Men with guns

About a week ago I noticed a large number of men with machine guns (I looked it up and I think they're M16s) in various types of uniforms (some looking like state police and some in plainclothes who I take to be municipal police) lining the street I take to get to the Llano, Jalatlaco, the collectivos out of town, in short, down a street I walk often. At first I thought they were stationed outside the electricity commission, but they seemed focused across the street at this white building I haven't been able to figure out. It is a rather nice looking 2-story (office?) building fronted by a large parking lot with a guardhouse in front that I've always seen wealthy looking people going in and out of. I couldn't figure out what was going on and didn't want to linger to see more and figured that a crime or threat had taken place, perhaps a high-profile kidnapping as Oaxaca has had many so far this year (I think about 24, putting us towards the top of the country behind DF and the border, all Mexican wealthy targets) or the aftermath of an earlier shooting in Col. Reforma (again with wealthy Mexican targets).

Again today when I walked by I noticed a plethora of men with machine guns standing around the building and all along the block, casually holding their guns some in full gear, some wearing casual clothes. And I realized that I have this twin paradoxical reaction. On the one hand I am terrified about the ubiquity of men with giant guns-- I find myself unable to look away from the materiality of violence that these guns represent to me much more so than a handgun-- especially given the deep instability of Oaxaca, of Mexico, and the frequency of (para)governmental violence in rural communities. And on the other hand, the casualness with which the men hold their guns make them seem banal, as if they were nothing more than symbolic plastic accoutrements-- perhaps for me my disassociation with violence and the almost unimaginability that I would be physically present in these kinds of potentially deadly situations. And, the causalness of the other passerbyers who do not react as if entering a dangerous context, the mundaneness of the setting (a gentle rain on a semi-crowded street), all make the men with guns seem like normal and unremarkable fixtures on the street.

In other interesting observations, I was in the Mercado de 20 de Nov. yesterday buying fresh fish (made a delicious Veracruzana sauce) when I noticed that a stand was selling fresh strawberries-- not Mexican of course but from Driscoll's, one of the largest berry growers in the US based in California. Now who do we think cared for, picked and packed these strawberries? Likely the majority are Mexican (probably Oaxacan) immigrants. I don't think there is an employees discount for the Oaxacan market.