The Place in Mexico Where "People Give the Orders and the Government Obey"

This was quite something to know about. It's not an ideal place and I don't want to settle there. It's mostly just farmers who live there. One thing for sure is that their lives have gotten better (unless government finally sends the military for a massacre)

The people of the town of Cherán became fed up with the struggle as to who rules over them and decided to take charge of their town themselves. In 2011, led by local women (including one granny), the population of 20,000 removed the bureaucrats, the police, the talamontes (the local mafia) and the rebels, and are now running their town themselves with volunteer citizens.

Pedro Chavez, a teacher and community leader commented, “To defend ourselves, we had to change the whole system — out with the political parties, out with City Hall, out with the police and everything. We had to organize our own way of living to survive.”

Not surprisingly, the takeover became a national issue. There was massive political opposition in Mexico City. But, in 2014, Cherán’s provisional self-government was declared legal. The town remains part of Mexico but is self-determining.

To begin, crime is down dramatically. With organised crime removed, along with the police whom the gangsters paid off, capital crime in particular, has ceased to exist. (Most remaining crime has to do with alcohol abuse.)

Although some of the younger men in the community wanted to execute the captured talamontes, police and bureaucrats immediately after the takeover, the women who had led the uprising wisely insisted that the violence must end and the captors simply be expelled, never to be allowed to return.

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