'68: El otoño mexicano de la masacre de Tlatelolco

by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Donald Nicholson-Smith (Translator)

On the night of October 2, 1968, there occurred a bloody showdown between student demonstrators and the Mexican government in Tlatelolco Square. At least two hundred students were shot dead and many more were detained. Then the bodies were trucked out, the cobblestones were washed clean. Detainees were held without recourse until 1971. Official denial of the killing continues even In the first week of February 2003, Mexico's Education Secretary Reyes Tamiz ordered a new history textbook that mentions the massacre-Claudia Sierra's History of An Analytical Approach-removed from shelves and classrooms. (Public outcry led Tamiz to reverse his decision days later.) No one has yet been held accountable for the official acts of savagery. With provocative, anecdotal, and analytical prose, Taibo claims for history "one more of the many unredeemed and sleepless ghosts that live in our lands."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Spanish Literature, Memoir, World History, Historical

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Paco Ignacio Taibo II, birth name Francisco Ignacio Taibo Mahojo, is a popular Mexican writer and novelist. He is the son of the late journalist Paco Ignacio Taibo I.

Reviews

[Christos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Μια καλογραμμένη εξιστόρηση από τον Paco Ignacio Taibo II της φοιτητικής εξέγερσης του καλοκαιριού του 1968 στο Μεξικό, στην οποία συμμετείχε ενεργά, μέχρι την καταστολή της με τη σφαγή του Τλατελόλκο, διανθισμένη με γλυκόπικρη νοσταλγία για τη νιότη, το αίσθημα αθανασίας που σου δίνει και τον ιδεαλισμό που τη διακρίνει.

[Patricia Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Qué rico es leer a Taibo. Es como estar sentado en su sala escuchándolo y tomando cerveza. Qué rico cerrar el libro con esta frase: "Es cierto, a veces los sueños producen pesadillas, pero no soñar produce idiotas"

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mexico #3

In May 1968, students began protesting in Paris. They were tired of the old system at play and wanted change. Annie Ernaux reflected on this time in her book “The Years.” Like other countries around the world, change was taking place.

In Mexico, things took on a dramatic turn for the worse. The students went on strike demanding numerous issues, from protesting the Vietnam war to police violence and a corrupt government. In fact they wanted to change the Mexican state. A big order that the government refused.

They held massive demonstrations in the zocalo of Mexico City. They said 300,000; the government said 12,000. They complained that the media was a tool of the government. They wanted more rights for workers all influenced by the left. Marx and Che Guevara were role models for the students.

After 123 days, government of Diaz Ordaz lost its patience. The Olympic Games were starting soon. On October 2 they sent in tanks and 12,000 military troops to put an end to the strike.

This is known as the massacre of Tlatelolco. Several hundred died and the bodies were flown and dumped in the Gulf of Mexico. A dark time in Mexico.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II was 19 in the summer of 1968. He actively took part in the events which he recorded via numerous notebooks that he turned into this book. Published in 1991, he reflects on what led to the strike, the actions of many involved including his own actions. A lot of sleepless nights while manning the barricades.

There are peculiarities such as the girl whose father owned a paper company which they “borrowed” thousands of sheets to photocopy pamphlets. Or when Taibo himself was arrested for buying cigarettes because “they arrested anyone young.” Or when Taibo and a professor were terrorized by the police to stop their actions. The gun threat worked. She quit; he did not. Or when a student realized that they were running out of read paint (for those communist statements), he mixed it with white and had a lot of pink statements. Che would be fuming! Even when the massacre started, Taibo’s parents sent him to Madrid. They had money (the family was originally from Asturias). Lie low for awhile. Taibo returned a few days later but the movement was fizzling out. It was over.

The writing is fast paced and written with heart. This was a major event in Mexican history and the book is a great reflection. Yes, it’s biased. Paco is on the left and even admits that the students never asked how the soldiers felt.

This edition has several epilogues commemorating numerous landmarks (25, 35 and 40th anniversaries) plus an introduction by Elena Poniatowska, who also wrote a landmark book on Tlatelolco. According to Poniatowska, this is one of the most widely translated books in Mexico.

If you are interested in this time period, it’s a worthy and fast read.

