What We've Learned About the Minutemen, and How Should We Deal with Them?
Who Are The Minutemen?
As much as these vigilantes attempt to give an appearance of simply being
persons who want to uphold the law, they have not been very successful
at containing their racist, violent, and colonialist intentions behind
their movement. Their demonstration in Baldwin Park in protest of a slogan
on an art piece lifted the mask off their movement and exposed their racist
side since they were openly protesting against the Mexican and Indian
communities’ freedom of speech, their history and their culture.
Baldwin Park was not about illegal immigration. Also, Minutemen supporters
are childishly making racist and threatening phone calls to their opponents,
as was the case with our organization just this past week. On Wednesday
June 1st, an unknown person left a message on our answering machine and
gave us a warning about their coming to San Diego. The message stated,
“I’m calling for all the stupid spics out there, can’t
wait ‘til we come to San Diego baby”.
The incident in Orange County in which a Minuteman supporter viciously
hit a few protestors with his car and was later released without charges,
exposed the violent nature of these vigilantes, and furthermore, exposed
the state’s complicity and support of this movement. The media also
sided with the vigilantes in only reporting the driver’s side of
the story, and again the media in San Diego sided with the vigilantes
by not even mentioning the fact that there was a larger counter-protest
in Fallbrook (see the NC Times, June 5th article by Teri Figueroa).
How Should We Deal With Them?
Even though these vigilantes have proven to be racist and cowardly, the
fact of the matter is that there is more to the Minutemen than just a
few retired people with nothing better to do. Aside from having support
from the state, the media, and even white nationalist groups, they are
linked to a movement lead in part by Glenn Spencer that has been organizing
for years and have chosen this time to launch an offensive. This must
all be taken into account when anyone or group attempts to organize against
the Minutemen.
The fact of the matter is, our movement is weak, fragmented and still
hasn’t recovered from the defeat of the movements in the seventies,
which means we are very likely to repeat the same political mistakes that
will ultimately lead to a movement that leaves the masses behind. Mistakes
like infighting, undisciploned behavior in public demonstrations, adventurism,
ultra-leftism and factionalism. Not to mention, egotistical dogmatism
which only limits the terms for struggle and does more to disunite forces
than bring them together. Yes there are differences between groups, but
we have much more in common and there is much more that unites us, and
we must always take into account where the masses of our people are at,
politically, and work from there rather than to make inpractical and unrealistic
calls like "US out of North America" and make that the basis
for unity. For example, Baldwin Park was a victory but it was a water
bottle away from ending in a demonstration that would have been brutally
repressed by the army of police protecting the Minutemen, and would have
demoralized the growing movement against the vigilantes. It must be understood
that protests against the Minutemen must be peaceful in order to build
a movement that will allow for much more men, women and children to participate.
There is a tendency from groups that call themselves socialists, anarchists
and communists to attend these types of demonstrations and provoke a confrontation
with the police that results in the police attacking the people. Somehow
they think that is they way to deal with injustice. And as a matter of
fact, from the video footage we recorded, we saw that there were agent
provocateurs such as Frank “Mohammed” Martinez (see Brian
Glick’s War at Home) who were present at Baldwin Park and were engaging
in undisciplined actions such as crossing the police line, which would
have ended in declaring the protest an unlawful gathering. These types
of people are experts in urging protestors to engage in adventurist, unlawful
acts, and creating situations in which the police will have reason to
repress the demonstrations, and we must have a good eye to spot these
people and isolate them as much as possible.
Our Anti-Minutemen movement is growing and the masses of the people are
looking for an organized and peaceful way to confront them. We as organizers
must provide them that means and we must begin to take the offensive by
denouncing the Minutemen on our own terms. In other words, it is movement-building
time, and we must not fall in the same traps of what has defeated movements
in the past, which has been unorganized and undisciplined action which
does not take into account the participation of men, women and children.
We don’t need heroes, we need a movement and that requires organizers.
And the Minutemen seem like they are going to be around for a while, so
we must also have a long-term view of our struggle.
Finally, the Minutemen, even though the position they are taking is unjust,
our not our most dangerous enemies. We had bigger problems before they
stepped on the scene, and we will still have bigger problems once they
leave the scene. One of these problems that should serve to unite us all
across colonial borders is the effect of US trade policies, which is being
rejected all across Latin America and which serves to force our people
into a life of misery and ultimately migration to other cities and countries.
So called immigrants (and most are indigenous people to this continent)
should qualify for some type of political asylum since their migration
is a result of a failing economic and political system being forced upon
them from abroad. And why shouldn’t they have the right to follow
and retrieve the same resources that they are producing and being exploited
for?
Yet the racist, colonialist position of the Minutemen is having an effect
on our people that is awakening them to political life in a way that has
not been done in years. Our community is looking for a means to express
their opposition to this and many other injustices and we must provide
them that means. Yes, we must struggle against the Minutemen today, but
we must also prepare to struggle against neo-liberalism and colonialism
tomorrow as well.
Video Clips
The Minutemen Supporters | People Gathering | Marching 1 2 3 4 5 | Young Mexicana Getting Arrested
Audio
Message left on answering machine by Minutemen supporters