May 13, 2025 • 56 mins
In June 2020, Manuel Bayo Gisbert was kidnapped by armed men and teenagers tortured, and held captive until his family paid his ransom. His story, unfortunately, is a familiar one in Mexico — where more than 116,000 people (as the official number goes) have been disappeared and possibly murdered. But unlike so many, Manuel survived. Unable to shake the ghosts of that night, he set out to photograph and interview families who have lost loved ones to cartel and government-sponsored violence. His perspective is unique in that he developed a relationship with the young men on the night they tortured him, and came to realize that they are victims too – of a much larger system.
Before his release, covered in blood with multiple broken bones and horribly beaten, Manuel’s captors started a conversation with him while on the ride back down the mountain to let him go. They talked for two hours- while he was coughing up blood and writhing in pain. They were teenagers- they weren’t in charge of the operation. They were 15 year old boys with assault rifles— they told him that they had targeted him because he was filming and had a camera. They wanted to know if he was a filmmaker. He told them that he was, and they suggested that he make a film about this very incident. They also asked if he would invite them to the screening when he completed the movie. At that moment, he realized that these kids were victims too. And though he’d lost his dignity, and had his sense of self and autonomy was destroyed forever, he still had his humanity— but these kids did not. These kids had lost their humanity.Now he goes back into the same neighborhoods, where he was abducted, to interview and help families who have also missing loved ones. Besides the derivative potential of this incredible story, Manuel needs funding for the documentary he’s making about the 116,000 people that have gone missing in Mexico.
From Alive Again producer and host, Dan Bush.
For more about Manuel and his work, go to: https://www.manuelbayogisbert.com
Warning: This series contains graphic descriptions of trauma, violence, abuse, and other content that may not be suitable for certain listeners.
* If you have a transformative experience to share, we’d love to hear your story. Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
My name is Manuel Va jo Chizerb.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
In June twenty twenty, I was kidnapped by a drunker
telling the outskirts of Mexico City. I was tortured and
held for ransom along with my partner, and we came
out alive. Ever since I was released, I began documenting
(00:39):
the lives of the many families of the people who
were also kidnapped and didn't returned.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This is my story and the story.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Of how violence has corrupted a country, families and thousands
of lives.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous account
of human fragility and resilience from people his lives were
forever altered after having almost died. These are first hand
accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.
Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories
(01:16):
to remind us all of our shared human condition. Please
keep in mind these stories are true and maybe triggering
for some listener. Discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm a documentary's photographer. I don't thought of myself as
much as a journalist because I collaborate very closely with
the people that I work with, so that's very problematic
for journalism. I try to use art and photography and
filmmaking has a way of raising awareness of the horrible
(01:54):
situation that we are living in Mexico. Since the last
sixty years, I focus mainly on violence and state terrorism
and the consequences of both crimes of state and crimes
made by particulars but sponsored by a criminal state. I
grew up in Mexico City. I come from a middle
(02:17):
class family. We ended up with not much left after
a lot of financial trouble.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
When I was eight nine.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Years old, I started living in some of the poor's
neighborhoods here, knowing some of the most marginalized people here
in Mexico City. But thanks to my dad, I managed
to break through to go to college. I was studying
cinema in a very fine public school, but I had
(02:46):
to drop out after what happened to me. The thought
of doing films fiction films in a student environment didn't
fit with what I was doing anymore. It didn't make
sense after my experience with bioleness to stay. So I
went out and started looking for answers and for the
meaning of what happened to me. Violence here started approximately
(03:12):
in nineteen sixty five, when some farmers and rural teachers
attacked a military barrack in the northern part of the country.
But the thing with violence before twenty fourteen is that
it was suppressed from the general public mind. After twenty fourteen,
the Ajotinapa Masket nappings happened where the army, in coalition
(03:35):
with Drocker Tales and the local police of Guerrero, took
forty three students from a rural teacher school. That made
everyone aware of the situation of Mexico. I used to
live in the Berry center of Mexico City, very close
(03:56):
to the Anchle Thella Independency, which is like a national
monument and at the place where all the protests start. Like,
if you're protesting here in Mexico City, your protest, most
problemly starts in that monument. So I lived like a
few blocks away from there, and that was like my
first experience with social justice and with protesting here, which
(04:18):
used to be very very dangerous. Now everything is dangerous,
and protesting is just like as dangerous as doing anything else.
But I joined those protests as most of my friends
has most of younk people. I would say they were
a massive protests. The funny thing is that I was
(04:39):
starting to felt the need to document. I didn't know what,
but I felt the need to document. And I also
felt very intimidated by Mexico. I was trying to get
a way to approach Mexico in a less appassive way,
like not so directly. So I decided to leave.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Mexico for a year.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
My plan was going to the United States and working
with Mexican American immigrants. I thought that it might be
easier for a twenty one year old version of me
to work with Mexico away from Mexico than working with
Mexico in Mexico. I was supposed to live on March
(05:31):
twenty one, twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I have my ticket.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I have a lot of people all over America that
were going to receive me where they were going to
let me stay in their homes, to take me to
the people that I needed to work with. But of
course COVID happened. That just didn't happen. It was very
(05:55):
sad for at the same time, I think it's the
best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Because what happened next. I mean, I don't know if
I was naive. It's just that.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
There's levels of knowing, at least from my point of view.
There's the level, the intellectual level of knowing that you're
living a dangerous place, and then there's the bodily level
of knowing. Yet that day I acquire the bodily level
of knowledge. That's what happens here a lot, like people
(06:31):
know what they don't know. I knew in my head,
but I didn't know my body. Again, after twenty fourteen,
we all know that this is a very dangerous place
to be, even here in Mexico City, where people feel
that Mexico is much safer than it actually is, because
the government has really made an effort to make this
(06:53):
place as peaceful as possible, because the people here are
the only people that have a real way of testing,
because their political opinions are much more built because of
economic possibilities, because of we have a lot of colleges here,
a lot of university, is a lot of education, and
(07:13):
most other places in Mexico don't have them.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
So in Mexico City.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
People feel that this is a much safer place than
it actually is. My ex partner and I. She was
doing an experimental film and we were trying to film
the sky. She needed to have some shots of the sky,
so I told her, let's go to the outskirts of
the city, to the highway that connects Mexico City with Guernavaca,
(07:42):
which is a nearby city like a summer city, and
with a Capulco with Guerero, with the places where the
maskt nappings happened.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
When we started to leave the city, I told.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Her, let's be very careful these places, like this part
of Mexico City is known for its violence. That part
of Mexico City is actually controlled by a cartel called
the Cartel Lawac.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's still very weird to think about me telling her that,
but I told her, let's be careful. This place is dangerous.
Women get raped here constantly.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
People get killed.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
A lot of people have been taken from here.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Let's be careful. We stopped in front.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Of a construction side company. Those places, those guys have
there like millions of dollars of machinery. I don't think
that nothing is going to happens here. In front of
the construction site, there was the highway and she took
out a triple a camera and I took out my
phone and she started to do her saying like just
(08:53):
stood there. And at the ten twelve minute mark, I
thought we should really leave this place, like we should
like I turned around and I saw like no one,
just like the Mexican countryside, and I felt like we
should maybe leave this place at this very moment, like
(09:13):
this was enough. I thought, like, you're just being paranoid.
Nothing is going to happen. It's okay. And that's also
what the families of them missing always say, like you
always think this is going to happen to someone else.
You never think it's going to happen to yourself. I was,
I think filming my fit with my sound like just
(09:34):
wasting time. I turned to the right and I saw
five guys with submachine guns running towards us, and I.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Felt like shed.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
They came forward to us. I raised my hands. She
saw me with my hands up. She turned to the right,
she saw the guys. She put up her hands and
one of the guys came to me and told me
give me the cartains. I thought that they were going
to take the car. I just handed him the car
(10:10):
keys and they told us get in. And when they
said get in, I had like this moment of my
life is about to change.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
They had obviously their faces covered.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
They sat here in the middle of two of them,
and I was facing the floor of the car with
my face on the ground. I started to ask questions
and to tell them that that we were well with
him Christians, and that we didn't have money, and that
we were that we were from one of the small
(10:47):
towns nearby. That that backfire soon after I tried to
raise my head and I got kid.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
They told me don't look at her face.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So I'm facing the floor of the back of the car.
I could feel that we were on the on the highway.
They started driving at like one hundred and fifty kilometers
an hour, and at some point I can feel the
road changing or more like gravel. So at the point
that they entered the road, I knew that it was
(11:22):
pretty fucking serious. They drove for like ten more minutes
in absolute silence. At that point, they told us they're
going to need that two hundred thousand pieces fifteen hundred
dollars to release us, which doesn't seem like much in America,
(11:42):
but it's a lot here. I tell them like, there's
no way that we can give you that, Like, our
families are not rich. And of course they didn't believe
that we had a camera, like a very expensive camera
that was owned by your school.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Also because of our.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Skin tone, which is fairly light, they thought that we
have more money, which is a common misconception.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So when they asked that, I knew that we were
in real, real trouble.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
They stop in the middle of the countryside and they
tell me get out of the car. They take me
in front of the car and they tell me, like,
kneel down.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I thought that these guys are going to shoot me.