[Makis Dionis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Taibo ο δεύτερος έζησε την επανάσταση του από μέσα, με στόχο κ όραμα κ ευθύνη κ μας μεταφέρει την ατμόσφαιρα όπως το αντιλήφθηκε. Εμείς? Απλά καθημερινά ξεφτιλιζομαστε (στα σοσιαλ πάντα) δείχνοντας τις αξίες μας σαν κοινωνία

[Dimitra Maranti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Ταιμπο περιγράφει με νοσταλγία και χιούμορ - γέλασα σε αρκετά σημεία- τα γεγονότα του 68 στο Μεξικό όπως τα έζησε αυτός, ξεκαθαρίζει απο την αρχη την υποκειμενική του ματιά και στο τελος σε αφήνει με μια γλυκόπικρη γεύση για την προσπάθεια και την τελική(;) ήττα και αυτού του κινήματος ...

[Lauren]

"[He] told me that I had to write this book because my memories were not my private property -- that there are loves that last, even for those who have not lived them in the first place."

From '68 by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, translated from the Spanish by Donald Nicholson-Smith, 1991/2004 by @7storiespress

The student movement of 1968 in Mexico City - now often referred to as the 'Tlatelolco Massacre' - is remembered for the numbers of students murdered and disappeared by the military. It's still not known how many people - but in the hundreds - killed on October 2, 1968.

Taibo, present during for weeks in the Movement, but not there on "the night" steps back a few months before the massacre & notes the 123 preceding days of "heroic strike". In many ways this book is a processing of the guilt he feels for being absent that day/night...

Poetic and anecdotal, musings, calls to action, and some passionate writing.

"All those guys who lied, who kept us down, who kissed ass, who threatened us - they were the real Mexico. But then we, the NEW we, made from the many that we had been, decided that, fuck it, we were also the real Mexico."

"Memory tends to simplify, whether by retaining absurdly trivial anecdotes or by seeing the big picture strictly in balc and white. The Movement was, in fact, many things at once. For thousands of students, it was an unmasking of the Mexican state as an emperor with no clothes."
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While Taibo's book describes the emotions of being a student activist "on the ground", I'm still learning the details of the what / why of Tlatelolco. My reference points before "68" were secondhand literary sources, primarily Roberto Bolaño's fictional work - the Massacre is part of his AMULET, and also is mentioned in THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES. I'd like to acquire Elena Poniatowska's journalism work on the events too, the translated English title "Massacre in Mexico".

A major cultural touch point in modern Mexican history.

Taibo is a VERY prolific writer - some 80 titles - and a giant of the literature scene in Mexico, organizing book festivals and literary gatherings. Many of his works are translated into English - much more to explore.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este librito de memorias es una joya, pero sólo si sabes a qué se refiere el título y si tienes ya conocimiento de lo que pasó.

No es un libro de historia ni un recuento de los hechos; es un compendio de anécdotas a veces chistosas, a veces espeluznantes, siempre honestas, siempre fulminantes.

Taibo refuerza y retoma, de manera muy personal, la voz colectiva del '68, con humor, con desconcierto y hasta con arrepentimiento (estaba llegando a Madrid la madrugada del 2 de octubre, siguiendo órdenes de su papá).

Taibo de verdad tiene un estilo refrescante y desenvuelto. Siembra maldiciones en los lugares correctos y sus anécdotas sirven mucho para recordarnos que había individuos con historias propias en toda esa multitud de estudiantes que acabaron siendo, para la mayoría, sólo estadísticas de una tragedia.

[Miguel Soto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Supongo que mi lectura estuvo influida por las fechas de fantasmales fiestas patrias en que la hice, pero complementando La noche de Tlatelolco con 68, concluyo que qué bueno que no hay oficialidad, sino pluralidad de voces. Esta voz en particular hace un gran ejercicio de (auto)crítica al movimiento estudiantil: el sectarismo, la desconexión con las "realidades-reales" de lo que pasaba en el país, pero también rescata sus herencias: los movimientos que siguieron, menos míticos pero igual de importantes, la incomodidad social, quizá la dificultad de terminar de organizarnos. ¿O será que de plano es imposible?

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the advantages to surviving and getting older (take if from the highway scribe) is that your not-so-distant experiences of youth become worthy of recounting to those whose perspective holds them to be quite distant.

the highway scribe, fortunate enough to still be chugging along, has strong memories of the 1960s and 1970s and, unlike most everything else he thinks about, people are wont to probe that particular set of recollections.

The reason is clear, regardless of your position on the virtue of same. The generation was - and it cannot be contested - a vibrant and revolutionary one that changed many small worlds it touched and many countries, too.

