Name Droppers in the ‘hood (the news from Lake Texcocobegone)
A friend of mine was once showing a Finnish tourist around the Zocalo and ran into Finland’s most famous movie star (as opposed to… Finland’s other movie star? Its not a very big country) at el Café Popular. And why not…? It’s probably the world’s best known Mexican Chinese French diner in the world. EVERYBODY goes to the Café Popular sooner or later. Everybody who’s anybody anyway.I USED to go there (for breakfast, not to goggle at film stars speaking an incomprehensible Urgo-Algaric language with too many vowels) but it’s in every tourist guide ever published and priced accordingly. Good tamales (Sino-Franco-Oaxacaño style) though. Besides, Mexico City has about 3 times as many people as all of Finland. And better climate and more sunshine. You’re bound to run into somebody who’s somebody somewhere sooner or later. I used to have my coffee in the same Sanborn’s as Elena Poniatowska (boy, and I though Popocatepetl was hard to spell!). This is THE Sanborn’s (the Casa de Azulejos – a 16th century palace turned into the world headquarters for the International Workers of the World – “Anarchists Unite” – decorated by Jose Clemene Orozco, now the world’s most elegant diner), but we favor the not-so-elegant coffee shop on the side. Less tourists.And Ms. Poniatowsa is a Socialist – maybe those Anarchist murals bother her. At the Café L’Opera (where Pancho Villa put a bullet hole in the ceiling trying to get those snobby waiter’s attention) – not a regular hangout, but I met an ex-cop who wanted to figure out the entry angle for Pancho’s bullethole – Carlos Slim (not as rich as Bill Gates, but up there on the same lists) came strolling in with his very heavily armed bodyguards. I guess it’s a tradeoff. If you’re the richest guy in Latin America, you have to go to L’Opera for a snack and travel in an armored SUV with a lot of scary-looking dudes. If you’re only a novelist, journalist and Polish royalty you go to the café Carlos owns and pay 11.50 for your café Americano like everyone else (free refills though).I don’t even need to buy coffee to see somebody who was somebody. I once saw Jimmy Carter walking into the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Jimmy also ranks an armored SUV and a lot of big, scary, heavily-armed hangers-on). I’m still annoyed the King and Queen of Spain (who I once ran into on the street) didn’t invite me to their son’s wedding… maybe the invitation got lost in the mail. Yesterday, I saw Junichiro Koizumi, drive by… it’s the holiday weekend, and I just happened to be walking up calle Cinco de Mayo when the motorcade came up the street. Mexicans are so laid back, it wasn’t much of an official motorcade — other than a traffic cop holding up the cross street traffic, wasn’t a lot to see — I’ve seen bigger funeral processions. The Prime Minister of Japan was the old hippie in the back of the stretch Toyota (of course). Followed by a vanload of Japanese officials (with cameras — are they surgically attached to all Japanese men over the age of 30?), a vanload of Boinas Negras (“black berets” — who out of uniform are just big, friendly guys, but in uniform look like the machine guns are for decoration — or to pound you into tamale if you fuck with them) and… one lone woman in the back of a Cadillac. Must have been the CIA contact.
I AM JUST SOOOOO JADED… I prefer my own neighborhood. It’s not the oldest neighborhood in the city (only being incorporated within the limits in 1550) and it’s antecedents aren’t exactly grand (it was the Aztec city dump), but it has its charms…. This was a wealthy neighborhood from the turn of the last century up until about WWII and touches of the old elegance still exist. Lots of late Porfieriate and Art Deco buildings, including the very weird Museo Chopo (a transplanted provincial German railway station… originally Porfirio had it brought over to house Tyranosauris Mex … now it’s the U.N.A.M. student art museum).In the 1920s, Sta. Maria del Ribera was a hotbed of Catholic reactionaries. Don’t ever say that Mexico hasn’t been ahead of the times… or that we are stuck in traditional gender roles. Our very own Osama bin Ladin was Madre Conchita, a former nun (the convents had been closed in 1924) who led weekly prayer services at the Josephine Fathers’ church on calle Sta. Maria del Ribera. The rest of the week, she was busy running guns to the Cristero guerillas (financed by my favorite crazy oil man, William F. Buckley – Senior. Junior’s crazy in his own way, but writes much better) and fomenting one plot against the government after another. She convinced — or inspired (depends whose history you read) one of her congregants to assassinate president (re)-elect Alvaro Obregon in 1929. Torral was tried, executed and buried out of our parish church. As were the the Pro Suarez brothers, who were radical clerics, but probably not terrorists. San Miguel Pro Suarez – he got the “San” in 1992 – is the patron saint of lottery tickets. His last words to the firing squad were “life’s a lottery, and I win a Christian martyrdom”. The site is now… of course… the National Lottery building). The Madre got life without parole on the Tres Marias, gave up on the Buckleys, settled down, married and raised a family (Tres Marias is Mexico’s Devils Island, but with better food. It’s still a penal colony, but the government wants to close it – mostly because its so expensive to maintain a high school for the convict’s children … and Mexicans tend to stay with mom and dad, so you have folks who’ve lived there all their lives, simply because grand-dad was a very bad boy when he was young).What finally got rid of the reactionaries around here was Francisco Franco. All those middle-class Spanish anarchist home-buyers made the area a hotbed of both leftist politics (it’s still a safe PRD district) and the arts. Later refugees, from occupied France (the French lycee faces the park), right-wing dictatorships in Latin America, and recently, Africa and the former Soviet Union, still favor it’s less-expensive, international atmosphere. While not as well known as wealthy areas like Condessa, nor for world-famous artists like Coyoacan, it still has more than it’s share of writers, painters, poets, web designers and “bohemians”. One of my neighbors is Paco Ignacio Taibo II, whose murder mysteries are probably the best books ever written about life in Mexico City (though, no… shootouts around the Angel de Independencia are not regular occurrences). His books are available in English through Amazon.com.
Being close to the Normal school, we have a lot of normal people too. Unfortunately, we’re just a tad too close to PRI headquarters. I don’t think it’s an accident that our PRD city council decided the area around the PRI was a zona de tolerencia. The ladies (and gentlemen) of the evening don’t bother the neighbors much… they had their own Independence Day celebration (part of their on-going protest against he new “Ley Civica” – Rudolf Guiliani’s brainchild that infringes on their “legitimate workers’ rights”). Actually, the Campesino’s Union headquarters (down the street) is noiser. Last year, they threw the old leadership out – of the second story window. Anyway, it’s a “live and let live” kind of place – with, best of all… no tourists!
And that’s all the news from Lake Tezcoco-begone, where all the women are strong (except those that are men dressed as women), the men are good looking and the children are… thankfully the little darlings have run out of firecrackers and they’ll all be back in school on Monday.
My former Swedish landlady was appalled that I tried her Boef Lindström with tortillas and salsaMy Mexican-American housemate caught me ironing my underwear the other afternoon.I’ve started having uncharitable thoughts towards Argentineans.
I instinctively sit in the shade.
I buy gel … and use it.
I tell gringos to slow down.
I eat more than my recommended daily requirement of vitamin “T” (tacos, tamales, tortillas, tortas).
I buy them on the street.
I not only can say “Cuauhtémoc” without hesitating, I think it’s a perfectly normal given name, along with Xochitl, Tonatihu and Nezahualcoyotl. I know a guy named Popocatepl, too.
I yell “¡Ai! ¡Ai!” during sex.
The Crime Pages
When the going gets tough…Thanks to George W. Bush and his “creative” economic policies, there’s little or no money here. I didn’t come here to be rich, or live off the fat of the land (it’s a skinny land, despite our having the second-highest – next to the U.S.A. – rates of obesity in the world), and to be honest, I don’t work particularly hard – and poverty is no disgrace… it’s just so damned inconvenient at times!As I wrote this, I was living in a bureaucratic limbo: I exist in Mexico as a business (a personal fiscal), but not having my papers completely processed, I don’t exist as a human (a persona moral). This isn’t such a big deal, except, being fiscal and not moral, I have no way to pay my taxes. Being a moral person (though not a persona moral), I try to live by the rules (besides which, try doing something normal, like ordering a telephone or opening a bank account when you don’t exist): but rules were made to be broken.