I kneel down.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
They bade me up horribly. At that point, I take
both of my arms to my face. I think that's
like natural instinct, and they start kicking me horribly. TA
could film two of my ribs cracked. They tell me
that's for Lyon for telling us that you were from
one of these towns.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
We know you're not.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Because they are from there. Of course those guys were
from there, So I fucked up. So I'm completely bat up,
and they tell me get up. I raise my face
and I can see like a mountain, a lone tree
and a corn, and they take out my ex partner
(13:05):
and they told us to start walking.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We started to go up into the mountain.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Which is a very common thing for the cartels to do.
Most of the clandestine graves are found in the countryside.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So I started to think about that.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Some was setting I could still see very clearly, and
I was just very worried about her. I was in
front of the group and they were walking with her.
They took us to these cliffs that they told us
to call our families. So I was given my phone.
(13:50):
I called my father and I told him these guys
came with guns and they need this much money.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
He started freaking out and I told him, like, calm down,
you have to be like very very calm.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
And they took the phone away from me and they
started to chalk with him, which we were told to
lay on the dirt and taste it. There were hands
still covering or foreheads. At first, they were doing nothing,
making phone calls to our families and making us speak
with them. That was about two hours then, I mean
(14:32):
the song was set. It was dark and they started
to to.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
They started to torturous.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
They called our families and there's this common practice here.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
In Mexico called tablada, which is like.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Planking, grabbing a plank, a plank of wood and beating someone.
So they started planking me. Then I really thought like
I might have like a broken something after this, if.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
There is an after this.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
And that's the point where I started to think like
there might not be an after this. They started to
beat me up with a plan to kick me. One
of them he had like his feet on top of
my head and then he stood up in my head.
(15:27):
I just remember like pushing with my hands to the
floor in order for my head not to touch the floor,
hoping for it to relieve some of the pressure because
I felt that my head was going to explode. They
really started to push me in order for me to
scream and beg when my family was listening. Begging for
(15:50):
your life is the most degrading human thing that you.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Can do to another human being.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
It's not the physical pain, is the psychological pain. I
feel that torture really changes you, like being in at
the complete mercy of someone. It really changes your mindset,
It really changes It really changes how you buried your
own dignity and your own sense of self. And it
(16:23):
never leaves you. I think that's the that's the most
horrible thing. It makes you feel dirty for life again,
losing to your technity. And I was very worried for
her too, like they were beating her up that much locally.
(16:45):
But she was being really fucking strong, like very calm.
She was telling them, we want to cooperate, we want
to get out of this alive.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Please don't hurt.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Him, like she was really.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
She was really strong.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Things got like much worse. They grab the nice again.
Going back to that racial thing, we're speaking about a
country where racism is a real issue as much as
in America.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
For me, it's much more worrying because it's invisible.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
People here, like round, people here have been oppressed during
the last five hundred years, and they have been completely
eradicated from most top positions, from economic positions, from political
positions until like the.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Last three years.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So there's a real racial resentment that is very valid.
And they saw my very curly European looking hair and
they told me like, oh, we hate your curls, which
again is very much understandable. And then they started to
to cut it with a knife and they took a
(18:02):
bunch of skin from the back of my head.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I could feel the worms or.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Blood like covering my face and.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Mixing with dirt.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
I could feel like the dirt in my lungs, and
I could feel the dirt in my throat and my mouth.
I kept spinning a mixture of blood, saliva and and dirt,
like my saliva was coming out of me like in bulks.
They started hitting me with the gun in my head,
and I could just hear like if I was inside
(18:35):
of a fat Greek pottery thing, like if you hit
it with your finger, how it sounds like like almost musical.
I could hear that inside of my head after the
first four or five and it went on like I
felt that they were going.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
To blow my head off.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
They kept torturing those for eight or nine hours, and
I could hear my father during that whole time, like
how she was trying to negotiate and to lower the money.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
That had to be.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That had to be delivered, while I was like enduring it.
I didn't feel any disassociation. I couldn't disassociate because I
would be disassociating from what happened to her.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So I was very much afraid of what happened to her.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
At some point they did like sexual torture.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
I I don't want to talk about it, not so
much because of me, but because of her. Yeah, And
that also never leaves you like again, that loss of dignity,
like in front of people.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It's really fucked up.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
It was very very cold, and she had like a
skirt and a little blouse, and I was wearing.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
A leather jacket.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And at one point when they had stopped because people came,
and when they were about like ten people, one of them,
when there was just one of two of them, he
told me, rise and called your girlfriend, because it's very cold.
So I stood up facing the ground in order not
(20:36):
to see their faces. I kneeled and I hogged her
with the leather jacket and I.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Told her I love you. She told me I love you.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
And I was covering my face from the ground, and
I could see the moon leaking like to my fingers,
and I could feel like the warmth and really that
that was a really peaceful moment. I could hear like
the wind blowing through the through the trees, and and
(21:12):
I think that was like the happiest moment of my life.
I felt at that point that if they killed me,
it was okay, and at the end everything reduces to
its minimum expression, which is like this search of of
of meaning true through finding other people that loved you.
(21:37):
And I had that because I had someone with me
and we were not alone.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And I think that's what life is about.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
After a bunch more torture, like nine hours into it,
they told us to go back to where we came from.
We started walking. They gave me the tripod, which is
which was a very big tripod, and they told me
like carryings. I carried the tripod and I could see
(22:16):
like the whole countryside. I could see no highway, but
I could see like the little hills, and the sky
was purple. I have no explanation for that, but the
sky was.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Really, really really purple.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I've never seen a night like that in my life.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And the moon was so.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Bright I could see like perfectly every single detail. Was
that very strange part of Mexico, which is the place
where rural areas.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
And ccenies join.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
The car we were in, which was a white folkswagon,
came in and they parked in front of the of
the lawn tree and they told me give me the trypod.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I gave them the tripod.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
They told me, kneel down, we're going to kill you.
I kneel down. They put the gun in my head,
and there was like this moment of silence. I just
like stood there completely silent, and they just stood there,
(23:26):
completely silent for what felt like hours, and one of
them said like, no, get them in the car. That's
where physical pain really started to go up. They weren't
torturing us anymore, but I could feel my cracked rips,
(23:49):
I could feel a cracked backbone, and I was completely speed.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Up facing the floor of the car.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I had like a all of bloods alive.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And dirt in front of me.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I was just like my lungs were expelling all these
dirt that had that I had like swallowed during the
during the torture. And then there comes the part where.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
We built a relationship.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Fifteen sixteen, seventeen years old.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Of course, these.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Guys don't control the operation, but these are the guys
who who are in charge.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Of doing the dirty work.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
They started speaking like between them, and then they started
to talk to us, and one of them in this
very strange moment of.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Clarity that I now feel that is the best field
work that I will ever do in my life because
of the level of sincerity that I felt coming from them.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
They told us, like, we do this so they don't
do this to us.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
They they started talking about other things that they have done,
talking about people that they have killed, and that.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
They were very afraid of the of.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
The guys making like paying them to do this so
so that this was their way of keeping their families
safe too. We have told them that we were pillow students.
And then one of them told us, like, you should
do a movie about this, and we told them, like
(25:54):
you think that's a good idea and told us yeah,
and please in by us if you if you do it,
please do in bide us. Uh please bring it here
uh to the to the to the town's nearby so
we can go.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
And honestly, I will do it. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Uh, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I have to.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
These guys were again they weren't like this uh military
guy in one time aimal torturing like the case, were
like children and I could feel that they were as
afraid as has us. That's what I mean when I
say that that those guys are victims, like those are
(26:47):
so young and have so like so so few opportunities,
that it's a real tragedy that they are doing this
and that they are losing their humanity. That's such a
young age. One person goes missing each hour, and ninety
(27:10):
four people gets killed every day. That's during the last
during this last administration, which is the most violent that
we have ever got. Again, when I see when I
hear these guys telling us to do a movie and
to invite them after torturing and abusing us, like if they.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Were like.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Some children excited to know, like some random filmmakers, it's
really like the personification of the social problems in Mexico,
of all the things of racial issues, of class issues,
of extreme poverty, of everything, it's concentrated in those people
(27:56):
that were speaking to us on that day, on the
true big time of this thing. We are also victims,
but again we kept our humanity intact. We came out
of that better people. Those guys came out of that
without their humanity. Again, in that sense, those guyes are
(28:17):
the ones who are really suffering the consequences of this
terrible violence. From my point of view. Later I found
out that my father had a friend in the part
of the police that takes care of kidnappings if I
(28:38):
get away completely honest, I don't have the certainty for this,
but there's no other explanation because.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
They didn't got the money. They didn't get the money.
So what I.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Really think is that someone in the police asked them
to let us go. The cartels, which are also the
people who kidnap.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Most of the time.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
They are controlled by the police, and they work very
very closely with the police. Like law enforcement and criminals here,
they're the same. There's no other way for them to
let us go after asking for so much money and
letting us go for one tenth of what was asked
(29:20):
or doesn't make sense. I felt the gravel road, then
I felt the highway, and they told us we're going
to let you go. Here, we're going to be following you.