Today’s book covers the version that went down in Mexico and is simply entitled “’68.” It was written by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, a scribe and historian who has apparently made a career of writing detective novels and an award-winning biography of Che Guevara.

By the by, “’68” was obtained through the Web site at Labyrinth Books for the grand total of $2.98 along with the gripping “Life of An Anarchist: The Alexander Berkman Reader,” about which a patented highwayscribery “book report” will be produced in short order.

The total cost was about $12 with most being attributed to postage, which, you know, is-oh-so -digital. Both were put out by Seven Stories Press, a charming generator of radical texts that also cranked out by highwayscribery friend Deepa Fernandes.

Anyway, this book is short and thin, picked from Taibo’s diaries and other scribbled observations from the student rebellion of that distant year in Mexico City.

There could be more, or should be more, but there isn’t. The author confesses to having many, many pages of remembrances on what was obviously the critical chapter of his life, unfolding at the tender age of 18, but has never been able to write the novel he thought the whole thing deserved.

So here we have a disparate collection of vignettes still useful, because we know so little about all of this. In fact, we still don’t know much, because this book is written in Spanish.

Now where would you be without the highway scribe?

Today the term “globalization” conjures thoughts of an unstoppable flow of capital (even the French capitulate), tainted food from China, and a monoculture spread like lumpy peanut butter across every outdated boundary marking the old nation states, binding us together in a nonbinding agreement of commercial flux.

But Taibo claims that the student movements of the ’60s, and certainly that of Mexico, were forged in a new environment of shared music, news, and politics...of globalized information.

For all their left politics and social concerns, he is quick to point out that the students never really succeeded in connecting with the workers and the “people” so much as forced a despotic government into crushing them with demands it could not, by its very nature, assent to.

While the 123 days of rebellion drew up to 500,000 students and hangers-on in Mexico City to some of its demonstrations, the nucleus was perhaps 8,000 students from the education department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, “constructed in the stew of political/cultural cultivation that had a global virtue. That integral madness surrounded us at every turn of our lives. It had to do with readings, heroes, myths, rejections, cinema, theater, love, and information.”

At the center of it all was El Che whose mini-skirted adherents were a source of constant sexual agitation to Taibo and his "compañeros".

“His death in ’67 left us with an enormous void not even his ‘Diaries from Bolivia’ could fill. He was the number one ghost. He who was there, and who was not, moving through our lives, the voice, the personality, the command from above to throw everything aside and get moving, the mocking dialogue, the project, the photo that looked out at you from every corner, the anecdote that grew and grew accumulating knowledge that seemed to have no end, through whom expressions worthy of boleros such as ‘total commitment’ did not seem laughable.

"But more than anything, El Che was the guy who was everywhere even in death. Our dead.”

Mixed-in with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and other American exports were France’s Charles Aznavour and somebody named Cuco Sánchez. The rebels were also hooked on poetry, specifically anthologies from the Cuban revolution and the anti-Franco resistance in Spain.

There was, towards the end on October 2, when the government lost patience and cared not that the world saw it for the vicious, heartless entity it was, a massacre in a square called Tlatelolco.

“Radio Rumor,” the system of street level communications, mimeographed flyers, and roving “brigades” so crucial to the amorphous and adaptive rebellion, said 200 students were killed, that their bodies were taken out over the Gulf of Mexico in airplanes and disposed of.

Shades of Pinochet in Chile five years later.

Tlatleloco became the symbol for whole thing so that semi-aware observers of Latin American history like the highway scribe are often left with the impression that was all there was; that one night some students got crazy, started marching through the streets and got shot.

Taibo’s book is valuable for the way it divests a degree of importance from the graveyard that was Tatlelolco and restores it to many other positive events in which the students’ genius for organization shines, and to smaller clashes no less important to those shot, captured or tortured for their participation.

It went on for months, the kids hunkering down in the universities, the question of whether to continue striking the university in the face of fear and increasing repression always reaffirmed by the many student councils organized around their particular fields and schools of study.

Taibo’s book gives names and faces to the players of Mexico ’68; some who went on to star in the a growing democratic intelligentsia, and some who died, disappeared in ensuing urban and jungle insurrections, or just kind of faded in the duller lights of later years.

Who?