There are some time-honored ways to deal with little annoyances like paychecks and bills. For a time, I had a creative employer who paid me out of a Texas bank account for “personal services”. Given the difference in incomes between that – and this – side of the border, I wasn’t earning enough in the US to file income tax forms. And, I didn’t exist in Mexico. Neat, clean, but probably illegal. Popular with employers and illegal alien employees alike are “honorarios” These are the receipts (printed at one’s own expense, I might add), everyone uses for … everything from reimbursing the secretary for petty cash expenses to paying the doctor to hiding employees. Again, one is SUPPOSED to be a persona moral to get the forms, but I’ve been paid many times under other people’s names. This is also illegal, and a bit inconvenient: You add 15% to your base income to cover future itemized deductions, then subtract 10% of the base for income tax, and 10% for social security. Don’t ask me to do the math, but it works out to 92% take-home pay – unless, of course, the person providing the honoria is not paying their taxes (or isn’t going to declare income they didn’t earn, which might lead to something nasty like an audit), wants their 10% income tax up front. Or doesn’t – since they aren’t reporting their income in the first place (something like 6 out of 7 Mexican taxpayers neglect to report their income).
And, there are honaria among thieves. It used to be easy to figure out what your taxpayer ID number should be, and to just have some black market honaria forms printed. The Treasury Department got smart to that, and has added some randomly generated numbers on the end. One can still fake the taxpayer ID, but if you’re working with a relatively honest employer (relative is the key word here: that means they actually pay you, as opposed to the employers who encourage naïve foreigners to fake the ID, then claim they can’t pay, because the number doesn’t exist in the government computers). Going this route requires consorting with … criminals… as opposed to… oh, those of us who uh, bend the rules. One of the more sensational newspapers was having a dry spell last week, and wrote an expose on the fake honoria racket – as if it was new. Plaza Santo Domino has been THE place for false papers of all kinds for the last 400 years. The forgers are right across from the old Palace of the Inquisition (which used to burn forgers at the stake – come to think of it, today’s forgers are probably descended from the guys who got off thanks to some dubious Indulgences). Foreign-looking people wandering through the Plaza, who don’t look like obvious tourists are always asked “¿Honorarios?” They probably wouldn’t blink an eyelash if I said ,“no thanks, but I would like to order a Bulgarian passport.” They probably have the price listed somewhere.
And there’s always cash.
A policeman’s lot … or less than zero tolerance…
In Queer, William S. Burroughs bragged about seducing policemen and giving them narcotics. But, Burroughs never understood Mexico, nor was he even minimally fluent in Spanish. Who was using whom? Burroughs seemed to be under the impression that the cops represent order in this country. In the benighted past, gay men, along with drug addicts, alcoholics and the simply twisted – rejected by their families and forced to make a living somehow – found employment with the police. There are still plenty of twisted souls (and alcoholics, and drug addicts) doing police work, but the situation is slowly changing. Emphasis on “slowly”. Let’s put it this way – the police are getting better (and when a poll found that trust in the police was a whopping 16% it was front page news), but there are … uh… challenges. A few weeks ago, when a suburbanite was hit by a patrol car, he called for help – not the police, but the neighbors. They took the drunken coppers hostage, and only turned them over to the authorities when assured the arrest warrants were in order.
Police work is low-paid and low status. Only in Mexico would there be a classic “western” (or, “northern”, to be geographically correct) where it’s the new schoolma’rm who shoots it out with the sheriff (and, plugs the galoot, to our eminent satisfaction). No, our police are not the best – thankfully. This country would be unbearable if we had to live completely by the rules. No one has the money or patience (and Mexicans are famous for their patience) for that.
In a country where cops are social inferiors to garbage men (people cheer the garbage trucks and boo the police cars — or turn their backs during the Revolution Day parade), and where everybody engages in more than a few minor infractions every day, the new “zero tolerance” campaign doesn’t look promising. Our socialist-populist mayor hired Rudolf Guilani to head the whole thing up — which makes for very weird politics. Suddenly the far right (who are pushing for legal executions) is worrying about human rights for minorities. Guiliani is being paid by private donors — the rich guys hired a foreign conservative politician to work for a socialist mayor… the very rich are suddenly supporting the socialists. Except for the socialists who are also entrepreneurs without permits. And all the politicians are talking about honesty. One nice thing about the multi-party system: two parties can might get away with something, but with four or five (let alone 12), everybody has zero tolerance for somebody’s peccadilloes.
I’m dubious of the premise. While I can see not tolerating bank robbers, kidnappers, wife-beaters or organ grinders (I’m almost in favor of the death penalty for those particular social irritants. Maybe they could be sent to Islas Tres Marias, the Mexican Devil’s Island), nobody much cares if you ignore inconvenient regulations. Besides a few national heroes who weren’t exactly sticklers for legal niceties (so Pancho Villa was a cattle rustler — William Randolf Heast could only eat so many steaks anyway. Besides, Villa preferred the New York Times, and stealing Hearst cattle was good PR), some of our “criminals” perform needed public services otherwise unavailable. I wouldn’t have time to get my shopping done if it wasn’t for unlicensed merchants prowling the subways. The people selling a little of everything on the subways certainly are appreciated. It saves a lot of time to buy toothpaste, pencils, flashlights, books, the Periodic Table of Elements while commuting (yup, the latter is sold on subways — and learning the elements in Spanish ha been immensely valuable in solving cross-word puzzles).
One of my students (a tax accountant, no less) pointed out that 4 people buying the 1000 peso pirated version of MS-Office (opposed to the hard-to-find 4-5000 peso official version) creates a market for 4 or 5 computers (and 4 or 5 copies of Windows, helping Bill Gates recover some of those billions he lost), and gets money in the pockets of 4 or 5 vendors. It helps Bill Gates while furthering national development goals — increased computer access, and helping the domestic electronics business. I somehow doubt lady selling left-over doughnuts is collecting sales taxes, but she’s earning a living, and I’m getting perfectly good doughnuts at a cheap price. And, if construction workers are living in the unfinished building across the street, at least they’re living somewhere, and shopping in the local stores.
Live, nude fat ladies!
In other crime news… first it was the dance students. This time it was farmers (who’ve been losing their shirts anyway). Naked protesters are running (marching? cavorting?) amok! But what good’s a parade (even a nude one) without a band? The choices of instruments Mexican strolling musicians select makes you wonder about them. Cellos aren’t easy to lug around, but people do; luckily it takes two guys to play a marimba, since it takes two strong men to carry one. But harps? That was one strong naked farmer! I’m sure there’s some law on the books against walking down the street wearing nothing but your sneakers and a strategically-placed harp (though, given the size and bulk of a harp, there’s not much strategy involved). Maybe we should settle for zero tolerance of really annoying stuff — keep the naked harpists, but send the organ grinders to the firing squad.
True Crime Stories…
Weird news of the day – one of the conservatives in the Veracruz state assembly wants to make witchcraft a crime. The witches — both good
witches and bad witches – bring in a lot of tourist dollars, not to
Vote for me!mention the witches who all fly in (mostly on Aeromexico and not on broomsticks) for their annual convention (I wonder if the Catecamo Hilton keeps a bubbling cauldron of bat wings and toe of frog for room service requests). If the assemblyman isn’t laughed out of the State, I expect he’ll be turned into a newt.
Forgive us our trespasses…
“Lead us not into temptation” ends at the church door — the bootleg CD stalls are right outside (I once bought the Rolling Stones Greatest Hits at the cathederal — they always test the CDs for you, and there’s something twisted about blasting out “Sympathy for the Devil” at 10 on a Sunday morning). At least the piratas have … uh… catholic tastes. I really don’t need more than one or two cumbia or salsa collections — I’ve found everything from Los Beatles and El Doors (both still very popular here) to Billie Holiday to Danzon (Cuban waltz music) to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Wolfgang was from the Slovenian National Orchestra, but on what a pobre maestro makes, it’s what you buy.