(29:41):
You're going to drive until until you get home.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Don't stop.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
They opened the doors, they went out, they went to
the back. There was this moment of thirty seconds of silence.
They told us to wait ten minutes. After thirty seconds,
I told her, get into the driver, turned on the vehicle,
and let's fucking go. She started driving. She uses glasses
(30:07):
and she didn't have her glasses. It was like five
thirty in the morning. Still there wasn't light. It was
so misty, and I just started laughing. I said, like,
there's no way that we came out of this shit alive.
And we drove until our house completely covered in dirteen
blood and got into her house and we were free.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The first thing I did.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Is I told someone, my camera is on my closet,
grab it. Take a picture of Boss right now. And
I feel that that's where it started. I knew that
I had to take a picture of Boss, of the
state that we had returned in, but I know that
it started there, like five minutes after we got home,
(30:57):
and it's this picture of the two of us and
were like completely covered in drivel, and that my first
tempulse was to capture that moment. I went to the hospital.
They told me I had like a collapsed long that
the lung had leaked air between the lungs and my heart.
(31:22):
If it didn't go away in two days, they would
have to open me and do something about it. Luckily,
it went away, but I couldn't breathe fairly well for
a couple of months. I had some broken ribs, and
of course I was completely bit up. So for like
ten days I couldn't move, and then I was back.
(31:48):
I was back, but changed and in peace, very strange
way that I just knew that something had changed one day.
I don't know where it came from. What I remember
in college they had told us about this guy who
was missing, who was kidnapped, who was from Guerreroro, and
(32:12):
that something had happened with the International Criminal Court of
Human Rights with his case. I started googling around and
then I found the case, the case of this man
cross and Radilla, who he was kidnapped because he was
part of the Rea of Guerrero and he was taken
by the army.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Because he wrote songs.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
He wrote revolutionary songs, and he was taken, never to
missing again.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
In nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
So I saw that and his daughter had won a
case in the Inter American Court of Human Rights making
the government admit that they had taken his father. So
I wrote to Pittsburgh Hilt International, and I told them like, Hey,
I'm trying to get to this woman. This happened to
me like ten days ago.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I need to speak with her. I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I have no idea why, and they took me to her.
On my way there, I had like my camera and
a bag of clothing, and I was shaking. I was
with this guy from Mexico City that works with them,
and he saw me. I was shaking horribly. She told me, like,
calm down, We're just.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
In a bus. Really, calm down.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
One month and ten days, I was in Guerrero, the
most dangerous part of this country, in the thera, in
the house of this woman that I have never met
in my life. And I didn't know why I was there.
I knew I was going into the mouth of the wolf.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
As we say here, into.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The center of the problem, try to make a sense
of what had happened to me, Try to find that genealogy.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Of of all.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
These crimes, to put myself into a into a social context,
and not just an isolated crime, but like a series
of state sponsored crimes and situations that have led to
the situation that we're currently living in Mexico. I was
(34:22):
looking for the source of violence, and I was looking
for the for the meaning of it, and the meaning
of the conversations that I had with the kidnappers.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
That's the thing to.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Make sense of my pain and their pain. I had
to understand where where it had originated from. It's like
a river. It comes from a rock somewhere in the mountains.
If you really follow or really you're going to find
a rock that throws water away. That's the same. I
try to follow the water that I I came out
(35:00):
of to find out who was pouring that river of
blood on my country.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And I found it.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
I mean, I'm struct I found it, but I'm still
trying to make sense out of it because it's very
confusing and it's very complex. But I know that I've
seen it a number of times. The source both in
the eyes of the guys who kidnapped those and in
the eyes of me and my ex girlfriend, and in
(35:35):
the eyes of the other subvibors and the families of
the missing. And that's that's the source of all pain, conflict,
and resistance, the history of violence here in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I mean, one loses everything with especially with torture, both
sexual physical torture. One loses absolutely everything. Each time I
see a movie, especially.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
An American movie, where one person is being tortured, I
always think, like, these people do.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Not understand what they are speaking about.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
One loses absolutely everything but I think I've also gained
a number of things.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
First of all, I've gained that family.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
These people, the families of the missing, really changed my
life forever in the same way that these kidnappers changed
my life. These people that I've known really changed my life.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
They have really endured. Hell.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
What happens with these people is that they have been
trying to find their missing loved ones for fifty years.
And not only the people of this downboard, all over
the country and in different that time periods they have
been trying to find their children. So I what I
(37:12):
did is.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Go with them and.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Try to to give back to their struggle through my
pictures and through my presence, to give back to their pictures,
to build memory, to build like an archive that can
be this caused and can be consulted in the future.
There's a lot of journalism. Don't about this, but journalism
(37:39):
is very brief and very volatile. It just comes and
burns like a piece of paper. You have to have
a different product for it to last. You have to
really sit in front of people and listen to them
and understand them and understand the issue that you are
(38:00):
dealing with. In order to make a product that is everlasting.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I'm not saying that my pictures.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Are everlasting, but that's what I aim to to make
a thing that is artistically valuable, that is journalistically valuable,
and that has this level of research that makes it
different from just stating the fact in a newspaper.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And I have no idea how to do it.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I have no idea how to do it, but I
keep trying to find ways to do it, either to
making films or to making photography books that are going
to come out someday at some point. But that was
(38:48):
my next step trying to build it. And it was
just me, a bus ticket and my camera, and I
knew at that point that I that's what I had
to do. I had to I had to document the
history of Mexico through the voices of these people, because
they had the real history, which is the history of
(39:09):
resistance and the history of not forgetting, and their struggles
and their lives and their happinesses and sadness and everything
they live is the history of my country. The history
of my country is the hist of the people we
don't have, of the lives we've lost.
Speaker 6 (39:58):
Welcome back to a live again joining me for a
conversation about today's story are my other Alive Again story
producers Nicholas Dakowski and Brent Dye, and I'm your host
Dan Bush. I heard the story in the New York Times,
and I thought, you know, this is an amazing story.
What I did not anticipate was several things, one of
which was his insane story about the drive back, like
(40:24):
after he had been abducted and he and his girlfriend
were tortured and relentlessly for you know, hours and hours
and hours, and then on the drive back, while he's
coughing up blood in the back seat in the floorboard
of the car, he starts to get to know his kidnappers,
and they don't they're not apologetic, but they're basically explaining
(40:44):
to him, we're the muscle we have to do this.
If we don't do this, then we become Then they'll
hurt our families. And in that moment, he has this
epiphany and he realizes that these people are victims. He
had the foresight to go, Okay, yes, victim, but I'm
not the only victim here. Yeah. His story and his
identity and his sense of purpose that he gleaned after
(41:08):
this experience are all bound to that of his country.
It's a much bigger issue. And he goes, sure, I
lost my dignity and I will never get that back.
Like when you've been violated like that, when you've been tortured,
you lose your dignity, You lose a sense of yourself
and a sense of safety that you will never ever
get back. The PTSD of that will be with you.
(41:29):
But his captors lost something greater, They lost their sense
of humanity. He doesn't look at it as an isolated incident.
He sees what happened to him as part of a
series of state sponsored crimes and an epidemic in his
country and his country's history and his country's legacy and
a point in time and history for his country and
(41:51):
his people that he was a part of. And so
he's compelled to go do something about it. And it's
just so fascinating because I thought about, you know, some
other stories. We've talked to Kathy Preston, right, and she
basically had she walked away, I believe, saying, you know,
I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. And he walked
away similarly, but he was like, I am a victim.
(42:14):
You know, I did survive. But I am a victim,
but I'm not the only vite.
Speaker 7 (42:17):
I mean, that's the thing that frightened me the most
about his story was when he said, it's the personification
of the social problems of Mexico, of the racial issues,
the class issues, the extreme poverty, you know. And I
think when you see the division we're experiencing in our
own country, when people feel like they don't have a
stake in society, I think it can lead people to
(42:41):
a really extreme place. And I kind of viewed his
story as as a warning we have a society that
doesn't take care of its basic social needs. This is
the obvious place it leads to. I think, you know,
people are going to do what they have to do
to survive. They can easily be manipulated, They can do
horrible things to other people, very.
Speaker 8 (43:00):
Reminiscent of I mean, Jean Valjean in Les Miserab. You know,
it's he steals bread to feed his family, gets thrown
in jail and tortured by this state, and he comes
back out and he's this absolutely desperate man who ends
up having to do whatever he can to survive for
a while, and he ends up becoming this incredible case
(43:24):
of like his situation has made him incredibly empathetic, and
so he's becomes this like decent, loving man who is
incredibly empathetic to the plight of the people around him,
sometimes to his detrict.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
And I think Manuel is in a position where he
can be empathetic because he's from a much more secure
economic class. But his tormenters, you know, like he's saying,
you know, they lost they're losing their humanity in this situation.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
There's a parallel that's happening across a bunch of these stories.