There was David “el ruso” or the Russian who, many years before Tiananmen Square, in the absence of photographers, “grabbed a pipe and moved toward an armored car entering [Mexico City’s main square:]. Eye to eye he remained stuck on the fucking machine as it advanced growling. The soldier who manned the machine gun was locked into a stare with David, who, suddenly, lurched forward and unleashed a flurry of blows against the tank, denting it in numerous places. The machine halted. We pulled him out of there, dragging him, the soldier fixed upon him. Later, David said he had no memory of the occurrence.”

And one more, Arlette, the daughter of a stationery store owner who’d helped the rebels rob 150,000 sheets of paper from her father and for the cause. Her pseudonym was La Quinta, a brand of cigarettes, and she was remarkable for her capacity to unleash a string of epithets unmatched by other comrades.

Taibo and a clandestine group of which he and La Quinta were a part, had set a date to meet in a park, Parque Hundido. As were a lot of public places, Hundido was occupied by two companies of grenadiers; the government’s tool of choice in combating the future of the country-- the students.

Anyway, Taibo recounts, “The very irresponsible one came dressed in a suit made of a short cut white vest and mini-skirt, quite content eating a mango on a stick.” Walking right past rows of armed men, La Quinta was suddenly accosted by one, who grabbed her booty. “She turned and slapped him with the sloppy mango in the face. The grenadier fell back shocked. I closed my eyes. It was far enough away so that I could not hear anything. I counted to ten. She crossed the street looking for me. I did not dare raise my hand in recognition. When she reached me, La Quinta apologized for being ten minutes late, cleaning herself with a tissue of the sticky mango. We didn’t even talk about the incident. Each of us utilized a specific brand of lunacy in those days and if anything was the source of respect it was that, that personal lunacy.”

It was serious business. The school was cordoned off. The public transportation system, once painted in the black and red of the strike, strewn with slogans, was off-limits. The kids were hiding in anonymous homes and living in fear of kidnap by government agents and certain physical abuse.

The kids knew that the wick on a Molotov cocktail must be cut short to work, not because it was cool and exciting, rather a matter of self-preservation and a sign of recalcitrance.

The mass media joined with the government spreading lies and fear about the students that even the organic flight of Radio Rumor could not combat completely. But the people were with them; in Mexico City and in a little town called Topilejo.

Mexicans for the first time since the revolution were demanding accountability from their government.

Taibo’s story is about what they got instead.

You can probably guess, but read it anyway.

[Brenda Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

"En otros países celebran las victorias, en México se celebra la honrosa derrota. En el país de la transa, el negociado tortuoso, la venta al por mayor de las nalgas y el alma, la traición como una de las bellas artes [...], se festina la irredenta terquedad del golpeador que vuelve una y otra vez a la lona para ganar la gloria brevemente ante el marrano Estado que juega sucio."

[David Garza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notebooks written during the late '60s are the catalyst for Paco Ignacio Taibo II's firsthand account of the Movement of '68 (Mexican Student Movement of 1968). Taibo was an active member of the student movement, so he's not writing as outside observer. He has inside knowledge of what was going on during the student strikes, protests, marches, clandestine meetings, and underground resistance, and he colors that with his personal experience in an intimate way, depicting relationships rather than storyboards, showing various angles of those in the trenches instead of professing some myth of a monolith, admitting that those in the movement were just young people who sometimes had to sleep or be jealous of others or simply be human beings with young energy and young emotions. Taibo isn't just writing an account of the '68 Student Movement. He's taking his cues from his personal notebooks scribbled shortly after the events of 1968 and he's supplementing those with his unwritten memories that were triggered decades later. So while this is a series of short vignettes, what Taibo's really doing is ruminating over his diaries. He's providing an account for sure, but he's also chewing his cud over what was going on in his head as a student and trying to piece together what it all meant in the long run. He's giving us a memoir. And a wonderfully written memoir it is. This is written by a real writer (Taibo's a novelist, so yeah, a real writer...) and it shows. Poetic, observant, nostalgic, thought provoking, '68 reads with full momentum.

That is until... October 2... the Tlatelolco massacre...

And where's Paco Ignacio Taibo II? He's nowhere to be found... He's in Spain... '68 is out of steam - all the momentum is lost.

The reasons why Taibo left Mexico for Spain right at the moment everything hit the fan aren't really expressed much. It's almost like Taibo is avoiding talking about that. Maybe it's survivor's guilt.

For the book, the reason why he left isn't of utmost importance. For the book, what matters is that suddenly things feel dead in the water. Taibo wasn't in Mexico, so all the personal experiences vanish and the book feels like it just ends (even though there's more to read). At that point, the Tlatelolco massacre becomes a secondhand event. The hundreds of dead, taken and dumped, are just what we read about, not who we know.

