Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

what they called the ‘social peace’. Years later, Díaz Ordaz would defend the decision
to use violence. 18
The end of the movement was tragic, fracturing Mexican society, leaving some
with a feeling of hopelessness while others moved into urban guerrilla groups or armed
movements. 19 However, this dreadful experience marked the beginning of a new social
and political era 20 by making clear the necessity of change and democratisation.
According to Soledad Loaeza, despite the tragic events of that year, they can be
considered as ‘la primera gran derrota del autoritarismo posrevolucionario que marcó el
fin de una etapa del desarrollo político’. 21 Díaz Ordaz’s successor, Luis Echeverría
Álvarez, needed to organise his government with these new social demands in mind.
Change was in the air.
Moreover, during Díaz Ordaz’s presidential term, GDP grew more than the two
previous decades (from 2.9% to 4.1%), 22 and an increasing number of Mexicans were
able to satisfy their basic needs, though many others remained stuck in extreme
poverty. 23 Many believed that Mexico was becoming a First World country. 24 However,
further social changes were underway, some of them destabilizing. The agricultural
sector began to decline as the population –and its demands- rose. 25 Industrialisation
generated social change, as many emigrated from the countryside to the cities. The
18 About his presidential term Díaz Ordaz said: ‘de lo que estoy más orgulloso es del año de 1968, porque
me permitió servir y salvar al país del desorden, del caos, de que se terminaran las libertades que
disfrutábamos’. Gustavo Díaz Ordaz quoted in ‘El lenguaje del control’, Proceso, 25 July 2004
[accessed 1 November 2011]
19 Sergio Aguayo, La charola. Una historia de los servicios de inteligencia de México (México: Grijalbo,
Raya en el agua, 2001), p. 119.
20
Cordera, ‘Del desarrollo como crisis…’, p. 268.
21
Soledad Loaeza, ‘México, 1968: los orígenes de la transición’, in Ilán Semo, Soledad Loaeza and
others, La transición interrumpida. México 1968-1988, 2nd ed. (Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana,
Nueva Imagen, 1994), pp. 15-47 (p. 19)
22
Carlos Tello, ‘Sobre la desigualdad en México’, in México a fines de siglo… pp. 7-62 (p. 38).
23
Ibid., p. 46.
24
Claire Brewster, ‘Changing Impressions of Mexico for the 1968 Games’, in Keith Brewster, Reflections
in Mexico ’68, pp. 23-45 (p.32).
25 Gustavo Gordillo, ‘La problemática del campo en la modernización’, in México a fines de siglo… pp.
309 -341 (p. 315). The chapter is also recommended to consult the complete data.
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