It's in one form of that thing is to do
good as a form of resistance. In another form, it's
the only way to move on and to survive is
to get is to get yourself out of the out
of the equation. And so Manuel quickly realize this is
not about him, right, It's not an isolated story. It's
(44:16):
not about his ego, It's not about what happened to him,
It's about what's happening to his whole entire country.
Speaker 8 (44:20):
I agree with you, Dan, that there's this through line
through a lot of these especially people who have I
guess been done to, like who have had shit like
people act badly on them. You know, a lot of
these stories are sort of finding like zest in your
life again, or finding meaning in your life. But I
(44:42):
think that a lot of these stories are also about
like really finding the core of your humanity and choosing
your humanity when you've experienced something that could take that
away from you. You know, Manuel could have come out
of this just embittered and angry, and that attitude could
(45:06):
have perpetuated bad things in his own life. But instead
he has a moment where he just is suddenly connected
more deeply to his humanity.
Speaker 7 (45:17):
He was interesting that he was saying, you know that
he had plans to come to the United States, he
had people were going to sponsor in him in his
quest to become a filmmaker. And he said, then COVID happened,
And he said it was sad, but I think it
was the best thing that happened to me because of
what happened next. And what happened next was this incident.
And you know, you think of like in literary turns,
it's the inciting incident that sends the protagonist on the
(45:40):
hero's journey, and he's so thankful for the growth. But
I don't think I'd want to go through something like
this even to have the kind of growth that he expected,
he said, He said so, and this is you know,
this is echoing throughout the show.
Speaker 6 (45:57):
I don't think we've met anybody yet who says that
they would take back what happened to them. Maybe one,
but the overwhelming majority of people who have had these
brushures with death to the point of severe bodily harm,
and having reconstructive surgeries and having to rehabilitate and relearn
how to walk, and all of these things horrific car
(46:18):
accidents that forever changed them, and they all come back
with the same thing of like, I wouldn't change a thing.
I wouldn't I wouldn't change any of these experiences because
of who I am now and what it has taught me.
Some other things happened that would not have happened to
him had he not experienced this. Manuel, for instance, he
talks about these moments of beauty that happened amidst this
(46:38):
extreme stress and pain and torture. You know, he talks
about the colors of the sky and how taking his
coat and crawling over to his girlfriend and his captors
let him sort of keep her warm for they said,
it's cold, you need to keep her warm. So he walked,
he kind of crawled over there, and he put his
(46:59):
coat around her, and he had this moment of intense, incredible,
a feeling of love like he had never felt, a
feeling of compassion for another human being like he had
never felt.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
And this yin yang of.
Speaker 6 (47:11):
The beauty only exists relative to the suffering, you know.
And that's a philosophical conceit that echoes throughout a lot
of different spiritual practices and so forth. But you know,
I think that that's we have to maybe we have
to go through and experience some adversity to whatever degree,
to however extreme, that is the impetus for us to
(47:33):
transform and see the beauty on the other side. Like
we can't see the beauty unless we also experience.
Speaker 8 (47:39):
But I mean that's also that's also how empathy is
created in people. But I think a lot of people
can extrapolate from their own experiences how they might feel.
But I do think that like going through something like that,
even on the smallest scale, a kid falling down and
(48:00):
hitting their head or getting pushed on the playground, they
now know what it's like to have something bad happen
to them, and that is the birth of empathy right there.
And I think that, you know, there's some people who
are extraordinarily good at it. And I don't know if
these people are born with in innate ability to feel empathy,
(48:23):
or if empathy is sort of thrust upon them.
Speaker 7 (48:26):
Well, like Manuel said, they were as afraid as us.
They were afraid of the people that were forcing them
to do these things. And it reminded me. I don't
know if you remember, in two thousand and eight, there
was a massacre at the taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai,
and I remember watching like a Frontline or some episode
about this, and they talked about how they recruited very
(48:47):
young kids to go do this terrorist attack, and as
they had them on the video cameras just walking through
the hallways of this beautiful hotel, just marveling at the
beauty of it. They'd never seen anything like.
Speaker 6 (48:59):
That, you know, and.
Speaker 7 (49:03):
They were just terrified. You know, they were forced to
go commit these atrocities, you know, because there was no
other option for them. But but I think, you know,
like his his empathy for them. You know, of course,
there's this racial history here in Mexico and of course
they're going to be offended by my curly European hair,
you know, of course they're going. Like his understanding of
(49:24):
his own privilege, I think is what gave him that empathy.
You know, like he understood that that he's in a
and he's just he's just in a much more stable,
secure situation than they are, you know, And you know,
I think it gave him the sense that he's not
forced into this degrading, inhumane situation that they've been put into.
Speaker 8 (49:47):
Yeah, I mean that, I mean for me, that that
just goes back to like, was he just by circumstance
or or by birth, like able to see the humanity
and them just like that? Because you listen to you
can listen to a lot of shit from people who
have never gone through this stuff, talking about like who
(50:10):
paint everybody who does you know, who commits any sort
of crime, or even as has the audacity to just
be poor, like they're incapable of looking at that and
understanding that they're but for the grace of God go
I you know, whereas whereas Manuel already knows, you know,
(50:32):
that he's privileged when he walks into this thing.
Speaker 6 (50:35):
Mm and just to come out of these with the
idea that compassion is that is the connective tissue of life.
And you know, and we talked about this before too
where where you know, I think Nick, you you were like,
you know, I don't. You can't expect and there's no expectation.
But you can't expect somebody who's been victimized to be
forgiving of the of the person who's got a boot
(50:57):
on their neck. And I totally understand that that you
can you know, that's not But I do wonder if
the only pathway towards any healing is if not forgiveness,
some compassion for the person who whose soul has been
damaged because their humanity. You know, when you act against
another living being, or you act against another human, doesn't
(51:18):
it damage your soul to some degree? And I think
that's what was striking at a Love Manual's perspective. He said,
these guys lost their humanity. I lost my dignity, They
lost their humanity.
Speaker 7 (51:28):
And I think he understood that because he was one
class maybe higher with one with a very small margin
of benefit of a privilege that these kids didn't have. Well,
but that he might have realized that he's part of
the boot that's on their neck, you know, like it's
all he understood where that frustration was coming from. I
(51:48):
love when he said, there's an intellectual level of knowing
you live in a dangerous place. Then there's the bodily
you know, like he he you can intellectualize all these
social problems, and until you face to face with what
it's like to have to sleep in the street or
what it's like to have a knife held up out
your throat, you don't realize that we're all living right
on the cusp of an unstable society unless we take
(52:12):
care of these problems that drive people to these desperate situations.
And by privilege, I mean he was marginally marginally like
he had. The only privilege I think he really had
was you know that he wasn't as exposed to these situations.
But his family didn't have any money. They were not
by any means wealthy. He had a few more opportunities,
(52:34):
but probably because of the way that he was raised
in the family's concern. But it's not like there is yeah,
I mean, like I said, it was a marginal difference,
But I mean he seemed very aware of what social
division does to society. And the fact that he's going
to take this experience and put himself right back in
(52:54):
that line of fire and go right back into these
dangerous situations to document it is astounding to me.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
Within a month of his of his incident, he was
on a bus heading into the same neighborhood where it
had happened. I mean, I can't believe. And he was
shaking like a leaf, and you know, I can't imagine it.
It's just so intense. But he had to. He was
compelled to. And the other thing I wanted that took
away from his story was he he was clear. He said,
I don't think journalism is the best product. For a
(53:22):
message to last or to be received, it has to
be nuanced, it has to be artistically valuable, and it
has to have a level of personal story and research.
Speaker 7 (53:29):
He is an incredible photographer. People should definitely go check
out his website and his way with words, you know,
like the way he described things. You know, I found
myself in that strange place where the rural area and
the cities join. I mean, his his speaking was almost
like Hemingway, very simple, but very so much poetry and
everything he was saying, and that's what made it really
(53:52):
hard for me to listen to the parts where he
did have his face in the dirt when he was
being beaten by a plank of wood, you know, where
his he could see his girlfriend being tortured for nine hours.
Like the pacing of this story, the way he was
able to bring in those moments of beauty, they really
hit when you were experiencing viscerally what he had gone through.
Speaker 6 (54:16):
Yeah, he was open to all senses and he was
open to all experiences. He had been freed of any
preconceived notions about what was coming next, and he was
pretty sure he was going to die. And in that moment,
knowing that you're going to die with some certainty that
you're not going to make it out of the situation,
that allowed him to see beyond the veil and to
(54:36):
see the beauty of the moment he was in in
a way that you know, it's that that's a really
strange and interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Next time on Alive Again, we meet Annalise Cochrane, who
survived the devastating Hina fires in Hawaii. Her story is
one of insight and rugged survival amidst unimaginable destruction.
Speaker 9 (55:02):
You always hear the question what would you do if
you had twenty minutes left to live? I found out twice.
It was a beautiful day. The skies were clear and blue,
the water was.