This edition of '68 ends with two epilogues. The first one is the longest. It's about a Student Movement reunion in 1993. Is this epilogue necessary? I don't know, maybe for Taibo it's needed. And maybe it's existence here isn't a bad thing, but I found most of it self-indulgent. For me, I could have done without it.

[David Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taibo's account of the Mexican student movement in the months leading up to the Tlatelolco massacre on October 2, 1968 is an exhilarating read, by turns inspiring and depressing, funny and tragic, hilarious and heartbreaking. It is certainly a classic, 5/5 and a must read. From the Latino Book Review:

"​The student movement of 1968 in Mexico City is not defined by “one day of death but by 123 days of heroic strike”. In his book, '68: The Mexican Autumn of the Tlatelolco Massacre, Paco Ignacio Taibo II masterfully uses anecdotal narrative written in his poetic signature style as he revisits the ghosts of the student movement of 1968.

"With the initial intention of writing a novel about the student movement, Paco wrote notes in three thick notebooks about his participation in the student movement in Mexico City. Unable to complete the novel because the stories were too near and personal to him, Paco decides to narrate a compilation of actual stories from the beginning of the student movement on July 26, 1968, up until its end on December 4 of the same year.

"Written in chronological order, each chapter holds a unique and dear memory of Paco Ignacio Taibo II as he engaged in epic actions against the oppressive government forces of Mexico. Bazooka blasts, Karate chops, bayonets, stories of love and heartbreak, infiltrated police, tanks, a corncob thrown at a guard. '68 is full of epic moments which will transport the reader to 1968 and witness the ghosts of the past in Paco’s memory."

https://www.latinobookreview.com/68-t...

I also want to refer you a review posted here in Goodreads by Viola:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I also like this old review from the Socialist Worker (believe it or not):

https://socialistworker.org/2005-1/52...

[Stas · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was dreamy and a series of postcards from his past self. so beautiful and heart breaking for anyone who has felt a part of a revolutionary moment.

[Malamas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Και να μην ήθελε να γράψει μυθιστορηματικά ο Paco, δεν μπορεί. Γράφει για το '68 με έναν μοναδικό τρόπο. Γράφει την εμπειρία του. Όλα όσα έζησε. Ωραίο βιβλιαράκι

[Fernando Dez · Rating 3 out of 5]

“A veces los sueños producen pesadillas, pero no soñar produce idiotas”.
Lo que realmente me gusto de este libro es saber las memorias de Paco Ignacio con respecto a lo ocurrido antes de los acontecimientos en Tlatelolco y como era el ambiente que se vivía en las escuelas. Realmente parece que el esta platicando personalmente a ti sus memorias.

[Willy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stjärnor men jag hade lust att ge den 5 bara på grund av sista raden ”Es cierto, a veces los sueños producen pesadillas, pero no soñar produce idiotas”

[Niklas Pivic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an analysis of the massacre that took place in Mexico in 1968, where governmental forces used weapons to murder hundreds of people who protested the Olympic Games that were held that year.

The author uses a mixture of sharp insight, humor, and keen observation into the minds of youths to create an effective backdrop that contrasts the bloody events as they unfolded.

This was not the first time we had been beaten up by the cops. It was one of the Mexican state’s demented customs to give the students a bit of stick every now and again, just to show them who was boss. The year before, police had assaulted Vocational School 7, and the 1965 Vietnam demo had been broken up with batons, wounding fifty people. I was one of them, earning myself a three-inch gash over the left eyebrow, where a plainclothesman slugged me with a metal bar rolled up in a newspaper. In Sonora, too, the year before, the army had been sent in, and all of us had heard stories of what had occurred two years earlier at Morelia University. All the same, this was different: what were they cooking up now? In the meantime, we ended that night at a christening, summing up with difficulty the events of the day but happy to find ourselves still in one piece. We showed each other our cuts and bruises. Fear, for now, was gone.

On Tuesday, blinded by their overweening arrogance, the authorities launched the army against Preparatory 1. The school’s entrance, dating to colonial times, was struck by bazooka fire; there was shooting, and hundreds of arrests. A group of students took refuge on the roof as the soldiers, with bayonets fixed, entered the courtyards of their school, where there are murals by Orozco, Revueltas, Siqueiros, and Rivera. For a time everything took on symbolic force. They had blasted the historic doorway of the preparatory to pieces. With bazookas. The famous door. But then we were beyond symbolism, thanks to the photos, which showed blood pooled amid the splintered wood.