Shady Ladies
(Ma Bakker and Esta Elba Gordilla)
(August 2002)Still not talking, but alive and kicking is Delia Patricia Buendia Gutierrez. She’s the new role model for women in business: she sucessfully broke through the glass ceiling in another tradional bastion of patriarchy. Alas, our local Mafia Don (er, Donna), was one of those “hands-on managers” — shooting a city councilwoman in the middle of the night is one thing, but offing a federal judge on a bus in the middle of rush hour is just sloppy. Apparently, with the fall of the Arielo Felix brothers (her operation had a profitable employment service division, handling rub-outs for the narcotrafficantes) she made the same mistake a lot of top managers do — cutting human resources and training budgets, and entrusting managers with tasks outside their area of competence. “Delia Patricia Buendia Gutierrez” isn’t a real catchy gangster name, and makes for long, boring headlines. Besides, “Ma Bakker” makes her sound like a gringa, and they’re capable of … anything! But, it sounds more like “moba-CAR” on TV.Adhering to a more traditional female role is Elba Esther Gordillo, the schoolmarm and president of the Teachers’ Union. Boy, if you thought your 6th grade teacher was mean, count yourself fortunate not to have cross Senora Elba Esther. The OTHER Teachers’ Union filed murder charges against her this week — their organizers tended to fall off roofs, commit suicide by shooting themselves two or three times in the back of the head, or simply disappearing from the face of the earth back when Elba Esther was in charge of union discipline. Hmmmm … maybe they just didn’t file their lesson plans on time, and needed, er… mentoring.
Sra. Gordillo is a probable candidate for mayor. Politics here is a contact sport, and there’s no penalty for unnecessary roughness. Murder charges aren’t necessarily a disqualifier, though a conviction probably would be. Otherwise, the city fathers and mothers have been almost virtuous lately. The police department chief on Ma Bakker’s payroll was even fired — it looks like he might have to sell his Jaguar (showing up at a crime scene in a band-new Jag is likely to draw the suspicion of even the densest auxiliary cop: that, and the fact that his son, the hit-man, was the criminal under arrest).
Interior departmentos (the courtyard is narrow and two stories high) don’t get much direct sunlight and 4m high ceilings in a 3m² living room painted dried-blood red gave the place a name it deserved – “The Well of Loneliness” (see, every once in a while, a Masters’ in English comes in handy). Repainting the place tweety-bird yellow was an absolute necessity. At least I don’t have to refer to my home by the title of a dark, depressing and tasteless 1920s novel about British lesbians.
The bedroom – 4 x 3 (HUGE, by Mexico City standards) – still looks like I have Count Dracula for a roommate, but I’ve spent too much this month already. Besides, I want to consider my options: I’m strongly leaning towards “Mexico City VW taxicab green”, though violet or cyan are possibilities. Hey, it’s Mexico… life ain’t dull, so why live in dull rooms?
Since I moved here at least partially to escape a consumerist life, I’m sorry to report I just bought my first ever new refrigerator – and, shameful to report, I bought it at WalMart. Well, at least it’s a small refrigerator (being less than a meter high it’s technically a frigobar – and not a refri – as the saleslady was at pains to make clear to me), a Mexican brand, and the WalMart store is unionized.Speaking of consumerismo, I have a student whose father came from Catalonia as an anarchist refugee from Franco (his mother’s family was running from Hitler).
He’s the only Mexican I’ve ever met who doesn’t drink Coca-Cola. Even los Mormones drink the stuff by the gallon (but then, Mexican Mormons were big supporters of the former Coca-Cola chairman who is now el Presidente), but apparently not Jewish-Catalan-Mexican Anarchists. Coke, according to dear old dad is ¡las aguas negras de las imperialistas gringas! My student already knows Spanish, Catalan, German, Hebrew, and English, so a standard English class is out of the question. I’ve put him to reading Henry David Thoreau. Somehow I can’t imagine Henry hiking in from Walden Pond to the Concord WalMart to stock up on the Real Thing — or even the Sam’s Club version. I’m not even sure Henry would have bought BIG Cola (which is only sold in 3 liter bottles) — supposedly made from real Kola nuts and, being a Peruvian product, real Coca – which has some appeal here for being a Latin American agua negra.
Anarchism (and Anarcho-Syndicalism) is still alive and well in Mexico. As are Socialism and Indigenism and Syarchism and Communism … and even Capitalism. It makes life more interesting, anyway. I tend to favor the Anarcho-Syndicalists myself: giving power to the people doing the work doesn’t sound undemocratic or particularly radical to me.Try ‘splaining the difference between the “Ds” (financed by Wall Street Capitalists) and the “Rs” (financed by ?) to folks here. They don’t see much difference between Bush and Kerry… they’re both candidates for parties supporting an aggressive foreign policy (and military threats) to further corporate capitalist interests and assure access to other country’s natural resources: what’s known here as fascism. And both guys are just super-rich Yalies (and members of the York Rite Masonic “Skull and Bones” Society – the Mexican Yorkistas were founded Joel Poinsett, our first Ambassador and our first foreign intelligence officer, as a way to control the Mexican elite, and incidentally acquire Texas. Masonic plots (and, better yet, gringo Masonic plots, and… best of all, York Rite Gringo Masonic plots… have ever since been a perennial favorite with Mexicans.
By the way, there’s a popular tale going around that Pancho Villa’s skull is THE skull used by the S&Bs… Pancho’s head was stolen at the same time a bunch of Yalies were wandering around Chihuahua on an undefined research project and about a month before Prescott Bush – the Nazi money-launderer and George I’s daddy – was inducted into S&B). Oh well, at least Kerry has held a real job at some point in his life… not that I registered to vote (I don’t have an address in the United States).
Nice to be in a country where it’s hard to steal elections (having had so much practice at doing just that, the Mexican politicians all figured out ways to keep the other guys from stealing votes – everything from tamper-proof ID cards to security paper ballots. Oh, and public financing and strict campaign spending and time limits). And there seems to be some real differences between the political parties — the only “issues” in the U.S. elections anyone talks about is how much money each side is spending.
Gee, for some reason I don’t get many invitations to Embassy functions. I’m not hanging out with a lot of ‘Mericans right now for that matter. The gringos I know are either much younger (I got along fine with my former roomies, but it was just hard to relate to 20-somethings), Mormon missionaries (also very young – and also Mormons… and missionaries – which creates some lifestyle differences. I still drink too much coffee for starters), scary types on the run (sometimes from the Mafia, but more often from whatever predilections got them in trouble back in the U.S.A. I’ve heard seemingly benign retirees defend child prostitution as a form of social work – on the interesting theory that it’s not as the United Nations says, a form of slavery, but rather a way of helping the local economy and providing educational opportunities to disadvantaged youths — enough times to start double checking teacher applicant who wants to work with adolescents), or the “grumpy gringos”.
I used to hang out at one café with a couple other gringos more or less my age until it dawned on me that these guys were talking about exactly the same thing, with the same wording, that they’ve been talking about for the last two years: each other. I have the feeling that what Bob said to Bill about Fred over breakfast at Sandborn’s on calle Londres is exactly the same thing Joe said to Jack about Jim over breakfast at Sandborn’s in … Oaxaca, Puerto Vallerta or San Miguel de Allende (about 4 hours from Mexico City by bus, Steve). Pretty much the same interchangeable crew is scattered throughout gringo ghettos throughout the Republic… and probably around the world. B-O-R-I-N-G !But there are plenty of other English-speakers around. There’s a lot of Kenyans, Nigerians, Sierra Leonese, Togolese (and even a smattering of Ethopians, who seem to find English easier than Spanish) in my new neighborhood. I mostly work with either Mexicans or English-speakers from other countries (mi jefe is one of the 35 New Zealanders residing in Mexico). I’m still recruiting recent college graduates from el otro lado who want to work here as teachers however. The latest one is a challenge. Her degree (art history and religious studies) and background (6 weeks teaching confirmation classes at her church) just aren’t as marketable as the last prospect (a Masters in Education and experience teaching English as a Second Language). With this one I’ve put out a 500 peso bounty to anyone who can find me a school that’ll take her on.
