Posthumous tribute to Miguel Ángel Torres Guerrero
Click to enlarge. Design: Edith González Cruz
Miguel Ángel Torres Guerrero's departure from this mortal plain on March 7, 2019, struck deep in the heart of the Mexican Environmental Journalists Network, Rempa (for its Spanish acronym). His family and friends always will remember him as one of the founders of our network and a great human being. With these lines, we recognize and give thanks to his passion for social struggle through environmental journalism, his unconditional work on the right to information access, and his free spirit, which gave a voice to those who did not have one in many media outlets.
Alumnus of UNAM in economics, pioneer of environmental journalism in Mexico, and promoter of community and independent media, his steady activism and his immense free and irreverent spirit were already evident from his early student days. Leaving the classroom behind, he went on to increasingly greater journalistic accomplishments.
With his editorial rigor and strict commitment to good writing, he worked in the editorial department of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) when the institute was the largest publishing house in Mexico. Among his later writings are articles in the Communist Tribune, the on-line publication of the Mexican Communist Movement (MCM); these works can be found in the book Politics, Environment and Society, published by MCM.
In 1988 he began his career as a correspondent for the newspaper El Financiero. His experience, together with his hallmark social commitment, was also apparent in his contributions as editor and co-director of Journalism to Raise Ecological Consciousness (PECE for its initials in Spanish), founded in 1994 with the support of the MacArthur Foundation. Similarly, he was committed to this news bulletin Melóncoyote, a project born of PECE, which disseminates information on the efforts towards sustainable development in the northwestern region of Mexico and, which to date, continues to be forged through volunteers who lead workshops in bilingual citizen journalism. His passion was not only writing, but also quality photography, explaining why almost all the images for PECE articles were his.
He continued with various social and environmental awareness projects and these led him to becoming one of the founding members of the Mexican Network of Environmental Journalists (Rempa), which today continues working with the same spirit that Miguel Ángel Torres Guerrero left as a legacy.
Among friends and colleagues he was known as Jaguar, a way to recognize his tenacity, agility, observation, authenticity, courage, strength and journalistic acumen in his published lines. Included in these is his unforgettable reporting on the Pacific Gray Whale, which at the time was being threatened by the proposed expansion of the salt works in Guerrero Negro. The bid to make it the largest producer in the world would have significantly affected Laguna San Ignacio, located in the Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve in Baja California Sur. Miguel Ángel was there to record the struggle and accomplished what every good journalist seeks: to inform, form opinion, and dissent. His report attracted more journalists and international interest, to such a point that the project was finally canceled and the gray whales and their habitat were protected. Without doubt, this fight was a model for the organization of environmental defenders.
Miguel Ángel Torres wrote about various socio-environmental issues, addressed sustainability and gender equity, the fight against timber violence, the Mayan train, megaprojects in the southeast, the federal budget, mega-diverse seas, ancestral cultures, and traditional customs, as well as the people’s right to their land, their biodiversity and a peaceful coexistence.
His human essence was more than apparent, above all when he put a great deal of effort into supporting victims in the street after the 1985 earthquake, when the collective activism of our day began.
From his birth in Fresnillo de González Echeverría, Zacatecas on February 23, 1956, Miguel Ángel was already destined to write articles in defense of environmental and social rights. Perhaps this sensitivity was born of a childhood and youth spent in a large, humble family, a descendent of miners and small-scale chili and bean farmers.
Miguel Ángel Torres Guerrero stopped putting his journalistic pen to paper in Aguascalientes on March 7, 2019, but has left us an accumulation of works full of thoughtful pages, of indictment and challenges, all which reflect the way he always carried within him the blood of those who rebelled, of those who protested, and of those who think differently.
Miguel ... jaguar ... balam
Miguel ... jaguar ... balam§ … yesterday earth, today wind.
Miguel ... Always jaguar ... Jaguar, today Sun God.
Miguel ... jaguar ... balam ... underworld and horizon. Your realms: day and night, you clinging to them to capture compelling images and create writings of infinite reflection ... always with your pen, your camera, your computer, your notes, and your beer at hand, day and night.
Miguel … jaguar … balam … From your sacred cave of Rancho Viejo your provocative essence will prevail. Your Volvo, entwined in the roots of your urban mangrove, will have watched over your treasured legacies, returning them underground, to the earth, to the mesquite, to the wind, but, above all, to those who shared life with you and who learned so much from you.
Miguel, balam, photographic lens, eye of the jaguar. In your stealth and with your omnipresent camera, you captured countless places and scenes that tell a great story, our history. Warrior images, subversive, heartbreaking, loving, brotherly, moving.
Jaguar balam, your conversations delicious, fun, friendly, always interesting. Invaluable give-and-take that I treasure.
Jaguar, always jaguar. Vigilant, thoughtful, participative, principled. Social and misanthrope in an eternal debate. Lone ranger who always had our backs.
Balam, jaguar, Miguel. Powerful and humble, eccentric, completely a gentleman. Loving guide of new generations. Solitary, funny, very funny. Affectionate, unfaltering, caring, loving, respectful friend. Longtime friend, lifetime friend.
Your being … important, spot-on, free.
Jaguar … I crave your teachings. I miss your company. I insist on your integrity.
Jaguar, you are gone and you have not left. You are here profoundly, intensely, constantly. I imagine you at our side, like always. There with your inseparable camera. There, at the march, at the rally, at the protest, at the cantina … there, always there, in stubborn search of a better world.
Jaguar, balam. Underworld, earth and wind. Powerful wind that overwhelms our senses. Pervasive wind that I breathe. There you are, my soul friend. There, in the wind that furtively blows against my face.
Balam, jaguar, Miguel. You just left and already I miss you deeply.
Miguel, balam, jaguar … go forth in the wind and flow over our hearts.
And I hope that this jaguar balam will be my nahual†† and will accompany me like I accompanied him in unwavering friendship.
Miguel, balam, you illuminated our lives, my heart. Everlasting hugs, my beloved jaguar.
That Miguel
Photo: Courtesy Rempa
Miguel Ángel Torres arrived in Aguascalientes in the late 1980s, after the major 1985 earthquake that struck his home of Mexico City in 1985, leading to one of the largest and most important government decentralization programs.
There we began one of the great stories of friendship and brotherhood with "Jaguar" and his many facets. For example, Miguel the boss, when I was his subordinate at INEGI. I remember his editorial rigor and his strict commitment to good writing, the knowledge that he shared with generosity and good humor, like when I tried to put that slippery and treacherous axolotl known as the comma in its place.
Another Miguel is the researcher, always ready to do field work to produce credible and incredible documents.
One more Miguel is the student, when we would travel every week in the 90s to the Federal District to take journalism and editorial design workshops, and where Carlos Monsiváis, Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, Víctor Roura and many great journalists passed through our classrooms.
Yet another Miguel is the human rights defender who, without setting limits or seeking prestige, would show up for those organizations that needed him in order to make known the latest cause.
And the Miguel who actively participated with us in aguArdiente, with what started as a student project but which ended up piercing the classroom to reach a much broader journalistic audience.
What to say about bohemian Miguel, at times demonstrating inexcusable bravado, and at others being the life of the party with his unique humor and wit.
His friends do not waltz much, but we do share songs and beliefs. Here is part of one of our great anthems:
By Desiderio Macías Silva (Asientos, Aguascalientes, 1922-1995):
Fisherman, don’t cry for me;
Take my oars in your hands.
Let the chrysanthemums raise their voices together:
In the flash of their bursting blossoms, let the lilacs open!
And to the rose so red it freezes sparks, a toast:
"Homeland or death. We shall overcome."