Some words about feminism of the day, written in the 1990s:

Jaime’s daughter would grow up in a worse world. Very soon her father would be in prison. But to be a woman in ’68 was no bad thing. For thousands of sisters the times offered a chance to be equal. Sixty-eight antedated the new feminism. It was better than feminism. It was violently egalitarian—and if it wasn’t always, it always could be. One man, one woman, one vote—and one collection box, one stack of fliers, one level of risk . . . That it mattered little whether you wore a skirt or pants was a given. Being a man then was better too, because those women existed.

They were great. And gorgeous, really gorgeous. They wore their undeniable beauty without fuss—and without makeup. Any role model worth the name was supposed to be cinematographic, but in those days Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren, even Kim Novak’s honeyed glances and Elke Sommer’s poutiness, had ceased to operate. The sixties generated its own points of reference at more than twenty-four frames per second: miniskirts, a well-thumbed Simone de Beauvoir novel dangling from the hand, fishnet stockings, velvet hairbands, ponytails, bangs, plaid skirts, boots with blue jeans, and candlelight dinners with white wine and smoked ham.

I have been stuck in that moment every single day since. I was certainly there when, three years later, I met Paloma. And I think I am still there when I watch my sixteen-year-old daughter brushing her hair in these distant nineties.

I could never say it as well as Monsiváis: “Days without sleep, unforgettable dreams.”

Overall, a near-hypnogogic-yet-strangely-lucid recollection of events where the Mexican government had hundreds of humans murdered to keep the “rabble-rousers” down.

[Phanie Corona · Rating 5 out of 5]

“De repente el Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra, surgía de la bola amenazada por los rifles”
Octubre en México no solo es día de Muertos, no sólo tiene la luna más bonita del año y no solo huele a copal.
Octubre en México también se viste de luto, se tiñe de sangre y huele a pólvora.
Poco se conoce del movimiento del 68 y lo que llegamos a conocer es gracias a sus sobrevivientes, gracias a la recopilación de información y el querer seguir alzando la voz a pesar de ser ya ahora nuestros abuelos, nuestros padres, nuestros maestros o vecinos.
El movimiento se ha intentado desaparecer durante 54 años, pero mientras perdure un “dos de octubre no se olvida” en el eco de la plaza de las 3 culturas, seguirá latiendo en la artería de la historia de este país.
68 de Paco I. Taibo II nos cuenta las anécdotas de un sobreviviente más de aquella época en la que se comenzaba a fecundar uno de los movimientos estudiantiles repleto de ideales, de canciones de Bob Dylan, José Alfredo Jiménez y Joan Baez. Nos transporta página por página a esa época dónde la UNAM era groovie, se respiraba el “amor y paz”, se quería comer al mundo de un bocado y se peleaba con el puño arriba sin miedo a ser callado.
Mucho se ha hablado de que este libro no tiene un contexto histórico, ya que es más como un “anecdotario”, pero recordemos que la historia esta creada por anécdotas de los sobrevivientes, de los testigos y de los chismosos que sin querer se encontraban en el lugar correcto y en el momento correcto.
¿Se puede tomar este libro como parte de la historia de 68?
Por supuesto que sí, dejando a un lado el peso social que tiene Taibo II en México por su gran labor de “fomento a la lectura”, nos muestra una de las mil caras del movimiento y merece ser conocida.
Fue grato encontrar en este “anecdotario” a Francisco Pérez Arce, gran amigo y compañero militante desde 1967 y a quién he tenido la fortuna de conocer en persona, leer y escuchar también sus memorias del 68.
68 no tenía ni pies ni cabeza por lo que dice Paco, pero si tenía que ser contado de una u otra forma; tenía que dar a luz en este libro que nos va a quedar para la posteridad.
2 de Octubre NO SE OLVIDA

[Ángel Luis Durán · Rating 5 out of 5]