She expects me to call her. I’ve ordered phone service, but Taco Bell (aka TelMex) probably won’t show up for at least another week or two – I’m having to go across town to my office – which I normally have no reason to visit. Normally, I make about a half-month’s salary placing a student (I’m paid in dollars though paypal). After paying out fees, and the phone bills, I may have enough left over to… oh … buy a Coke?
The Real Mexico vs. Immanuel Kant
Another response to a Lonely Planet “Thorn Tree” posting, this one asking for people’s definition of the “Real Mexico”. One poster didn’t think Mexico City was part of it.
This is a great topic, and I’m using it with my writing classes here in Mexico City. I’ll be interested to see how “Real Mexicans” respond to this question.That is, if my students are “real”. According to one poster, Parisians are not real Frenchmen, nor Romans real Italians. Apparently the 20% of the Mexican population living here are not real Mexicans.What’s real anyway? I was tempted to start discussing Plato and Immanuel Kant, but the moment of madness passed. I once heard an advertising guy say “perception is reality” and that’s good enough. Everyone seems to perceive a different “real” Mexico. Europeans, especially, think Mexico is tropical and Mayan. North Americans tend to see a desert Mexico. For some older “Anglo” Texans, the Juarez whorehouses are the “real Mexico”. I see a culture that’s been dominated by urban people since the Olmecs. My neighbor straps a very real Mexican baby to her back with a very real rebozo. The baby, the rebozo and even the fake Donna Karin top my neighbor wears are the “real Mexico”. Mexico City is my “real Mexico”. Visitors to San Miguel Allende claim that city is the “real Mexico”, but I think it’s the best candidate for a “Mexican Theme Park.” Chiapas (traditionally part of Guatemala) or Oaxaca are the “real Mexico” to still others.In rural Coahuala, I once talked to a couple of teenage boys riding their burros. Are they the “real Mexicans” or does reality end at the video parlor, where the kids were headed? When some traditionalists use Coca-cola in their religious rituals, is it “the real thing”? If I buy Coca-cola at my neighborhood Mercado, is it more real than if I buy it at Oxxo?
“Real México” isn’t the burros, or the coca-cola… it’s the healing service itself, the kid hanging out with his compadres and bringing along his little brother (and having a friendly conversation with a foreigner). It’s the Sunday family dinner whether that means grandma cooks for two days, or the family goes to McDonald’s. Priapos on the Metro, the cynical political jokes, the casual attitude towards life and death (and the gruesome accident photos in provincial newspapers and the baroque crime reports in the “notas rojas”), street dances – traditional Danzon at Parque Morelos and rock-n-roll in a village Zocalo.
The classifieds section of any Mexican newspaper advertises the services of witch-doctors, proctologists, psychiatrists, prostitutes and transvestites. Try fitting that into Kant’s Categories of Understanding! The “Real Mexico” may not make perfect sense to outsiders, but it’s as real as it gets.
The Unbearable Whiteness of Being (in Mexico)
People from countries with an unhappy racist history (the U.S. and especially Germany) project their own preoccupations onto Mexico. Even the more “politically correct” guidebooks like “Lonely Planet” and “Rough Guide” speak of “blond Spaniards” supposedly controlling Mexico.
I’ve discussed this with my Mexican friends and students. Frankly, they are confused – while they are aware of ethnic differences between people, they honestly don’t recognize any sort of hierarchy among those differences, nor do those differences mean much beyond physical identification. It’s worth looking at “Missing Persons” or “Wanted” posters to understand what Mexicans consider identifying traits – build; eye, nose and mouth shape and size; skin tone; etc. It certainly isn’t ethnicity.
The guidebook – and others – confuse anyone with European features with the colonial Spanish rulers. Spaniards were expelled in 1829 (having the same disastrous economic effects that Uganda’s expulsion of East Indians had on that country). Most European immigration – French, Italian, Irish, German and “Spaniards” (mostly Basques or Cubans) – was in the later 19th century, the same as in most of the Americas. There were also sizable immigrant communities from the United States (especially Mormons) of mixed northern European ancestry.
The commentators on “race” point to the present cabinet’s “European” look as evidence that there is a “two-tiered” system (Europeans and everybody else). The “two-tiered” criticism is more applicable to Cuba (a black majority country with white rulers – ever take a look at their politburo?) than here. Mexicans find the comments incomprehensible. The President’s party was traditionally a Northern party (A lot of the 1910-24 Revolutionary leadership also came from this region). The North was relatively empty territory during the periods of European immigration, making it particularly attractive to immigrants. It’s natural that the Executive branch was heavily recruited from the region where it has the strongest roots and longest-serving activists.
The President’s party is a pro-business party. Non-party cabinet officials were recruited from the business elite. It’s only been two generations since Mexico, and Mexico City in particular, was flooded with a second wave of European immigrants – the refugees from Falangist Spain and the racist preoccupations of the Germans. These people often arrived with considerable technical or financial resources at a time when Mexico was rapidly industrializing. This accounts for part of the “European” character of Mexico’s industrial leadership.
Secondly, the Mexican Revolution was not “anti-foreign”, but did reject foreign economic control. “Spanish”, German, Italian, Irish and French manufacturers, workers and farmers generally sided with the Revolution, and those families who were wealthy before the Revolution generally preserved their position. Unfair as it may be, the only sure way to make a fortune anywhere is to inherit money. The only ethnic violence during the Revolution was Villa’s “pogrom” against Chinese railway workers (most fled either to the United States, or to Mexico City, where their descendants run the French bakeries). However, the Chinese workers were paid as U.S. skilled laborers under the pre-Revolutionary system: they were persecuted more for their special rights as foreign workers than for their ethnicity.
Our “soap opera blonds” (something that used to confuse me) have a simple explanation. Fantasy stories about the idle rich are popular in any culture. Soap operas are set in the wealthier neighborhoods of Mexico City, areas that do have a lot of descendants of Europeans. And, while Mexican governments have supported the arts, this is not a wealthy country – unless you’re got well-to-do relatives, you’re unlikely to take up an insecure profession like acting in the first place. I’d point out that I’ve seen blond, blue-eyed beggars and pelados, as well as ordinary working people – but no one writes TV shows about them.
“Anti-Indigenous” prejudice is another matter altogether. Traditionalists are, by definition, anti-modernists, and “Indio” is used in Mexico as a pejorative term for a “backwards” person. Historically, the “Indians” sided with reactionaries: the Conservatives against the Reforma, Maximilliano against the Republic and the Christeros against the Revolution. A classic example of traditionalism vs. modernity is the two leading “Indians” of the mid-19th century, Tomas Meija and Benito Juarez. Both were raised in traditional cultures, but learned Spanish, sought a broader education for themselves and were national figures. But where Meija, Maximilliano’s most loyal General, continued to identify himself as an “Indian Leader”, Juarez saw himself as a Mexican. His reputation as a nation-builder and modernizer rests on overcoming tradition. Juarez is, of course, THE National Hero; Meiji is a half-forgotten villain.
“Indian” is a lifestyle, not an ethnicity – a person speaking one of the 500 native languages, or who maintains cultural practices associated with these groups is probably “Indian” (even if his ancestry is more European than anything else – the” white Zapotecs” are descended from French deserters). The same person’s brother, who speaks Spanish, and/or follows modern cultural practices, may or may not be “Indian”. Contemporary movements and discussions of protecting (and fostering) “traditional values” – and those traditions are associated with certain ethnicities – has nothing to do with “race”. It’s useless to project the racial categories of Europe and the United States on Mexico. White, black, brown, yellow (or combinations thereof) are meaningless here.
George W. Bush… idiot of commie agent? You decide!
