Family Values, or, close to the edge

Worth a read is the BBC’s “Families recall key figures of the Mexico’s 1910 Revolution“, portraits of four contemporary Mexicans — historian Guadalupe Villa (Pancho’s grand-daughter), PAN leader Gustavo Madero (Francisco’s great-nephew), social activist Margarita Zapata (Emiliano’s grand-daughter) and “leadership consultant” Luis Porfirio Diaz (three guesses who his great-grand-dad was).  While all feel the burden of carrying on the family tradition, the most surprising to me is Guadalupe Villa’s sense that her illustrious grandfather is somewhat over-rated:

Villas: abuelo y nieta. Photo: BBC

“He was a bandit, a womaniser and a fugitive and he wasn’t that important in military terms,” she says.

She says Villa remains a Mexican popular hero because “he was a man who emerged from the people, a peasant” and also, due to basic geography.

“Since he was based in a state (Chihuahua) that borders the US, then all the journalists, photographers and cameramen that came to cover the revolution talked to him, and he became a superstar known all over the world.”

In some ways, this finds echoes in our own time, the mayhem of the present anti-narco drive being magnified simply because it is close to the United States.  I was taken aback by the vehemence of comments on Huffington Post on an Associated Press story Huffington had linked to.  It dealt, more or less factually, with an all-too-familiar story here — a couple of gangsters were killed by other gangsters, and some heads were removed, and other corpses hanged from bridges — talking about “failed states” and the necessity of U.S. military intervention and the usual nonsense.  I couldn’t figure why this particular bit of gangster mayhem was so shocking, until I realized it happened in Tijuana… just across the border from San Diego.

Mexico is only real to the United States (and most English speaking media) when it is within a few kilometers of the U.S. border.   The Revolution was more than Villa, and Mexico is more than a fight between (and against) various narcos along the border.  But, what happens on the border, to the United States (and — by extension — to the English-speaking world) is what happens everywhere in Mexico.

It’s not that Villa, or the narco-war, wasn’t or isn’t important, but they are more symbols of a larger truth than the center of the story themselves.