MexicoBlog Editorial: A Diary of Tragedy - and Hope

As we post here, each day, the periodical record of the war on drugs and the crusade against immigrants, we ask ourself, "Just what are we trying to do here?" The answer, it seems, is that we are keeping a public diary of these tragedies as they are played out. We are piecing together the dramas as they happen, event by event, attack by attack, loss by loss.  Each day, each week bring their new episodes. Some days it seems that it is just more of the same: the same destruction of lives, of liberties, of society.


But on occasion new voices appear in this diary. Sometimes they confront us directly with the sad, tragic truth. This week we hear the voices of ordinary people in the city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, brought to us by LA Times correspondent, Tracy Wilkinson, in her story, "Living Behind Enemy Lines in Mexico." We hear their unique voices - a commuter, a dentist, a business man, a mother - telling us of the many ways their lives are imprisoned and deformed by the war on drugs. Tragic as their stories truly are - no one should have to live in terror, under siege - their voices are those of human beings going on with life. 


Then, we hear the voice - and have described to us the work - of Mexico City artist, Pablo Szmulewicz, who puts into pictures, and words, his observation that, "'People are losing the ability to be shocked, and when you lose the capacity for shock, it creates an opening for worse things," By portraying the horror, he seeks to address, "the barbarity, ... the insanity. It can't be part of our daily landscape." Art to make us conscious, to make us feel the tragedy. In art there is hope that we will see and hear. 


And we hear the voice of Charlie Meyer, a columnist for the Mineral Daily News-Tribune of Keyser, West Virginia, who says of our two conflicts with Mexico, "We’re neighbors, like it or not, and we had better accept and make the most of the fact. We must be more willing to do the “heavy lifting” to address the complex issues of neighboring, interdependent nations. We still have a long way to go." 


Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Pablo. Thanks, Tracy. Thanks to the people of Reynosa. You give us hope as we keep this diary of tragedy.