Tomorrow (29 August) we’re having another mega-march, so I shopped today. I bought some very fresh organic coffee (50 pesos the kilo — $2/lb.) from a Tuxpam, Puebla farm family, who are losing their collective shirts, in town for the “do” tomorrow. Looking through the beads and trinkets stalls fronting the National Palace was a well-heeled gringo tourist couple. They commented on “those Russian things” around the Indigenous artesana. I’m assuming they meant the gold hammer and sickles on the bright red banners. Scary! These better-traveled, well-heeled compatriots are likely (Bush) voters. Those “noble red men” need every peso quaint customs and colorful handicrafts bring in. Oh well… if the touristas translated “Frente marxista-leninista”, they might sue. Who?It’s the fashion among conservatives to mount dubious legal challenges to their opponents. Bill Clinton (a right-winger everywhere except the U.S.) lied about a fat girlfriend – grounds for impeachment. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (a devout Roman Catholic, not a Marxist) had the temerity to not only beat back an attempted U.S. sponsored coup d’etat, but also to spent Venezuelan oil revenues on frivolous sops for the voters like… schools and hospitals. Grounds for a recall. One of those “think tank” guys (who work hard daily to come up with plausible-sounding rationales for screwing the rest of us), said Chavez cheated by “pandering” to the voters (as opposed to, say, Ronald Reagan offering us middle-class folks tax cuts).Here in Mexico, the conservatives are trying to unseat our Jefe de Gobernación, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Cynical left-wing types say it’s because neither of the two big parties (Fox’s PAN and the PRI) have any possible candidates for the 2006 Presidential election with even half the support AMLO does. There’s no Monica Lewinsky – in Mexico sex scandals are only interesting when they involve bishops. AMLO (a recent widower and model of middle-class propriety) is unfit for public office because he didn’t open his mail.
Several years ago, the city expropriated an access road to the emergency room of a pricey private hospital in a wealthy neighborhood. Four or five different families claim the other guys all have forged deeds, and the wrong people were compensated. Once AMLO became a threat to the Foxistas, the fun began – one claimant (coincidentally, a PAN activist) mailed a court order to the Jefe de Gobernacíon. Not responding is a good enough reason for Congress to unseat the Jefe – making him ineligible to ever hold Federal office. Despite Marta Fox’s little financial irregularities (diverting money from the National Lottery to a “charity” she runs, which spend more on overhead that it collects), El Prez is a stickler for the law. He ordered PAN congressmen to vote against AMLO.
AMLO’s party (PRD) is the smallest of the three major parties. Fox is hoping the PRI is more afraid of AMLO than they are of the conservatives. Fat chance. PRI and PAN both want to kill off AMLO (at least politically), but they see each other as the biggest danger to their survival. Every time Fox courts the PRI, his own party or the PRI splits into more factions – and AMLO becomes more credible. After Fox’s speech, the PRD, a good part of PRI and even some of PAN said el Presidente was thwarting democracy, so it’s time to go to the streets. The mega-march will be pure theater, but very smart theater.
Folks are starting to wonder how bright Fox is – it took the guy a year to realize George Bush II knows (or cares) nothing about Mexico or Latin-America in general.
Did the moron in the White House really call those terrorists released by Panama “freedom fighters”? Well, just because Interpol and a half-dozen countries say so, maybe “terrorist” is a tad harsh. All they did was blow up a civilian airliner and murder a few dozen other folks. Only two were American citizens (blown up in Washington, DC – their own fault for riding in the same car as a Chilean exile). Any attempted murders only involved extraneous foreigners anyway – Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Geeze, how many Nobel Prize Winning Novelists does the world need anyway? The Pope? He’s old… and Polish, so that’s not such a big deal. And besides, those would have only been “collateral damage”. The big enchilada was Fidel Castro. Hey, planning to bump off the bearded one should have got these guys a free dinner in Miami, not life in a Panamanian prison. Right? But the mistake could be corrected … never mind that Panama only allows Presidential pardons for political crimes. These guys needed a Presidential pardon – now!
Those pesky Panamanians swear in a lefty Pres next week. Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panamá. Another Latin American country freely elects a left-wing leader. Hmm… I smell a plot. Fidel wants a leftist Latin America; the Bush family got rich the old fashioned way – kissing the butts of dictators and various baddies (Prescott Senior laundered money for Adolph Hitler, George I and Prescott Jr. have business ties to the Chinese Communist Party – and Saddam Hussein and the King of Saudi Arabia – as does George II, who also was in business with an obscure Saudi construction magnate named Osama bin Ladin). So Fidel, on behalf of dictators and baddies everywhere, cleared out the mental wards and prisons of Cuba, sending the cracked, the crazed and the criminal by the boatload to Florida back during the Carter Administration. The crazies helped elect Jeb Bush as Governor; Jeb did everything possible to disenfranchise anti-conservatives, and to swing his state’s presidential votes to big brother George W. in 2000. The un-elected President of the United States, in return, has done everything in his power to give capitalism and corporatism a really, really bad name. Pro-U.S., or pro-corporate Latin American leader look like fools. Fidel’s interest is a leftist Latin America: the conservatives are voted out and the people opt for the left. The Bush family’s interest is the Bush family. A win-win for both Fidel and George II.
Makes sense to me… but then I live in Latin America, where politics is simple and straightforward.
Although the guy was stupid, boring and glum, I have to admit I used to sometimes enjoy the Thorn Tree Mexico website’s regular poster, “Bill Masterson”. He was (and I assume still is) a bit reality challenged, regularly posting false and misleading information about the dangers of life here. After a perfectly nice woman poster mentioned she was scared off of her original plan to pursue social work in Mexico City, I responded to “Bill” in a couple of posts that are combined below.
Much of what is perceived as the truth about crime in Mexico City is based on old, and biased, sources – dating back to the Cuauhtémoc Cardenas’ (or earlier) administrations. While I don’t buy into Latin American political paranoia, it’s worth noting that the PRI and Fox’s PAN (not to mention the first Bush administration) had an interest in discrediting Cardenas and his populist PRD supporters who now control the Federal District. Cardenas, not Fox, broke the PRI, and he was a strong anti-NAFTA, anti-US presidential contender throughout the 1990s.
Of course there were problems in the 90s. Cardenas was also the first ELECTED leader of the Federal District. The Federal District hadn’t recovered from the 1985 earthquake, when the peso collapsed. The unemployed, destitute and desperate were pouring into the District … all while a local government and administration were being developed. The city was a mess. With a expanding population, overcrowded housing, and not enough resources to meet basic needs, crime prevention was not the top of the city’s agenda at the time. Polls showed increasing CONCERN with crime, but … wonder of wonders … the statistics were unreliable.
Telephone polls in a country with extremely high phone rates are biased towards the concerns of the telephone-owning minority: rich people. FEAR OF CRIME – not crime itself is up. Wealthier people, and people in general here have started taking the same precautions they do in other metropolitan areas (better locks, not carrying large amounts of cash, car alarms, etc.), and crimes are more widely reported, but the crime rate itself is dropping.
The Mexican media isn’t shy about their political biases, so I generally get my news from several competing sources. Even those media sources with an interest in making the city look as bad as possible don’t claim crime is worse. The week I wrote this, we had a mass murder, but given the size of the city, you expect at least one now and again. A few gangsters rubbed each other out, a ruta driver was shot, there was a bank robbery and a French tourist threatened to jump off a roof. Given a population of around 15,000,000 that sounds like a normal week to me.
A typical violent crimes here is what happened to my neighbor– he had a gun pulled on him while taking his taco stand’s cash receipts to the bank. That isn’t likely to happen to a tourist, since it’s the residents who deal in cash and follow regular routines that are victimized. The other worrisome violent crime is kidnapping. Again, the victims are people known to have access to cash. This did happen to a foreign friend of mine, but he is a long-established resident of the city, with well-known business connections (and Latin American). Foreign business executives may face a higher risk (but not as high as in Russia, at least according to insurance underwriters) as do diplomats (for political reasons), but tourists simply aren’t important enough to kidnap.When it comes to crime, the anti-Mexicans always preface their remarks: “there are no reliable statistics”. Then launch into outdated material and anecdotal evidence. Whether the phone-owning minority was worried about crime in the 1990s says nothing about conditions now.