Speaker 10 (55:14):
Calm, and we were all about to die.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
Our story producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die,
Nicholas Dakaski, and Lauren Vogelba Music by Ben Lovett, additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick
and Trevor Young. Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional
production support. Our studio engineers are Rima El Kali and
(55:51):
Names Griffin. Our editors are Dan Bush, Gerhartslovitchka, Brent Die
and Alexander Rodriguez. Mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander h Riaz.
I'm your host Dan Bush. For more about Manuel and
to see his amazing photography and to hear more about
his projects, go to Manuelbeo.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Guspert dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
That's m A n U E l B A y
O g I s B e r T dot com.
Alive Again is a production of iHeart Radio and Psychopia Pictures.
If you have a transformative near death experience, to share.
We'd love to hear your story. Please email us at
Alive Again Project at gmail dot com. That's a l
(56:33):
I v e A g A I N p R
O j e c T at gmail dot com
You're listening to Alive Again, a production of Psychopia Pictures
and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
My name is Manuel Va jo Chizerb.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
In June twenty twenty, I was kidnapped by a drunker
telling the outskirts of Mexico City. I was tortured and
held for ransom along with my partner, and we came
out alive. Ever since I was released, I began documenting
(00:39):
the lives of the many families of the people who
were also kidnapped and didn't returned.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This is my story and the story.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Of how violence has corrupted a country, families and thousands
of lives.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to Alive Again, a podcast that showcases miraculous account
of human fragility and resilience from people his lives were
forever altered after having almost died. These are first hand
accounts of near death experiences and more broadly, brushes with death.
Our mission is simple, find, explore, and share these stories
(01:16):
to remind us all of our shared human condition. Please
keep in mind these stories are true and maybe triggering
for some listener. Discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm a documentary's photographer. I don't thought of myself as
much as a journalist because I collaborate very closely with
the people that I work with, so that's very problematic
for journalism. I try to use art and photography and
filmmaking has a way of raising awareness of the horrible
(01:54):
situation that we are living in Mexico. Since the last
sixty years, I focus mainly on violence and state terrorism
and the consequences of both crimes of state and crimes
made by particulars but sponsored by a criminal state. I
grew up in Mexico City. I come from a middle
(02:17):
class family. We ended up with not much left after
a lot of financial trouble.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
When I was eight nine.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Years old, I started living in some of the poor's
neighborhoods here, knowing some of the most marginalized people here
in Mexico City. But thanks to my dad, I managed
to break through to go to college. I was studying
cinema in a very fine public school, but I had
(02:46):
to drop out after what happened to me. The thought
of doing films fiction films in a student environment didn't
fit with what I was doing anymore. It didn't make
sense after my experience with bioleness to stay. So I
went out and started looking for answers and for the
meaning of what happened to me. Violence here started approximately
(03:12):
in nineteen sixty five, when some farmers and rural teachers
attacked a military barrack in the northern part of the country.
But the thing with violence before twenty fourteen is that
it was suppressed from the general public mind. After twenty fourteen,
the Ajotinapa Masket nappings happened where the army, in coalition
(03:35):
with Drocker Tales and the local police of Guerrero, took
forty three students from a rural teacher school. That made
everyone aware of the situation of Mexico. I used to
live in the Berry center of Mexico City, very close
(03:56):
to the Anchle Thella Independency, which is like a national
monument and at the place where all the protests start. Like,
if you're protesting here in Mexico City, your protest, most
problemly starts in that monument. So I lived like a
few blocks away from there, and that was like my
first experience with social justice and with protesting here, which
(04:18):
used to be very very dangerous. Now everything is dangerous,
and protesting is just like as dangerous as doing anything else.
But I joined those protests as most of my friends
has most of younk people. I would say they were
a massive protests. The funny thing is that I was
(04:39):
starting to felt the need to document. I didn't know what,
but I felt the need to document. And I also
felt very intimidated by Mexico. I was trying to get
a way to approach Mexico in a less appassive way,
like not so directly. So I decided to leave.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Mexico for a year.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
My plan was going to the United States and working
with Mexican American immigrants. I thought that it might be
easier for a twenty one year old version of me
to work with Mexico away from Mexico than working with
Mexico in Mexico. I was supposed to live on March
(05:31):
twenty one, twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I have my ticket.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I have a lot of people all over America that
were going to receive me where they were going to
let me stay in their homes, to take me to
the people that I needed to work with. But of
course COVID happened. That just didn't happen. It was very
(05:55):
sad for at the same time, I think it's the
best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Because what happened next. I mean, I don't know if
I was naive. It's just that.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
There's levels of knowing, at least from my point of view.
There's the level, the intellectual level of knowing that you're
living a dangerous place, and then there's the bodily level
of knowing. Yet that day I acquire the bodily level
of knowledge. That's what happens here a lot, like people
(06:31):
know what they don't know. I knew in my head,
but I didn't know my body. Again, after twenty fourteen,
we all know that this is a very dangerous place
to be, even here in Mexico City, where people feel
that Mexico is much safer than it actually is, because
the government has really made an effort to make this
(06:53):
place as peaceful as possible, because the people here are
the only people that have a real way of testing,
because their political opinions are much more built because of
economic possibilities, because of we have a lot of colleges here,
a lot of university, is a lot of education, and
(07:13):
most other places in Mexico don't have them.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
So in Mexico City.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
People feel that this is a much safer place than
it actually is. My ex partner and I. She was
doing an experimental film and we were trying to film
the sky. She needed to have some shots of the sky,
so I told her, let's go to the outskirts of
the city, to the highway that connects Mexico City with Guernavaca,
(07:42):
which is a nearby city like a summer city, and
with a Capulco with Guerero, with the places where the
maskt nappings happened.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
When we started to leave the city, I told.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Her, let's be very careful these places, like this part
of Mexico City is known for its violence. That part
of Mexico City is actually controlled by a cartel called
the Cartel Lawac.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's still very weird to think about me telling her that,
but I told her, let's be careful. This place is dangerous.
Women get raped here constantly.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
People get killed.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
A lot of people have been taken from here.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Let's be careful. We stopped in front.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Of a construction side company. Those places, those guys have
there like millions of dollars of machinery. I don't think
that nothing is going to happens here. In front of
the construction site, there was the highway and she took
out a triple a camera and I took out my
phone and she started to do her saying like just
(08:53):
stood there. And at the ten twelve minute mark, I
thought we should really leave this place, like we should
like I turned around and I saw like no one,
just like the Mexican countryside, and I felt like we
should maybe leave this place at this very moment, like
(09:13):
this was enough. I thought, like, you're just being paranoid.
Nothing is going to happen. It's okay. And that's also
what the families of them missing always say, like you
always think this is going to happen to someone else.
You never think it's going to happen to yourself. I was,
I think filming my fit with my sound like just
(09:34):
wasting time. I turned to the right and I saw
five guys with submachine guns running towards us, and I.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Felt like shed.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
They came forward to us. I raised my hands. She
saw me with my hands up. She turned to the right,
she saw the guys. She put up her hands and
one of the guys came to me and told me
give me the cartains. I thought that they were going
to take the car. I just handed him the car
(10:10):
keys and they told us get in. And when they
said get in, I had like this moment of my
life is about to change.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
They had obviously their faces covered.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
They sat here in the middle of two of them,
and I was facing the floor of the car with
my face on the ground. I started to ask questions
and to tell them that that we were well with
him Christians, and that we didn't have money, and that
we were that we were from one of the small
(10:47):
towns nearby. That that backfire soon after I tried to
raise my head and I got kid.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
They told me don't look at her face.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So I'm facing the floor of the back of the car.
I could feel that we were on the on the highway.
They started driving at like one hundred and fifty kilometers
an hour, and at some point I can feel the
road changing or more like gravel. So at the point
that they entered the road, I knew that it was
(11:22):
pretty fucking serious. They drove for like ten more minutes
in absolute silence. At that point, they told us they're
going to need that two hundred thousand pieces fifteen hundred
dollars to release us, which doesn't seem like much in America,
(11:42):
but it's a lot here. I tell them like, there's
no way that we can give you that, Like, our
families are not rich. And of course they didn't believe
that we had a camera, like a very expensive camera
that was owned by your school.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Also because of our.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Skin tone, which is fairly light, they thought that we
have more money, which is a common misconception.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So when they asked that, I knew that we were
in real, real trouble.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
They stop in the middle of the countryside and they
tell me get out of the car. They take me
in front of the car and they tell me, like,
kneel down.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I thought that these guys are going to shoot me.
I kneel down.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
They bade me up horribly. At that point, I take
both of my arms to my face. I think that's
like natural instinct, and they start kicking me horribly. TA
could film two of my ribs cracked. They tell me
that's for Lyon for telling us that you were from
one of these towns.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
We know you're not.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Because they are from there. Of course those guys were
from there, So I fucked up. So I'm completely bat up,
and they tell me get up. I raise my face
and I can see like a mountain, a lone tree
and a corn, and they take out my ex partner
(13:05):
and they told us to start walking.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We started to go up into the mountain.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Which is a very common thing for the cartels to do.
Most of the clandestine graves are found in the countryside.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So I started to think about that.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Some was setting I could still see very clearly, and
I was just very worried about her. I was in
front of the group and they were walking with her.
