Standort: fm4.ORF.at / Meldung: "Not the Mexican Drug Wars"

Joanna Bostock

Reading between the headlines.

13. 10. 2012 - 11:16

Not the Mexican Drug Wars

Reality Check Special: David Kriegleder highlights some aspects of Mexican life and society which we don't often hear about.

This Saturday’s Reality Check Special takes us to Mexico. Again. At the beginning of this year, we broadcast a Saturday Special about Mexico's drug wars. That programme was about the power of the cartels, the gruesome violence, and how it all affects daily life and popular culture.

David Krigleder

David Krigleder

When we learned this summer that our globe-trotting reporter David Kriegleder was heading off to Mexico, we decided it was the perfect opportunity to not talk about the Mexican drug wars.

Mexican singer Julieta Venegas participates in the Wirikuta Fest

EPA/Sashenka Gutierrez

Mexican singer Julieta Venegas participates in the Wirikuta Fest, Mexico City, Mexico, 26 May 2012. The musical event is a benefit concert denouncing plans of mining exploitation of the Wirikuta sacred site, in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.

So, this week's Reality Check returns with the aim of showing a different Mexico. Instead of violence, David reports on the role of the Internet and social media, as well as the awakening of Mexican civil society and the establishment of a new peace movement.

Instead of beheadings and body parts, we hear about the bicycle revolution in the capital and Mexico City's answer to Vienna's City Bikes. Instead of the drug wars, we learn more about the Huichol indigenous people, the battle to preserve their holy land and a music festival to denounce mining expoitation there.