I certainly don’t expect ANY statistics from anywhere to be perfect. It’s an imperfect world. Imperfect statistics are better than nothing. And if they’re gathered in the same imperfect way year after year, they’re as reliable as anything else:
JUVENILE OFFENSES: Changes in the law meant more minor juveniles offenses (graffiti painting, for example) are taken to court. The Mexican baby boomers are adults now, and it’s only natural that the number of juveniles prosecuted for serious crimes would drop. But the number of prosecutions for serious crimes has dropped faster than the drop in the juvenile population. Unreliable and incomplete statistics? Maybe – but still indicating that these crimes are down.
HOMICIDE: Using the number of autopsies performed on suspected homicide victims (the standards for requiring an autopsy have been expanded recently to include home accidents and unexplained deaths). My information comes from the Medical Examiner’s budget request. Doing more autopsies, the Medical Examiner’s office obviously wants more money. But, they are finding less and less homicides. Homicides in 2003 were the same number as in 2002, but that included a rare multiple homicide and a spate of mafia rub-outs.
AUTO THEFTS: with mandatory auto insurance, auto theft is fairly well reported. Next to muggings, this is the most common crime, but the number of thefts hasn’t risen very much. However, the number of automobiles in Mexico City has just about doubled. Incidentally, it’s older cars without alarms (VW sedans and Tsurus) in poor neighborhoods that make up the bulk of auto thefts. And very few tourists are driving their own cars in Mexico City. My statistical data is from the Automobile Association’s presentation to the City government, requesting more resources to combat auto theft.
Of course there’s crime: the Federal District has a population of 12 to 15 million, with nearly that number living in the greater Metropolitan area. The best estimates are that 40% of the adult population is underemployed or unemployed. And of course crime is under-reported. Mexicans often prefer to settle their difficulties in private, so crimes are often written off to experience, or simply not reported. People who came of age during the domestic repression of the 1960s and 70s fear the police, and overall only 16% of Mexico City residents are said to trust the cops.
Crimes Against Foreigners
I live here (in a neighborhood outsiders perceive as “dangerous”), travel throughout the city by public transportation (transferring buses a couple of nights a week in an area even the residents consider “iffy”), and — having worked on and off as a journalist for 25 years — assiduously follow the news.Injured (or dead) foreigners are big news, and I don’t remember the last time that happened here. The only police matter involving a foreigner in last week’s papers an attempted suicide. And this in spite of more and simpler crime reporting procedures, including those recommended by foreign embassies.
A violent confrontation, like one a tourist friend recently wrote about (a disturbed man tried to steal her camera, and threatened her husband), that end without serious consequences, wouldn’t make the news, of course – here, or anywhere outside a city the size of Des Moines, Iowa. Public intoxication (alcohol or other drugs) is not much tolerated by Mexicans themselves. Addled addicts – not tolerated at home – tend to congregate where they are accepted: in tourist areas and in the slums. The husband and wife tourists were in an area meeting both criteria – their experience was arguably more likely to happen in Mexico City than in Des Moines, but not unheard of even there. Even in high-crime areas (Tepito is the obvious one) where a lot of foreigners visit, they are LESS LIKELY to be assaulted than Mexicans (with one exception – Korean and Arab immigrant merchants complain that they are a special target of thieves.
This has as much to do with their relative business success than anything else). People I know who have been assaulted in Tepito were carrying high-priced, easy to sell items. Not many tourists are walking around with stereos and televisions. And, if I remember correctly, it was a camera the junkie tried to steal. Tourists are more likely to carry cameras, so camera thefts are more likely to happen to tourists.
The Zona Rosa is something of a “high-crime area” likely to be visited by tourists, but with so many nightclubs (and drug dealers), foreign victims are likely to be drunk or stoned. In any large city, the drunk and stoned, or the dazed and distracted (something that tourists sometimes experience in spite of themselves) are at risk. One crime that is more common against foreigners is the latest police shake-down. Auxiliary Policemen have threatened to arrest and jail gay men for supposedly consorting with prostitutes. Since neither homosexuality nor prostitution are crimes, one can either pay a 200 peso bribe or complain very loudly and insistently, demanding to see both the police supervisor and one’s consular officer. In any case, the incident should be reported to one’s consulate.
Rapes, murders, kidnappings, assaults, robberies – we have it all! It’s hardly, as the guy who got me thinking about crime likes to say – “absurd” to tell visitors they face the same risks they face in any large city – and a few less. But, unless there’s so vast conspiracy involving the Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, the Federal District government (political enemies of the SRE), the squabbling foreign embassies and several million tourists, there isn’t a lot of serious crime against foreigners.
The city is safer than most North American cities (not safe, but nothing in life is), especially for foreign visitors. Guns aren’t as readily available as in the United States, for example: robbers are more likely to grab and run than to shoot. Elderly and handicapped people, who face more risks in any society, are the objects of special consideration in Mexico. Cabbies, doormen, waiters and complete strangers will take pains to assure their safety. But, foreigners, like the elderly and the handicapped, are more likely to be victimized. One takes the normal precautions one takes in any large, foreign city (and even some of the published precautions seem designed for the extremely timid – I think it is safe to walk almost anywhere at night).
I ride the buses and subways at night, have taken illegal taxis without undue stress, and even lived in Tepito for a short time – not something I recommend, but I lived to tell the tale. We have our share of purse snatchers, the mentally ill and the plain vicious. And more than our share of the destitute. But that’s just a hazard of travel in any country, especially in a poor one. Porfirio Diaz used to joke his police state was so safe that a blonde could walk unmolested from El Paso to the Guatemalan border… in her underwear. If safety is the overriding concern, then visit a police state – but even the People’s Republic of China is going to have it’s odd criminal or two… million per…
A foreign country, that had been left a monarchy by the departing colonial power, has fallen into the power of a dictator … who incidentally, is known to have massacred civilians in a rebellious province. That province, populated by a religious and linguistic minority, has been protected by the United States. The dictatorship’s people and religion are alien to the United States, and the media has been full of stories on the looming threat these people and their co-religionists pose to our way of life.
The dictatorship is particularly rich in resources the United States needs to expand it’s economy. The president, and his advisors, have personal interests in this resource.
The dictatorship has a huge army, but not a sophisticated one. The people are said to be clamoring for a democracy, but are either in fear of the dictator, or indifferent to his regime.
Fear of the dictatorship’s co-religionists (already blamed for some terrorist acts in the US), the desire to protect the minority rebels, and the desire to foster democracy in the region (as well as an understanding that the dictatorship’s resources will help the US economy — and the president’s interests in particular) have led to a troop build-up and rising tensions.
And, so … in November 1846, President Polk sent the troops into Mexico. It’s not an exact parallel (Santa Ana happened to be in disgrace at the time), expanding slavery isn’t exactly the same as controlling oil and anti-Catholicism might not be completely the same as anti-Islamic fervor, but there’s enough similarities between Polk and Bush’s wars to worry about the eventual outcome.
US troops had little opposition initially, and the Mexican army was as bad as the planners thought. But, they did fight back, and bogged the army down enough that we had to open a second front (and how about this for a parallel — we had to come in through Veracruz, the second largest city and the main seaport). The second front invasion required heavy bombardment and high civilian casualties. What Winifield Scott hadn’t anticipated was the civilian resistance to the invasion. Shocked and awed Veracruzanos refused to give any aid or assistance to the occupying army, and turned to assassinations and guerrilla warfare. The army stuck in the north faced heavier resistance than planned — the Mexicans bottled up Zachary Taylor at Buena Vista, and there was organized guerrilla warfare there as well.