They took us to these cliffs that they told us
to call our families. So I was given my phone.
(13:50):
I called my father and I told him these guys
came with guns and they need this much money.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
He started freaking out and I told him, like, calm down,
you have to be like very very calm.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
And they took the phone away from me and they
started to chalk with him, which we were told to
lay on the dirt and taste it. There were hands
still covering or foreheads. At first, they were doing nothing,
making phone calls to our families and making us speak
with them. That was about two hours then, I mean
(14:32):
the song was set. It was dark and they started
to to.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
They started to torturous.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
They called our families and there's this common practice here.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
In Mexico called tablada, which is like.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Planking, grabbing a plank, a plank of wood and beating someone.
So they started planking me. Then I really thought like
I might have like a broken something after this, if.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
There is an after this.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
And that's the point where I started to think like
there might not be an after this. They started to
beat me up with a plan to kick me. One
of them he had like his feet on top of
my head and then he stood up in my head.
(15:27):
I just remember like pushing with my hands to the
floor in order for my head not to touch the floor,
hoping for it to relieve some of the pressure because
I felt that my head was going to explode. They
really started to push me in order for me to
scream and beg when my family was listening. Begging for
(15:50):
your life is the most degrading human thing that you.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Can do to another human being.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
It's not the physical pain, is the psychological pain. I
feel that torture really changes you, like being in at
the complete mercy of someone. It really changes your mindset,
It really changes It really changes how you buried your
own dignity and your own sense of self. And it
(16:23):
never leaves you. I think that's the that's the most
horrible thing. It makes you feel dirty for life again,
losing to your technity. And I was very worried for
her too, like they were beating her up that much locally.
(16:45):
But she was being really fucking strong, like very calm.
She was telling them, we want to cooperate, we want
to get out of this alive.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Please don't hurt.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Him, like she was really.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
She was really strong.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Things got like much worse. They grab the nice again.
Going back to that racial thing, we're speaking about a
country where racism is a real issue as much as
in America.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
For me, it's much more worrying because it's invisible.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
People here, like round, people here have been oppressed during
the last five hundred years, and they have been completely
eradicated from most top positions, from economic positions, from political
positions until like the.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Last three years.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
So there's a real racial resentment that is very valid.
And they saw my very curly European looking hair and
they told me like, oh, we hate your curls, which
again is very much understandable. And then they started to
to cut it with a knife and they took a
(18:02):
bunch of skin from the back of my head.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I could feel the worms or.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Blood like covering my face and.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Mixing with dirt.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
I could feel like the dirt in my lungs, and
I could feel the dirt in my throat and my mouth.
I kept spinning a mixture of blood, saliva and and dirt,
like my saliva was coming out of me like in bulks.
They started hitting me with the gun in my head,
and I could just hear like if I was inside
(18:35):
of a fat Greek pottery thing, like if you hit
it with your finger, how it sounds like like almost musical.
I could hear that inside of my head after the
first four or five and it went on like I
felt that they were going.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
To blow my head off.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
They kept torturing those for eight or nine hours, and
I could hear my father during that whole time, like
how she was trying to negotiate and to lower the money.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
That had to be.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That had to be delivered, while I was like enduring it.
I didn't feel any disassociation. I couldn't disassociate because I
would be disassociating from what happened to her.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So I was very much afraid of what happened to her.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
At some point they did like sexual torture.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
I I don't want to talk about it, not so
much because of me, but because of her. Yeah, And
that also never leaves you like again, that loss of dignity,
like in front of people.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It's really fucked up.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
It was very very cold, and she had like a
skirt and a little blouse, and I was wearing.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
A leather jacket.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And at one point when they had stopped because people came,
and when they were about like ten people, one of them,
when there was just one of two of them, he
told me, rise and called your girlfriend, because it's very cold.
So I stood up facing the ground in order not
(20:36):
to see their faces. I kneeled and I hogged her
with the leather jacket and I.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Told her I love you. She told me I love you.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
And I was covering my face from the ground, and
I could see the moon leaking like to my fingers,
and I could feel like the warmth and really that
that was a really peaceful moment. I could hear like
the wind blowing through the through the trees, and and
(21:12):
I think that was like the happiest moment of my life.
I felt at that point that if they killed me,
it was okay, and at the end everything reduces to
its minimum expression, which is like this search of of
of meaning true through finding other people that loved you.
(21:37):
And I had that because I had someone with me
and we were not alone.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And I think that's what life is about.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
After a bunch more torture, like nine hours into it,
they told us to go back to where we came from.
We started walking. They gave me the tripod, which is
which was a very big tripod, and they told me
like carryings. I carried the tripod and I could see
(22:16):
like the whole countryside. I could see no highway, but
I could see like the little hills, and the sky
was purple. I have no explanation for that, but the
sky was.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Really, really really purple.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I've never seen a night like that in my life.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And the moon was so.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Bright I could see like perfectly every single detail. Was
that very strange part of Mexico, which is the place
where rural areas.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
And ccenies join.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
The car we were in, which was a white folkswagon,
came in and they parked in front of the of
the lawn tree and they told me give me the trypod.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I gave them the tripod.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
They told me, kneel down, we're going to kill you.
I kneel down. They put the gun in my head,
and there was like this moment of silence. I just
like stood there completely silent, and they just stood there,
(23:26):
completely silent for what felt like hours, and one of
them said like, no, get them in the car. That's
where physical pain really started to go up. They weren't
torturing us anymore, but I could feel my cracked rips,
(23:49):
I could feel a cracked backbone, and I was completely speed.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Up facing the floor of the car.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I had like a all of bloods alive.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And dirt in front of me.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I was just like my lungs were expelling all these
dirt that had that I had like swallowed during the
during the torture. And then there comes the part where.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
We built a relationship.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Fifteen sixteen, seventeen years old.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Of course, these.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Guys don't control the operation, but these are the guys
who who are in charge.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Of doing the dirty work.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
They started speaking like between them, and then they started
to talk to us, and one of them in this
very strange moment of.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Clarity that I now feel that is the best field
work that I will ever do in my life because
of the level of sincerity that I felt coming from them.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
They told us, like, we do this so they don't
do this to us.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
They they started talking about other things that they have done,
talking about people that they have killed, and that.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
They were very afraid of the of.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
The guys making like paying them to do this so
so that this was their way of keeping their families
safe too. We have told them that we were pillow students.
And then one of them told us, like, you should
do a movie about this, and we told them, like
(25:54):
you think that's a good idea and told us yeah,
and please in by us if you if you do it,
please do in bide us. Uh please bring it here
uh to the to the to the town's nearby so
we can go.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
And honestly, I will do it. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Uh, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I have to.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
These guys were again they weren't like this uh military
guy in one time aimal torturing like the case, were
like children and I could feel that they were as
afraid as has us. That's what I mean when I
say that that those guys are victims, like those are
(26:47):
so young and have so like so so few opportunities,
that it's a real tragedy that they are doing this
and that they are losing their humanity. That's such a
young age. One person goes missing each hour, and ninety
(27:10):
four people gets killed every day. That's during the last
during this last administration, which is the most violent that
we have ever got. Again, when I see when I
hear these guys telling us to do a movie and
to invite them after torturing and abusing us, like if they.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Were like.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Some children excited to know, like some random filmmakers, it's
really like the personification of the social problems in Mexico,
of all the things of racial issues, of class issues,
of extreme poverty, of everything, it's concentrated in those people
(27:56):
that were speaking to us on that day, on the
true big time of this thing. We are also victims,
but again we kept our humanity intact. We came out
of that better people. Those guys came out of that
without their humanity. Again, in that sense, those guyes are
(28:17):
the ones who are really suffering the consequences of this
terrible violence. From my point of view. Later I found
out that my father had a friend in the part
of the police that takes care of kidnappings if I
(28:38):
get away completely honest, I don't have the certainty for this,
but there's no other explanation because.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
They didn't got the money. They didn't get the money.
So what I.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Really think is that someone in the police asked them
to let us go. The cartels, which are also the
people who kidnap.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Most of the time.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
They are controlled by the police, and they work very
very closely with the police. Like law enforcement and criminals here,
they're the same. There's no other way for them to
let us go after asking for so much money and
letting us go for one tenth of what was asked
(29:20):
or doesn't make sense. I felt the gravel road, then
I felt the highway, and they told us we're going
to let you go. Here, we're going to be following you.
(29:41):
You're going to drive until until you get home.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Don't stop.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
They opened the doors, they went out, they went to
the back. There was this moment of thirty seconds of silence.
They told us to wait ten minutes. After thirty seconds,
I told her, get into the driver, turned on the vehicle,
and let's fucking go. She started driving. She uses glasses
(30:07):
and she didn't have her glasses. It was like five
thirty in the morning. Still there wasn't light. It was
so misty, and I just started laughing. I said, like,
there's no way that we came out of this shit alive.
And we drove until our house completely covered in dirteen
blood and got into her house and we were free.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The first thing I did.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Is I told someone, my camera is on my closet,
grab it. Take a picture of Boss right now. And
I feel that that's where it started. I knew that
I had to take a picture of Boss, of the
state that we had returned in, but I know that
it started there, like five minutes after we got home,
(30:57):
and it's this picture of the two of us and
were like completely covered in drivel, and that my first
tempulse was to capture that moment. I went to the hospital.
