. Its former partner, the National Commission of Human Rights, has stopped participating in this fight following a change of leadership.
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Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee
© JPR 1999
