By Juan S. Larrosa-Fuentes (October 19, 2026)
Like the fierce hurricanes that arrive during El Niño years, October brought the force of social discontent that has cut across Guadalajara society as a whole. Drinking water contamination has affected affluent residential areas, middle-class neighborhoods, and working-class districts alike. Some of us thought the water crisis would arrive with the much-discussed “Day Zero.” Instead, the problem emerged in another form and affected all social classes in a Guadalajara long known for its elitism.
The problem is literally one of survival, because no one can live without water. It is now clearly on the table and waiting to be solved or, at the very least, managed. Some say the problem can be solved by addressing the contamination. Yet it is well understood that once the emergency of fecal matter coming out of drinking-water taps is resolved, other problems will remain. Scarcity is one of them: projections for Day Zero, the point at which there will simply be no more water.
Potability is another issue: we should be able to drink water directly from the tap without getting sick and, in the process, stop paying multinational companies for large jugs of bottled water. The city’s supply pipes are old and leaking, so they’ll need to be replaced. And then there is the other side of the coin: floods are also a water problem. That means we need to think about how to store water, treat it, and replenish the city’s aquifers.
Faced with this major problem, whose solution municipal and state administrations have deferred for the past thirty years, social mobilization is both understandable and desirable. Historically, ample evidence shows that social movements and organizations can generate the energy, power, and creativity needed to understand these problems in different ways and to press for solutions that are deep, democratic, and community-based.
What is worrying, however, is the state of guarantees for freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate that have prevailed throughout this October. More than two decades ago, the government of Francisco Ramírez Acuña repressed the alter-globalization demonstrations of May 28, 2004. On that occasion, police used violence against demonstrators, people who had not participated in the marches were unjustly detained, and, above all, an atmosphere of political demobilization was created that affected and inhibited organized civil society in different ways.
During the marches held on Sunday, October 11 and Sunday, October 18, the state government once again displayed authoritarian traits and an inability to understand and respond to what was happening around it. Two decades after May 28, we still see police officers who are not trained to deal with social protest: we saw beatings, torture, and brutal assaults on demonstrators; we saw female police officers sent to the front line without the equipment necessary to protect themselves, used as cannon fodder.
Two decades later, we see police detaining citizens indiscriminately, without respecting international human rights protocols or due process; two decades later, we see people who were unjustly detained and who will spend years trying to make their way through the muddy swamp of charges brought against them by the government. Two decades later, it is painful to see the families of the victims outside the state prosecutor’s office, without a decent place to wait for news about their detained relatives.
The water problem cuts across social classes. In that sense, it won’t disappear through propaganda campaigns or by inventing other problems. Nor will it be solved simply through new elections for mayors and governor. The problem is complex and will be with us for a long time. For that reason, the government would do well to learn from history.
This text was originally broadcast on NTR Radio News on October 19, 2026, hosted by journalist Sonia Serrano.