They told me I had like a collapsed long that
the lung had leaked air between the lungs and my heart.
(31:22):
If it didn't go away in two days, they would
have to open me and do something about it. Luckily,
it went away, but I couldn't breathe fairly well for
a couple of months. I had some broken ribs, and
of course I was completely bit up. So for like
ten days I couldn't move, and then I was back.
(31:48):
I was back, but changed and in peace, very strange
way that I just knew that something had changed one day.
I don't know where it came from. What I remember
in college they had told us about this guy who
was missing, who was kidnapped, who was from Guerreroro, and
(32:12):
that something had happened with the International Criminal Court of
Human Rights with his case. I started googling around and
then I found the case, the case of this man
cross and Radilla, who he was kidnapped because he was
part of the Rea of Guerrero and he was taken
by the army.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Because he wrote songs.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
He wrote revolutionary songs, and he was taken, never to
missing again.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
In nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
So I saw that and his daughter had won a
case in the Inter American Court of Human Rights making
the government admit that they had taken his father. So
I wrote to Pittsburgh Hilt International, and I told them like, Hey,
I'm trying to get to this woman. This happened to
me like ten days ago.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I need to speak with her. I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I have no idea why, and they took me to her.
On my way there, I had like my camera and
a bag of clothing, and I was shaking. I was
with this guy from Mexico City that works with them,
and he saw me. I was shaking horribly. She told me, like,
calm down, We're just.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
In a bus. Really, calm down.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
One month and ten days, I was in Guerrero, the
most dangerous part of this country, in the thera, in
the house of this woman that I have never met
in my life. And I didn't know why I was there.
I knew I was going into the mouth of the wolf.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
As we say here, into.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The center of the problem, try to make a sense
of what had happened to me, Try to find that genealogy.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Of of all.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
These crimes, to put myself into a into a social context,
and not just an isolated crime, but like a series
of state sponsored crimes and situations that have led to
the situation that we're currently living in Mexico. I was
(34:22):
looking for the source of violence, and I was looking
for the for the meaning of it, and the meaning
of the conversations that I had with the kidnappers.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
That's the thing to.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Make sense of my pain and their pain. I had
to understand where where it had originated from. It's like
a river. It comes from a rock somewhere in the mountains.
If you really follow or really you're going to find
a rock that throws water away. That's the same. I
try to follow the water that I I came out
(35:00):
of to find out who was pouring that river of
blood on my country.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And I found it.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
I mean, I'm struct I found it, but I'm still
trying to make sense out of it because it's very
confusing and it's very complex. But I know that I've
seen it a number of times. The source both in
the eyes of the guys who kidnapped those and in
the eyes of me and my ex girlfriend, and in
(35:35):
the eyes of the other subvibors and the families of
the missing. And that's that's the source of all pain, conflict,
and resistance, the history of violence here in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I mean, one loses everything with especially with torture, both
sexual physical torture. One loses absolutely everything. Each time I
see a movie, especially.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
An American movie, where one person is being tortured, I
always think, like, these people do.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Not understand what they are speaking about.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
One loses absolutely everything but I think I've also gained
a number of things.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
First of all, I've gained that family.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
These people, the families of the missing, really changed my
life forever in the same way that these kidnappers changed
my life. These people that I've known really changed my life.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
They have really endured. Hell.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
What happens with these people is that they have been
trying to find their missing loved ones for fifty years.
And not only the people of this downboard, all over
the country and in different that time periods they have
been trying to find their children. So I what I
(37:12):
did is.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Go with them and.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Try to to give back to their struggle through my
pictures and through my presence, to give back to their pictures,
to build memory, to build like an archive that can
be this caused and can be consulted in the future.
There's a lot of journalism. Don't about this, but journalism
(37:39):
is very brief and very volatile. It just comes and
burns like a piece of paper. You have to have
a different product for it to last. You have to
really sit in front of people and listen to them
and understand them and understand the issue that you are
(38:00):
dealing with. In order to make a product that is everlasting.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I'm not saying that my pictures.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Are everlasting, but that's what I aim to to make
a thing that is artistically valuable, that is journalistically valuable,
and that has this level of research that makes it
different from just stating the fact in a newspaper.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And I have no idea how to do it.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I have no idea how to do it, but I
keep trying to find ways to do it, either to
making films or to making photography books that are going
to come out someday at some point. But that was
(38:48):
my next step trying to build it. And it was
just me, a bus ticket and my camera, and I
knew at that point that I that's what I had
to do. I had to I had to document the
history of Mexico through the voices of these people, because
they had the real history, which is the history of
(39:09):
resistance and the history of not forgetting, and their struggles
and their lives and their happinesses and sadness and everything
they live is the history of my country. The history
of my country is the hist of the people we
don't have, of the lives we've lost.
Speaker 6 (39:58):
Welcome back to a live again joining me for a
conversation about today's story are my other Alive Again story
producers Nicholas Dakowski and Brent Dye, and I'm your host
Dan Bush. I heard the story in the New York Times,
and I thought, you know, this is an amazing story.
What I did not anticipate was several things, one of
which was his insane story about the drive back, like
(40:24):
after he had been abducted and he and his girlfriend
were tortured and relentlessly for you know, hours and hours
and hours, and then on the drive back, while he's
coughing up blood in the back seat in the floorboard
of the car, he starts to get to know his kidnappers,
and they don't they're not apologetic, but they're basically explaining
(40:44):
to him, we're the muscle we have to do this.
If we don't do this, then we become Then they'll
hurt our families. And in that moment, he has this
epiphany and he realizes that these people are victims. He
had the foresight to go, Okay, yes, victim, but I'm
not the only victim here. Yeah. His story and his
identity and his sense of purpose that he gleaned after
(41:08):
this experience are all bound to that of his country.
It's a much bigger issue. And he goes, sure, I
lost my dignity and I will never get that back.
Like when you've been violated like that, when you've been tortured,
you lose your dignity, You lose a sense of yourself
and a sense of safety that you will never ever
get back. The PTSD of that will be with you.
(41:29):
But his captors lost something greater, They lost their sense
of humanity. He doesn't look at it as an isolated incident.
He sees what happened to him as part of a
series of state sponsored crimes and an epidemic in his
country and his country's history and his country's legacy and
a point in time and history for his country and
(41:51):
his people that he was a part of. And so
he's compelled to go do something about it. And it's
just so fascinating because I thought about, you know, some
other stories. We've talked to Kathy Preston, right, and she
basically had she walked away, I believe, saying, you know,
I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. And he walked
away similarly, but he was like, I am a victim.
(42:14):
You know, I did survive. But I am a victim,
but I'm not the only vite.
Speaker 7 (42:17):
I mean, that's the thing that frightened me the most
about his story was when he said, it's the personification
of the social problems of Mexico, of the racial issues,
the class issues, the extreme poverty, you know. And I
think when you see the division we're experiencing in our
own country, when people feel like they don't have a
stake in society, I think it can lead people to
(42:41):
a really extreme place. And I kind of viewed his
story as as a warning we have a society that
doesn't take care of its basic social needs. This is
the obvious place it leads to. I think, you know,
people are going to do what they have to do
to survive. They can easily be manipulated, They can do
horrible things to other people, very.
Speaker 8 (43:00):
Reminiscent of I mean, Jean Valjean in Les Miserab. You know,
it's he steals bread to feed his family, gets thrown
in jail and tortured by this state, and he comes
back out and he's this absolutely desperate man who ends
up having to do whatever he can to survive for
a while, and he ends up becoming this incredible case
(43:24):
of like his situation has made him incredibly empathetic, and
so he's becomes this like decent, loving man who is
incredibly empathetic to the plight of the people around him,
sometimes to his detrict.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
And I think Manuel is in a position where he
can be empathetic because he's from a much more secure
economic class. But his tormenters, you know, like he's saying,
you know, they lost they're losing their humanity in this situation.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
There's a parallel that's happening across a bunch of these stories.
It's in one form of that thing is to do
good as a form of resistance. In another form, it's
the only way to move on and to survive is
to get is to get yourself out of the out
of the equation. And so Manuel quickly realize this is
not about him, right, It's not an isolated story. It's
(44:16):
not about his ego, It's not about what happened to him,
It's about what's happening to his whole entire country.
Speaker 8 (44:20):
I agree with you, Dan, that there's this through line
through a lot of these especially people who have I
guess been done to, like who have had shit like
people act badly on them. You know, a lot of
these stories are sort of finding like zest in your
life again, or finding meaning in your life. But I
(44:42):
think that a lot of these stories are also about
like really finding the core of your humanity and choosing
your humanity when you've experienced something that could take that
away from you. You know, Manuel could have come out
of this just embittered and angry, and that attitude could
(45:06):
have perpetuated bad things in his own life. But instead
he has a moment where he just is suddenly connected
more deeply to his humanity.
