Luis Rubio
The country continues to be divided, not only in positions and preferences but also in the concept of how Mexicans find themselves as a society. For some Mexicans blocking a highway is something natural and acceptable: all’s fair in love and war. For others the blocking of a means of communication constitutes a constitutional violation. For the former the use of force is tantamount to repression, thus reprehensible and should never take place; for others, force is a central instrument of the rule of law. This is about not only views at cross-purposes but also about radically different lifestyles: for some “the worse the better”, for others “we’re just getting along”. In the last analysis, the deep-seated issues that confront Mexican society are never confronted: the division that stupefies the country and that hinders it from constructing a platform of development in which we all dovetail. None of this is new, but the terrible thing about it is that for fifty years Mexicans have been, at least since 1968, entangled in this labyrinth and there’s nothing to suggest that we have advanced even an iota.
It’s easy to assign blame, insults or epithets in every direction, as has happened with the roadblocks organized by National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) zealots, but that won’t get us very far. To the extent that these groups live within an environment or a power rationale distinct from that of those who accept the formal rules of the game (be these wrong, wanting or insufficient), the rules are inapplicable. From this perspective, it’s worthless to condemn a behavior when the selfsame objective of an individual who behaves in a determined manner is to make the opposition or reprehension of the normative framework felt that “others” consider valid. The contradiction is what lies at the heart of the level of conflict that the country is undergoing (without including organized crime, another matter entirely) and due to which, for decades, there has been not even an attempt at response.
Worse yet, the existence of views, positions and strategies at cross-purposes has fostered the development of an entire industry of political manipulation –created and fostered from the government and then found uncontrollable-, much of which is inspired less by great philosophical principles or ideals than by the most mundane pragmatism, known in the dictionary as blackmail and extortion. That’s how Mexico City became the oasis of demonstrations or how, instead of seeking solutions to the core problematic, some unions have preyed upon, some presidential candidacies have been launched solely on the basis of resentment, or how some politicians have taken refuge behind ever higher walls: the official presidential residence Los Pinos is a good example of this.
The blackmail industry today includes everyone: from the governor who appears to demonstrate alone in front of the National Palace to those who commandeer conflict in the most remote nook and cranny of the country to Insurgentes Avenue, not to resolve the problems of the indigenous but rather to nudge along their own personal cause. Between one thing and another are secreted dissidents, negotiators and blackmailers. But the underlying point is not the blackmail industry but the fact that in effect there is an essential cleavage at the heart of the country and the Mexican State.
In the old PRI era the country underwent daily mobilizations of this nature, but the system enjoyed the capacity, and generally the disposition, to act and to avoid reaching extreme situations. Although it was rare for a problem to be solved, at least it was equally rare for conflicts to reach unmanageable excesses. The gradual deterioration of governmental authority, the unwillingness to employ force and the mislaying of the compass ended up converting the government itself into the prey of blackmailers. The generalized disorder that followed was the product of apathy: the old authoritarian rules were no longer applied due to fear of consequences in the media and a novel political concept to attack the heart of the problem was not developed. The two PANist governments changed neither the logic nor the tendency. Thus their debt to the society is so great: contrary to their historical buildup, they abandoned the citizenry and exerted no effort other than continuing to pave the road to perdition.
In the face of this reality, the new government has responded in two ways: it has reorganized the structures of real power in order to recover the misplaced authority and, as occurred on the Acapulco highway, has taken action to submit the troublemakers to minimal rules of civility. This concerns two sides of the same coin: to be the authority and to exercise it before anyone who challenges it. The immediate result has moreover been commendable. The government achieved attenuating the immediate matter: however, as can be seen daily, that does not constitute a solution to the underlying theme.
Blackmail only ends when the source of the extortion is eliminated or when his/its motive is resolved. In the youthful years of the old system the former was carried out but later nothing else was done: the blackmailers were not eliminated nor were the causes of the problem attacked, which gave rise to the proliferation of blackmailers. The exercise of the authority attacks the front line but nothing else. The question is what can actually be done.
The following quotation captures the essence of the problem and, because it has nothing to do with Mexico, it seems to me that it allows one to take a less caustic and more dispassionate perspective of the nature of our challenge: “The tragedy of al Assad family rule is Syria is not that it produced tyranny”, says Robert Kaplan. “That tyranny, remember, produced sustained domestic peace after 21 changes of government in the 24 years preceding the elder el Assad’s coup… The tragedy is that the al Assads did nothing useful with the domestic peace they had established. They did not employ the order they had created to build a civil society, one that would have prevented the current war. They never converted their subjects into citizens: Citizens rise above sectarianism, whereas subjects have only sectarianism to fall back on”.
Recent events in the state of Guerrero show the worst of the old political system, together with the risks of dangerous alliances with organized crime. But the solution dwells on a political realignment with the will to employ force to make it stick. The Acapulco highway roadblock and the action by the group that is responsible and its leaders are nothing other than sectarian responses to a system with which they do not identify. They do not see that the system benefits them or that they can advance their legitimate interests via the negotiation route, because they are not, nor they feel themselves to be, citizens. They feel that they are subjects and, as such, they defy the government. The mechanism of blackmail worked very well for decades. But today the government is wrong if it thinks that it is going to dissuade them with a couple of shows of authority. What’s required is a change in the basic conception of what are the government and the citizenry. It will not be easy, but it’s the only way to break the impasse.
@lrubiof