Adam Cohen wrote today in the NY Times about the "US propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results." He was talking about Iran. In his really wonderful book, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, James Fallows tries to dispel US views of China, the product of the same "one dimensional lens."
Right now the US is focusing that one-dimensional lens on Mexico, and it is terribly unfortunate.
Mexico has indeed extremely serious problems because of the drug cartels and the mayhem they create. Our awareness of these problems has exploded literally and figuratively into our collective consciousness since Felipe Calderón took office and brought the fight out into the open and into the streets with military force. It is not at all clear he is gaining the upper hand. At times I think of Bush and Iraq: like Bush, Calderón may have bitten off more than he could chew. He may not have known what he was getting into. He may not have realized how well armed, how terribly rich, these cartels are. How powerful, how frightening to ordinary people in areas they openly dominate. And how essential in those areas.
People talk about fighting this drug war as a "wack a mole" kind of situation. More, it is like hitting a blob of quicksilver with a hammer. The stuff fragments and scatters into untold numbers of places where it takes hold. The US drug war was only marginally successful in Colombia where serious problems remain, but the drug war efforts ironically made things worse in other countries, scattering the drug business and intensifying it. Although the drug business has long existed in many countries, and now permeates most of Latin America, Mexico has become the main conduit, if you will, for drugs in the western hemisphere. Increasingly, too, Mexico is producing drugs.
Mexico is in the terribly unfortunate position of sharing the border with the US, the number 1 consumer of drugs in the world. Both countries are entwined, with US addicts helping the Mexican economy make, according to various estimates, between 20 billion and fifty billion dollars annually. Only a handful of people, compared to the Mexican population as a whole, make a huge amount of money on a per capita basis because of this income, but it provides in smaller ways for many. The current global economic crisis is very hard on Mexico and the drug money and employment by cartels becomes more significant because of this.
The US also provides over 90 percent of the weapons the cartels use, mostly murderous automatic weapons. This has been verified by the US government. More weapons, in fact, than the army has. Mexico is not a first world country; forty percent of its people are poor. Its army was never equipped for heavy combat: it in fact operated more as a first-class response team in natural disasters (it garnered praise in the US for its aid following Hurricane Katrina. Didn't know that, did you?) Until its engagement in this narcowar, the army had the trust of far more people than the police.
So the cartels are the deadly bullies of the neighborhood as well as a major employer, a concentrated threat because of the wack-a-mole effect, because of the geographical location next to the largest consumer of drugs in the world and because of the US's criminally negligent attitude towards guns. And of course because Mexico is in fact a developing country with social and economic problems that make it difficult to stand up alone to this scourge.
One of my blog readers pointed me to Anderson Cooper's piece on Mexico on 60 Minutes last night. I found it online. One aspect of the piece was good: that Cooper pointed out US responsibility in this terrible situation. But Cooper followed the lead of all breathless, thrill-seeking journalists in painting Mexico in the shrill colors of crime and corruption. Mexico is not among the most corrupt countries in the world, for instance, as I've pointed out before. It ranks 72 out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perception Index for 2008. Mexico shares this ranking with China; India and Brazil, two countries touted as modern miracles are perceived as significantly more corrupt. Russia is, too. And Pakistan with whom Mexico was paired recently in the news is even more so.
It's not that corruption isn't a problem. As does the US narcotics habit, so corruption enabled the growth of narcotráfico, especially since the narcos had so much more money than anyone around them. You go to a poor person and say, "I'll give you money if you join up and I'll kill you if you won't." Or to a very underpaid cop. Or to a greedy government official. It happens in NYC. It happened big time in New Orleans where the cops also turned into killers in the drug and prostitution trades. As I've also said before, this is how the Mafia operated in the US for years; this is how the drug trade still works in many areas of the US (read a couple of George Pelecanos's novels and you'll get a good idea of just how). This is the basic mechanism by which thugs gain dominance anywhere.
Perhaps, in fact, we should say that the inequality between rich and poor and the horrible greed of a few with access to power are fueling dangerous fires around the world.
I would venture to argue that our own collapse in the US is due to corruption on a grand scale.
We need not to focus on Mexico as an exception.
And we need to learn that this country, one of many in which this terrible infection is festering is not a nation of thugs, of ignorant people, of sleazy corruption everywhere you turn, of violence. One needs to understand that ignorant American stereotypes of Mexicans only blind us to the real tragedy enveloping the country. Mexico is a country which in many ways can shame the US. Intellectuals are respected. The press is free and ubiquitous and outspoken and interesting and not bland and tied to corporate points of view. It is a country where there is great beauty, not just natural, but created, where art flourishes and is seen on the streets as well as in museums; a country in which the indigenous population has blended with the conquering Spaniards to enrich the country's heritage which is both tragic and heroic, immensely. (For the most part, the conquering Anglos wiped out the indigenous people in the US so there is little trace of their history in mainstream culture.) Mexico is a country still brought together by non-commercial fiestas and saints days of all sorts. Life on the streets is busy and colorful and for the most part gentler. It is a country where you can come upon gorgeous architecture from the sixteenth century in which indigenous threads are woven into the ornate styles brought from Europe. And in the gorgeous old churches, people still worship; in the old palacios, art hangs and students study and governors try to govern.
So Anderson Cooper, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, bloggers, magazines, whoever, please come and visit. Talk to Mexicans. If you don't speak Spanish, talk to the Americans who live here. Don't be afraid, use your street smarts. You'll be most welcome. And you'll be glad you did if you come with your eyes open and your prejudices left behind. And you can take a broader view of global problems and promise.
Postscript
You might be interested to know that Colombia still leads the world in murders per capita; that Jamaica, Russia, Venezuela and South Africa exceed Mexico's by a ratio of at least 2 to 1; that Eastern European countries are close behind Mexico, that peaceful Costa Rica ranks 19th and that the US ranks 24th out of all the countries in the world in the number of homicides. The average number of homicides per 10,000 per year is 1.00. Mexico's average is 1.3.