Speaker 7 (45:17):
He was interesting that he was saying, you know that
he had plans to come to the United States, he
had people were going to sponsor in him in his
quest to become a filmmaker. And he said, then COVID happened,
And he said it was sad, but I think it
was the best thing that happened to me because of
what happened next. And what happened next was this incident.
And you know, you think of like in literary turns,
it's the inciting incident that sends the protagonist on the
(45:40):
hero's journey, and he's so thankful for the growth. But
I don't think I'd want to go through something like
this even to have the kind of growth that he expected,
he said, He said so, and this is you know,
this is echoing throughout the show.
Speaker 6 (45:57):
I don't think we've met anybody yet who says that
they would take back what happened to them. Maybe one,
but the overwhelming majority of people who have had these
brushures with death to the point of severe bodily harm,
and having reconstructive surgeries and having to rehabilitate and relearn
how to walk, and all of these things horrific car
(46:18):
accidents that forever changed them, and they all come back
with the same thing of like, I wouldn't change a thing.
I wouldn't I wouldn't change any of these experiences because
of who I am now and what it has taught me.
Some other things happened that would not have happened to
him had he not experienced this. Manuel, for instance, he
talks about these moments of beauty that happened amidst this
(46:38):
extreme stress and pain and torture. You know, he talks
about the colors of the sky and how taking his
coat and crawling over to his girlfriend and his captors
let him sort of keep her warm for they said,
it's cold, you need to keep her warm. So he walked,
he kind of crawled over there, and he put his
(46:59):
coat around her, and he had this moment of intense, incredible,
a feeling of love like he had never felt, a
feeling of compassion for another human being like he had
never felt.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
And this yin yang of.
Speaker 6 (47:11):
The beauty only exists relative to the suffering, you know.
And that's a philosophical conceit that echoes throughout a lot
of different spiritual practices and so forth. But you know,
I think that that's we have to maybe we have
to go through and experience some adversity to whatever degree,
to however extreme, that is the impetus for us to
(47:33):
transform and see the beauty on the other side. Like
we can't see the beauty unless we also experience.
Speaker 8 (47:39):
But I mean that's also that's also how empathy is
created in people. But I think a lot of people
can extrapolate from their own experiences how they might feel.
But I do think that like going through something like that,
even on the smallest scale, a kid falling down and
(48:00):
hitting their head or getting pushed on the playground, they
now know what it's like to have something bad happen
to them, and that is the birth of empathy right there.
And I think that, you know, there's some people who
are extraordinarily good at it. And I don't know if
these people are born with in innate ability to feel empathy,
(48:23):
or if empathy is sort of thrust upon them.
Speaker 7 (48:26):
Well, like Manuel said, they were as afraid as us.
They were afraid of the people that were forcing them
to do these things. And it reminded me. I don't
know if you remember, in two thousand and eight, there
was a massacre at the taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai,
and I remember watching like a Frontline or some episode
about this, and they talked about how they recruited very
(48:47):
young kids to go do this terrorist attack, and as
they had them on the video cameras just walking through
the hallways of this beautiful hotel, just marveling at the
beauty of it. They'd never seen anything like.
Speaker 6 (48:59):
That, you know, and.
Speaker 7 (49:03):
They were just terrified. You know, they were forced to
go commit these atrocities, you know, because there was no
other option for them. But but I think, you know,
like his his empathy for them. You know, of course,
there's this racial history here in Mexico and of course
they're going to be offended by my curly European hair,
you know, of course they're going. Like his understanding of
(49:24):
his own privilege, I think is what gave him that empathy.
You know, like he understood that that he's in a
and he's just he's just in a much more stable,
secure situation than they are, you know, And you know,
I think it gave him the sense that he's not
forced into this degrading, inhumane situation that they've been put into.
Speaker 8 (49:47):
Yeah, I mean that, I mean for me, that that
just goes back to like, was he just by circumstance
or or by birth, like able to see the humanity
and them just like that? Because you listen to you
can listen to a lot of shit from people who
have never gone through this stuff, talking about like who
(50:10):
paint everybody who does you know, who commits any sort
of crime, or even as has the audacity to just
be poor, like they're incapable of looking at that and
understanding that they're but for the grace of God go
I you know, whereas whereas Manuel already knows, you know,
(50:32):
that he's privileged when he walks into this thing.
Speaker 6 (50:35):
Mm and just to come out of these with the
idea that compassion is that is the connective tissue of life.
And you know, and we talked about this before too
where where you know, I think Nick, you you were like,
you know, I don't. You can't expect and there's no expectation.
But you can't expect somebody who's been victimized to be
forgiving of the of the person who's got a boot
(50:57):
on their neck. And I totally understand that that you
can you know, that's not But I do wonder if
the only pathway towards any healing is if not forgiveness,
some compassion for the person who whose soul has been
damaged because their humanity. You know, when you act against
another living being, or you act against another human, doesn't
(51:18):
it damage your soul to some degree? And I think
that's what was striking at a Love Manual's perspective. He said,
these guys lost their humanity. I lost my dignity, They
lost their humanity.
Speaker 7 (51:28):
And I think he understood that because he was one
class maybe higher with one with a very small margin
of benefit of a privilege that these kids didn't have. Well,
but that he might have realized that he's part of
the boot that's on their neck, you know, like it's
all he understood where that frustration was coming from. I
(51:48):
love when he said, there's an intellectual level of knowing
you live in a dangerous place. Then there's the bodily
you know, like he he you can intellectualize all these
social problems, and until you face to face with what
it's like to have to sleep in the street or
what it's like to have a knife held up out
your throat, you don't realize that we're all living right
on the cusp of an unstable society unless we take
(52:12):
care of these problems that drive people to these desperate situations.
And by privilege, I mean he was marginally marginally like
he had. The only privilege I think he really had
was you know that he wasn't as exposed to these situations.
But his family didn't have any money. They were not
by any means wealthy. He had a few more opportunities,
(52:34):
but probably because of the way that he was raised
in the family's concern. But it's not like there is yeah,
I mean, like I said, it was a marginal difference,
But I mean he seemed very aware of what social
division does to society. And the fact that he's going
to take this experience and put himself right back in
(52:54):
that line of fire and go right back into these
dangerous situations to document it is astounding to me.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
Within a month of his of his incident, he was
on a bus heading into the same neighborhood where it
had happened. I mean, I can't believe. And he was
shaking like a leaf, and you know, I can't imagine it.
It's just so intense. But he had to. He was
compelled to. And the other thing I wanted that took
away from his story was he he was clear. He said,
I don't think journalism is the best product. For a
(53:22):
message to last or to be received, it has to
be nuanced, it has to be artistically valuable, and it
has to have a level of personal story and research.
Speaker 7 (53:29):
He is an incredible photographer. People should definitely go check
out his website and his way with words, you know,
like the way he described things. You know, I found
myself in that strange place where the rural area and
the cities join. I mean, his his speaking was almost
like Hemingway, very simple, but very so much poetry and
everything he was saying, and that's what made it really
(53:52):
hard for me to listen to the parts where he
did have his face in the dirt when he was
being beaten by a plank of wood, you know, where
his he could see his girlfriend being tortured for nine hours.
Like the pacing of this story, the way he was
able to bring in those moments of beauty, they really
hit when you were experiencing viscerally what he had gone through.
Speaker 6 (54:16):
Yeah, he was open to all senses and he was
open to all experiences. He had been freed of any
preconceived notions about what was coming next, and he was
pretty sure he was going to die. And in that moment,
knowing that you're going to die with some certainty that
you're not going to make it out of the situation,
that allowed him to see beyond the veil and to
(54:36):
see the beauty of the moment he was in in
a way that you know, it's that that's a really
strange and interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Next time on Alive Again, we meet Annalise Cochrane, who
survived the devastating Hina fires in Hawaii. Her story is
one of insight and rugged survival amidst unimaginable destruction.
Speaker 9 (55:02):
You always hear the question what would you do if
you had twenty minutes left to live? I found out twice.
It was a beautiful day. The skies were clear and blue,
the water was.
Speaker 10 (55:14):
Calm, and we were all about to die.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
Our story producers are Dan Bush, Kate Sweeney, Brent Die,
Nicholas Dakaski, and Lauren Vogelba Music by Ben Lovett, additional
music by Alexander Rodriguez. Our executive producers are Matthew Frederick
and Trevor Young. Special thanks to Alexander Williams for additional
production support. Our studio engineers are Rima El Kali and
(55:51):
Names Griffin. Our editors are Dan Bush, Gerhartslovitchka, Brent Die
and Alexander Rodriguez. Mixing by Ben Lovett and Alexander h Riaz.
I'm your host Dan Bush. For more about Manuel and
to see his amazing photography and to hear more about
his projects, go to Manuelbeo.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Guspert dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
That's m A n U E l B A y
O g I s B e r T dot com.
Alive Again is a production of iHeart Radio and Psychopia Pictures.
If you have a transformative near death experience, to share.
We'd love to hear your story. Please email us at
Alive Again Project at gmail dot com. That's a l
(56:33):
I v e A g A I N p R
O j e c T at gmail dot com
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