Mentioning that the war was for the economic interests of the President was considered disloyal and un-American to say the least. An Illinois congressman who was gauche enough to say this, was targeted by the President’s party and overwhelmingly defeated in the next election. And who remembers Congressman Abraham Lincoln? I saw on the news where a Moslem GI got so sick of the anti-Islamic propaganda that he threw a grenade at our guys. In Mexico, it was anti-Catholicism. It was pretty stupid, since so many soldiers were Irish immigrants, fleeing British religious persecution and economic hardship. The US Army still doesn’t like to be reminded that almost a quarter of the US Army deserted in Mexico. The Irish soldiers who joined the Mexican Army were the best soldiers on either side — sort of the Republican Guard of their time. Just as an aside, I’d add that President Polk was a realist: he was a virulent anti-Catholic (as was most of Congress) but paid two priests to accompany the army out of the White House entertainment budget. The two officers with the lowest Irish desertion rate were two recent West Point graduates who didn’t allow religious prejudices in their units — Lts. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant).
There wasn’t CNN in the 1840s, but the US press was as controlled by the Army as it is now (and considered by anyone outside the US as completely unreliable). The desertions and resistance were covered as Catholic fanaticism or as an unexpected setback. People who despised Santa Ana — Mexico City intellectuals, rural doctors, schoolteachers and priests — organized resistance groups, just as anti-Saddam Muslims are organizing anti-US groups all over the Middle East.
Honestly, I don’t know why anyone was surprised then — or now — that people resist when their country is invaded.
The United States, as expected, won the war eventually (after taking casualties far above expectations — ask any Marine why their uniform has a red stripe, and he’ll tell you about the army cadets who managed to wound or kill every Marine officer during the final defense of Mexico City). A new government was installed who signed the treaties giving the United States the access to resources that it wanted.
So, what happened next, or what’s going to happen after we “liberate” Iraq?
- Instability after the fall of the old regime led to civil unrest, and civil war in Mexico. U.S. business interests were damaged or destroyed, and the Mexican economic situation caused serious problems for the US.
- Fights over control of the resources in the US also led to a civil war.
- The United States government was never again trusted by any Latin American government. We have never since been viewed as potential liberators, or harbingers of democracy, but as a potential neo-colonialist threat.
- Tribal warfare had been contained by Santa Ana, basically by leaving the desert tribes alone. After the war, both the US and Mexico had 50 years of Indian warfare — Gerenimo had a lot in common with Osana bin Ladin.
And … if you have any interest in morals, Ulysses S. Grant called the invasion the “worst injustice one nation has ever done to another.” Or, if you want to go a little further (and don’t mind the “Homeland Security Gestapo” beating down your door and dragging you off to Guantanamo — our gulag by the sea), you can always refuse to pay your taxes, like that cranky Massachusetts writer, Henry David Thoreau. As he said in On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, “when … a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign armny, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact, that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.”
The Mexicans aren’t mad at the US government (no more than usual) this week. But they are really, really, really pissed at the British. Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Mexico may have to say “pip, pip cheerio” to the Merrie Olde Estados Unidos de….
A half dozen British “tourists” were trapped in a cave in Puebla.
Now, everyone knows mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. So, Limeys coming to Mexico to go somewhere dark and damp should have been a clue. The Mexican Army rescue squad showed up, only to be met by a British “Volunteer Cave Rescue Squad” and a BBC camera crew. Being British, they said in their superior way “no thenk you, we’ll do it ourselves”.
Up came the trapped explorers – marching as if they’d just been plunked off the beaches of Dunkirk. Marching? Yup. The “tourists”, the “volunteers” and the “BBC camera crew” neglected to mention they were active duty British soldiers.
What were they up to down there? Looking for uranium deposits is the popular guess. The Brits have a few centuries of experience seeking out (i.e. stealing) potentially profitable botanical samples from Latin America, which is another plausible explanation. Maybe there is a missing photo of the late Queen Mum cavorting on the nude beaches at Puerto Escondito somewhere in Mexico.
The cave-men, rescuers and BBC crew – lacking the proper visa for scientific expeditions – were tossed 
in the undesirable alien holding pen, where they were subjected to the unspeakable torture of fresh vegetables and real salsa, put on a bus, driven onto the runway and put on a British Airways direct flight to London – something Mexican TV (but, for some reason not the BBC) covered live. Her Majesty should give the lot of them a good spanking… oh, wait a minute… they’re British. They like that sort of thing.
I’m guessing “M” had one too many pints at Ye Olde Cloake and Dagger Pub and concocted a training exercise without consulting the experts. John Steed and Emma Peele were on a long drive in the country, George Smiley has retired and James Bond is reportedly shaken, but not stirred by the whole event.
(Mexican secret agent 006.5)
We don’t need no stinkin’ Patriot Act
I moved to Mexico just after the Bush “selection”. I’ve been back once (2 years ago, at Christmas) and was appalled. From what I’ve been reading on the internet and watching on cable TV, I’m reluctant to go back again. I’ve been updating my residency permit here, and have started thinking…
MEXICO:
- When the left-leaning presidental candidate appeared to be winning, there were vote-counting problems, and irregularities in one of the states along the Gulf. After considerable political back-and-forth, and some mysterious – and never-explained – computer problems, the candidate who was behind emerged as the front runner. Although Carlos Salinas de Goutari, not Cuauhtémoc Cardenas, became President of Mexico in 1988, his legitimacy was always dubious. In response, Mexico changed its entire electoral system.In a country where some voter districts lack electricity (and are inaccessable to cellular phones), and at a time when computers were less sophisticated, AND where voter fraud is a long and hallowed tradition, Mexico built a sophisticated, nearly fraud-proof hardware/software system. Digital fingerprint and photo id checking is done in real-time; the voters’ thumbs are specially inked – every polling station includes special black lights; ballots are printed on hard to counterfeit security paper; ballot boxes are transparent to preclude box-stuffing; special pencils are used… but it all comes down to “X” on a piece of paper.While I was editing this piece (August, 2004), Mexican elections officials were huddled with Iraqis somewhere here in Mexico City, working out the plans for the Iraqi elections. Mexico is not a wealthy country, but it provides a limited amount of foreign aid, through the United Nations. Its contribution? Setting up electoral systems – in 32 countries to date.
GRINGOLANDIA:
- Following a shady election and more than a few irregularities in Florida, we’re likely to “re-elect” an illegitimate president – using software developed by the same folks who are suspected of throwing the last election – and eliminating any paper trail.
MEXICO:
- When you live in Mexico, you’re expected to buy “native handicrafts” for Christmas gifts. I picked up this year’s haul of beads, trinkets and cute little toy burros in front of the Palacio Nacional. There’s been a tent there selling native handicrafts, along with propaganda for the “Partido Communista de Mexico (Marxista-Leninista)” for several months now. Not that anyone minds. Why should they? The square in front of the Palacio (el Zocalo) has been Mexico City’s premiere “free-speech zone” since, oh… the Aztecs first showed up in 1325. Spurred on by the dozen plus mainstream papers – socialist, anti-socialist, anarcho-syndicalist, clerical, anti-clerical, pro business and anti-capitalist – somebody’s usually protesting… something. Oh, people sometimes get annoyed (especially during rush hour on Friday evening, during rainy season, when it’s hard to catch a bus with a few thousand naked campesinos blocking traffic), but the only real limitations on protests is that you can’t ride your horses into the Chamber of Deputies anymore. After a farmers’ organization did just that last year, Congress finally got around to authorizing the funds for a security fence.
GRINGOLANDIA:
- Our corporate-controlled press and corporate-controlled political parties ignore any suggestion that other world-views or visions are anything but “evil”. They forget what Abraham Lincoln said:I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.The Secret Service has forced even the mildest dissident to stay out of ear (and camera) shot of the illegitimate President, at times attacking – or prosecuting – those who refuse to acquiese (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/04/INGPQ40MB81.DTL)
MEXICO:
- State Secrets don’t exist any more. Under the new “Ley de transparencia”, everything the government does is public record. Federal budget cuts may delay getting some of this information on the web, and there is some reluctance in some states to provide this information (and some of the more creative bureaucrats have come up with new and improved ways of hiding budget line items) but here in Mexico City, a dozen new offices are opening just to provide information.By the way, the cuts hit the President’s salary along with everything else, including the military budget (and the Mexican military budget has been cut every year since 1942 – this is the only country in the world that reduced military spending during wartime, and whose army turns a profit – the soldiers and sailors bank turns a tidy profit in the home loan business, and there are those avocado sales: one of the army’s missions is to guard water resources, and planting avocados is a military objective). Education and social services – as ever – accounts for most of the federal budget.
