Seeking pathways
Sergio Aguayo Quezada
Reforma
January 19, 2011
Regarding the issue of insecurity, there is one issue that is neglected despite its centrality, What aspects of the issue pertain to the state and what to society?
“Enough Blood!,” launched by Eduardo del Río (Rius) and Julio Scherer García, and reactions for and against it reflect that part of society that wants to be taken into account. Society doesn’t find a place or pathways because, when parties and politicians kidnap the transition to democracy, they don’t care to build citizenship and establish bridges with it.
To make this argument requires informative markers. Eighty percent of the population is not interested in getting involved in public life and would prefer that the problems were solved by a strong leader (60 percent) or in the ultimate case that the Army take power (41 percent). Only 20 percent understood that citizenship requires participation. (All figures are from the Survey of World Values 2006).
Security is one of the most difficult areas for citizen participation. It's dangerous and the armed forces and police are wary of "civilians." Citizens get involved because there is no other remedy. A very common type of participation is aimed at preventing the contagion of insecurity. In the tranquil state of Campeche a vigorous social movement arose to prevent, apparently successfully, the Calderon government from building a federal prison (what happened in the state of Nayarit terrified them). There is also the interesting experiment of the Civil Police Monitor in the Mountain region of Guerrero or the innovative efforts of the residents of San Angel in Mexico City.
Confronting those who extort, kidnap and murder and their accomplices in government has consequences. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Right of the United Nations, between September 2009 and Octobe 2010 there were 37 attacks against human rights defenders in Mexico. They say that the situation is worrisome and the diagnosis was reconfirmed with the savage executions of Marisela Escobedo and Susana Chavez (report available at www.sergioaguayo.org). Another profession that is punished is journalism. According to the National Commission on Human Rights, by the end of 2010 a total of 65 journalists have been killed during the past 10 years.
Followers of the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” are also involved. Don Alejo Garza, the rancher who defended his property and shot four gunmen, sending them on their the last voyage, the businessmen who finance death squads (an under-researched topic that one can read about in an excellent story by Alejandro Almazan for Emeequis (Mexican periodical) on the 1990’s in the state of Jalisco (available in www.sergioaguayo.org) and, finally, the lynchings, the collective expression of frustration and anger, about which we do not know much.
I share the incisive opinion of anthropologist Lourdes Arizpe,"The question is not who the violent are but why so many Mexicans have become so violent in the past ten years" (La Jornada, January 11, 2011). These very diverse desires for participation have a common characteristic: the difficulty of establishing fruitful communication with the authorities. There is progress and success stories, but the norm is that our politicians look with deep suspicion on the public who wish to influence public affairs. Yes, they want a society and people that are involved, but only to applaud the will of the rulers.
This view is confirmed by the type of requirements imposed by the Treasury Department on civilian agencies that want to receive tax-deductible donation. Its ideal model is nuns that feed the needy noodle soup accompanied by smiles and short prayers. Equally revealing is the offensive "robbery" that make political parties responsible for appointments to public bodies charged with the guardianship of citizen rights; in place of independent individuals each political group wants to put "their people."
The governement security apparatus is also full of these attitudes . A few days ago, Alejandro Poire, presidential spokesman on security, surprised us by saying that 15, 273 people had been killed by organized crime activities in 2010. The number is much higher than the 11,583 counted and verified by the newspaper Reforma for same period. It would be useful for the government and media to make their methodology public and discuss how to assess the reliability of the figures.
The government’s distance and distrust of citizens is absurd when the country is bleeding. Felipe Calderón's government, the political class and society share the responsibility to build consensus to get us out of this dead end. The pathways of citizen participation either don’t exist or don’t functioning properly to confront the tragedy.
Collaborators: Rodrigo Peña González and Javier Treviño Rangel.
www.sergioaguayo.org
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