Written by Ramor Ryan

"The Epic Struggle for Another Oaxaca Has Not Finished," says David Venegas.

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake." - Stephen Daedalus, in Ulysses, James Joyce 1922

Oaxaca City, Mexico, May 15 - Midnight in Oaxaca, and walking around the historic center, it's almost as if nothing had ever happened here. The bourgeoisie sit around under the colonial arches in the long stretch of French-style outdoor cafes lining the central plaza. Aside from being beset by a small army of ambulant trinket vendors and beggars, the well-heeled citizens sipping cappuccinos seem very at ease with the world. A few late night tourists wander about the pleasant old streets under the starry sky, and the industrious hum of the sultry cosmopolitan city invokes an eternal calm.

It's as if there had never been a riotous peoples' insurrection in these same streets just two years ago. As if the rebel citizenry had never erected one thousand and one barricades to defend their city from the marauding police forces of the despised and despotic state government. And as if the tens of thousands of rebels and insurrectionists had not been this close to winning the great battle for Oaxaca in the heady summer days and nights at the barricades of 2006. The famous subversive graffiti that painted the whole town red and black is removed, whitewashed, as is the blood in the streets of the 26 fallen comrades shot down by the police and state paramilitaries.

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