El 2 de octubre de 1968 la plaza de Tlatelolco en ciudad de México se tiñó de sangre, sangre de estudiantes desarmados a manos del ejército mexicano comandado por el batallon Olimpia de infausto recuerdo para los amantes de la libertad. Fueron muchos los muertos y a día de hoy la mayoría siguen desaparecidos. Se dice que el ejército lanzó los cuerpos al mar. Hubo también muchos arrestados, muchos estudiantes que pasaron mucho tiempo a la sombra en la crujía de Lecumberri, sufrieron torturas y muchos firmaron versiones forzadas de los hechos. El ejército fue el brazo ejecutor de un gobierno mexicano más preocupados de la inaguración de los juegos olímpicos que empezaron doce días después. Díaz Orgáz presidente de la república fue el culpable, el que dio la orden de la matanza, a día de hoy no se han aclarado los hechos ni donde están los muertos, los pinches muertos que siguen desaparecidos para verguenza de la supuesta democracia Priista que siguen negando los hechos. Paco Ignacio Taibó II en este libro cuenta sus recuerdos de esos días que se vivieron en la Ciudad de México. Fueron tiempos de sueños, sueños que como el dice en el libro a veces producen pesadillas, pero no soñar produce idiotas. Un libro que recomiendo a todos para entender el México actual desde la perspectiva de aquel lejano 2 de octubre de 1968.

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Award-winning Mexican historian, novelist, and essayist Paco Ignacio Taibo II gives the recipe for a "political-cultural stew" in which he says that he and many other militant students involved in the 1968 Movement"came of age." Taibo gets the balance between the anecdotal and the analytical in this episodic memoir that has both personal vignettes and broader national perspective. Though his father sent him to Madrid just days before the Massacre (and he returned but days after), Taibo II was a student at Political Science at UNAM, one of the centers of the movement, and was in the streets as early as August '68. Great book!

[Kosta Dalageorgas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more a personal autobiographical essay rather than a straightforward history. In it, Paco Taibo recounts his memories of the tumultuous year of 1968 and the culminating massacre at Tlateloloco/Plaza de las Tres Culturas. In many ways, this event has not been properly addressed throughout Mexican society and the perpetrators of the crime have never been brought to justice, leaving a lack of closure to one of the defining events in modern Mexico history.

Reading the Spanish edition, I came across at least ten new words on each page. I would recommend this edition for readers of an upper intermediate or advanced level of Spanish.

[Lucho · Rating 5 out of 5]

1968 was a historical year all throughout the world. In Mexico almost the entire DF student population goes on a student strike, while taking over university buildings. The Mexican government feels pressured to address the strike with the Olympics looming at the end of the year.

Taibo takes us through a personal account of being a 19 year old student during this historic time. The chapters are short and Taibo really capture the moment in which he focuses on in each chapter in a poetic and human way.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took this up for my Chicano studies class and I must say that this is a must read. It's raw in the history of the events in Mexico during the year of 1968. How the government turned their warfare and wrath on the students. This is made up from accounts and interviews of the students and civilians who survived.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“As we went past the big houses, trying not to step in dog shit, we decided that the best thing of all was to have discovered that having different opinions was no sin. That there is more than one path to Rome, that left-wing thinking is ultimately ethical in character, and that who knew where Rome would turn out to be anyway?”

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me encanto el prólogo escrito por Elena Poniatowska, desde este punto toda la lectura se lee de manera rápida y te atrapa hasta el final, su forma de narrar sus memorias me transporto al lugar de los hechos.
Creo que es muy importante seguir recordando este suceso y que nuestra memoria colectiva nunca olvide.
Lo único que no me gusto fue el epílogo, me confundió.

[Katya St · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Después de todo, solo había sido un movimiento estudiantil de 123 días de duración. Nada más. Nada menos. Pero nos había dado, a una generación completa de estudiantes, pasado y país, tierra debajo de los pies”.

Una delicia leer a los Taibo.

[Yaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Que historia tan maravillosa y tristemente contada.

[Sebastian Arzate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 estrellas A

Hacia octubre del 2019 iniciaba mi vida universitaria, había tenido la fortuna de tener el antecedente de una preparatoria con un profundo sentido de lucha social y antecedente incluso durante la época del 68, hacia inicios de ese mes tuve la oportunidad de conocer en persona a Paco, justamente en el contexto de un evento alusivo a la conmemoración del movimiento, esa charla con el autor tuvo una muy buena dosis hipnótica, el estilo y léxico que emplea hace que pasen las horas como minutos, la narrativa oral del autor es destacable, considero que en parte a esa labor se debe parte de su éxito en sus textos; en este sentido este libro justamente se siente así, como una charla entre amigos, con un par de tragos rememorando la época anterior con todo el estilo narrativo de Paco.