GRINGOLANDIA:
- Public information just isn’t available any more. The “Freedom of Information Act” is all but forgotten – some obscure factoid, like the number of people killed by tire blowouts, might possibly, somehow, in some way benefit “terrorists”. Or consumers. And, you can’t have that in a corporate capitalist society, now can you? Worse yet, you might find out what the military budget is. How much is being spent just in Iraq – 87,000,000,000,000 dollars for starts?
MEXICO:
- Pushed by the religious right and conservatives, there will probably be an important consitutional change this year – outlawing the death penalty. The Socialist-controlled Mexico City Legislature goes back and forth about recognizing gay partnerships, though equality before the law regardless of sexual orientation is recognized in the Federal Consititution. The Civil Rights Commission (a judicial body) may finally get its own prosecutors this year.
GRINGOLANDIA:
- The religious right is pushing a constitutional amendment – designed to cut off any possiblity of gays and lesbians ever enjoying equal rights under the law. I haven’t heard a peep out of our Civil Rights Commission. Does it still function? I don’t hear – or read – anything about it now.
MEXICO:
- People worry arout crime (though statistically, the crime rate is dropping), but they worry almost as much about police abuse. What they don’t worry about are foreigners – and terrorists. There are concerns about SOME illegal aliens: mostly Guatemalans working at shamefully low wages for some agricultural concerns here or likely to be abused by gangsters (most of whom are ex-soldiers from El Salvador). Belizians and Columbians sometimes find themselves accused of drug dealing (and sometimes ARE drug dealing), but that’s about it. Undocumented aliens from just about everywhere – including the United States – are all over the Republic, causing… not a stir. As long as people pay their taxes, stay out of trouble and don’t take jobs from unemployed citizens (like the Guatamalan workers), Mexicans just don’t see much terrorist potential in gringo schoolteachers, Russian cooks, Ecuadorian vendors or Argentinian models. While no foreigner can take part in political activities, even “illegal aliens” are guaranteed civil rights under the Mexican Constitution.
GRINGOLANDIA:
- Police abuse is encouraged. When it comes to dissent, the more the merrier. The Attorney General wants more executions, not less. We even execute foreigners, in violation of several international treaties. At least the executions we know about — who knows what goes on in Guantanamo?. Foreigners (and citizens too, it seems) can be arrested and convicted without trial or judicial oversite. Every foreigner – even French tourists, it appears – is a potential “terrorist”.Mexican and other foreign workers are paid below minimum wage throughout the United States. They receive no benefits and face deportation if they require medical or other assistance. Bush says maybe, possibly there will be “immigration reform”. He’s reneged on so many promises in the past, I don’t see any reason to believe this will come to pass
MEXICO:
- The country is not at war with anyone… and hasn’t been since 1945. There are foreign relations problems – mostly economic – with the United States and China. There is one unresolved foreign relations issue from the past — no, not Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, etc… — who pays the Montezuma family’s pension? The Mexicans took over the payments at independence, but dumped them on Francisco Franco back in the 30s.
GRINGOLANDIA:
- We started an unjustified – and unjustifiable – war against Iraq, a semi-justifiable one against Afghanistan, and are on bad terms with … everyone. What is it with the Bush family – are they genetic anti-Catholics? Bush I managed to violate Vatican neutrality during the Panamanian invasion. Bush II has been openly contemptuous of the Pope, his diplomats and the ethical values of a few 100 million believers. And we haven’t even started talking about the Muslims, the Buddists, the Protestants, the Hindus, the atheists, etc., etc., etc.And that war – those wars – are only the beginning of our problems. Our corporations (or those Bahamians claiming to be U.S. corporations) are driving the rest of the world into worse and worse economic condition. Our subsidized agricuture is driving 600 Mexican farmers off the land every day (creating more and more “illegal aliens” for the Bushistas to abuse).We ignore our debts. And our obligations. What are a 1000 heirs to Montezuma compared to the millions of dead African and Brazilian children promised U.S. funding of AIDS programs (never delivered, or even submitted to Congress)? Why should the debts run up by the Iraqui dictatorship (with United States government support) be forgiven, but those run up by Brazilian and Argentine dictatorships (with the same support) not? Is it because Brazilians and Argentinians overthrew their own dictators, and made themselves democratic nations without any consultants from Halliburton?
C’mon, folks – I’m a Texas resident, and I expect any vote I cast against these dolts will be stolen anyway. Give me a few good reasons to come home again!
Spiderman and San Ramon Nonato … Christmas and gossip
Two signs of winter: dogs in clothes and changing exchange rates. Other than poodles and german shepherds (and not even then), you can’t always tell family pets from free spirits. They’re all happy and dirty, laying out on the street or scrounging around the market. But, when the weather turns cold (and it has), everyone in the family puts on a coat – including Fido. Coatless dogs are homeless dogs. The dog at the local gas station sports his own Pemex uniform jacket, though I think “Manuel” is his person – dogs usually don’t get people names here. And the dollar drops. Zacatecas used to be the richest place in the western hemisphere (well worth a visit), but the silver mines gave out in the 19th century, and the only crops are goats and cactus. Even in good-sized Zacatecan towns, you don’t see any adult men most of the year. An awful lot of them come home for Christmas, but, if they can’t, they find Bank of America or Western Union. A banker told me his biggest headache is finding extra people and cash for rural banks this time of year. Every Mexican “on the other side” (with or without papers) also sends money home. Billions of dollars pout into Mexico, and you know the story … the supply increases more than the demand . The dollar plunged from 11 pesos to around 10.25. The big debtors buy cheap dollars, pay off foreign debts, the dollar goes back up, and it’s back to normal instability. Ah, Christmas! My traditionally cheesy pirata Christmas CD lacks Elvis’ “Blue Christmas”, but it has Alvin and the Chipmunks singing “Jingle Bells” in Spanglish. The church across the street has an extravagantly lit work in progress now featuring: Maria, Jose, el Niño, shepherds, sheep, goats, 8 tiny reindeer (nowhere do I recall it ever says exactly what critters composed those flocks watched by night), chickens, ducks, turkeys, burros, campesinos, cacti, Aztecs, Mayans, Melichor, Balthazar, Abindingo, camels, elephants, horses, Bambi and Thumper. No Spiderman — yet. Speaking of impressive displays, go to the cathedral and check out all the padlocks offered to San Ramon Nonato — not to be confused with Ramon Novarro. They’re both known for silent roles. Novarro was a Mexican-born 20s film star; San Ramon a 13th century Spanish preacher who annoyed the Moors. Being heathens and all they sewed his lips shut. The favorite activity of your traditionally dysfunctional Mexican family – especially at this time of fellowship and good cheer — is calumniating and bearing false witness against their nearest and dearest. Mexicans love gossip. You need a saint who tells people to shut up. The calumniators should lock their lips, so the caluminatees leave San Ramon the locks. Looks like there’s a whole lotta calumniating going on. History is gossip that doesn’t get back to Aunt Consuela … who might put a divine “lip lock” on ya! So, better to talk about, oh… Joel Roberts Poinsett, our first master spy. Who knows what he was up to in Kygyzia during George Washington’s administration? GW, unlike GWB, was intelligent and far-sighted –he knew where the future trouble spots were. Our first Ambassador to Mexico channeled secret state department funds to a Masonic lodge — a front to recruit agents and influence domestic policy. When his cover was blown, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams “disavowed any knowledge”. Poinsett packed a few “flor de nochebuena” cuttings in his luggage and fled north. I’d say more about poinsettias, but my lips are sealed.
mexfiles.net 