Este libro es una suerte de mezcla entre reflexiones, historias, anécdotas y redención, el autor por mucho tiempo ha sido criticado por “abandonar” el movimiento en sus momentos más críticos, su padre el gran periodista Taibo I lo instó a salir del país hacia finales de septiembre del 68, viajando a Madrid ciudad en la que se enteraría por los periódicos de lo ocurrido en Tlatelolco, en sus palabras vertidas en este libro sufrió de inmediato un episodio de mutismo, en el que su “falta” al movimiento lo castigó con ser mudo.

Todo el libro se desarrolla a manera de monólogo, cargado de sus reflexiones pero en especial de las anécdotas vividas durante el movimiento, esas situaciones entre camaradas y colegas, todos contagiados de esa fiebre revolucionaria, ese sentimiento de cambiar las cosas y actuar como contrapeso del estado mexicano, buena parte del movimiento se resumen con la frase de Salvador Allende “Ser joven y no ser revolucionario es una contradicción hasta biológica”

Hay que considerar que la formación universitaria es una forma de democratizar no solo el conocimiento sino el pensamiento crítico es una necesidad perentoria en Latinoamérica, pues toda la información y habilidades que se obtienen durante la formación debería de reflejarse en la responsabilidad de modificar las condiciones materiales, que no solo cambie la vida de los universitarios sino de los que son como ellos y no han podido acceder a ese privilegio.

Las disputas obreras, universitarias y del sector marginal de la población tienen antecedentes históricos que remontan a la propia fundación de la nación, como lo refiere Paco los propios fantasmas del 68 siguen siendo palpables, parece que seguimos adoleciendo de los mismos males, ahora se viven tiempos distintos, la disrupción de las redes sociales han hecho eco en las esferas de la protesta social, ahora como una herramienta esencial a la hora de organizar las masas y promover los movimientos, ahora bien esto es una cuestión ambivalente, tanto puede ser una forma de protesta, lo es también de manipulación, el caso de Cambridge Analytica donde se comprobó la manipulación sistemática de la intención democrática de USA y muchos otros países con modelos democráticos.

Esta obra recoge muchos de los momentos claves del movimiento, pero el gran valor es la exposición de las emociones del autor, todo lo que generó el movimiento, el antes y después así como ese sentimiento de hermandad entre los miembros, lo consideraría parte de los textos claves para esa función de la historia que es entender de donde provienen las condiciones materiales en las que vivimos en la actualidad, todas se explican por las condiciones previas.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

El dicharachero y desmadrozo estilo de Taibo II me gusta en sus novelas; pero no sé si por mí, o al ser textos autobiográficos, unas memorias de un episodio histórico por demás funesto e ignominioso, las narraciones vertidas en este libro me hicieron sentirlo "chavorrucaico" (lo cual, aclaro, no sé si funciona en detrimento del autor y de mí mismo y mi ineptitud como lector): ¿años y años de trabajar los textos, de prepararlos como libros (novela o ensayo o memorias), sobre tan emblemático acontecer, y narrarlos como el jovencito irreverente que fue entonces?
De nuevo: seguramente esa es la intención del autor, recordar lo vivido "tal cual" se vivió, valga la rebuznancia, con la visión del cuasipuberto que era entonces; mas, a mí personalmente, no me convenció (de nuevo, mea culpa).
No obstante, los hechos descritos aquí, pernoctar en las instalaciones universitarias, ser un paria escondido con el temor de, en cualquier momento, ser detenido, vivir en la clandestinidad para imprimir los panfletos antidiazordacistas y la posterior tribulación de no haber estado presente en la masacre son un valioso e interesante testimonio de dichos aciagos días.

[Janet Gaspar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mucho se ha dicho del movimiento del 68 que terminó en una terrible matanza, pero es con éste libro que realmente uno se adentra al núcleo de aquellos días. De la mano de Taibo somos jóvenes que duermen en la universidad, que hacen mítines relámpago en las empresas y pintorrean insignias de guerra en los autobuses. Corremos con el corazón en la boca pensando si nos atraparán y vivimos la liberación femenina escapando del viejo patriarcado.
Política, ideas, huelgas y campañas. Somos jóvenes intentando arañar una realidad que sabemos nunca será la nuestra, nos enfrentamos al gobierno y sentimos que podemos vencerlo.
Taibo no nos relata aquel día de la matanza pues no se encontraba presente, pero siento que éste libro no se trata de eso, no es acerca de un solo día de sangre si no de muchos días de juvenil e idealista lucha.