My country, let me show you my pride for it
Most of you are probably aware that it's been a difficult time for my country, either because we have made it in the news in a lot of places or because you have seen my gripe and be afraid and mope about the current violent situation we're living with.
In any case, in light of the current situation, I have come to really appreciate my country, a sort of nationalism I had never felt before, that I'm sure not all of my fellow Mexicans share, but that has given me a renewed desire to stay put and work with my people to better our lives.
People have very short memories. We easily forget times that were worse in order to gripe about the current woes. We forget how far we have come and instead we slur against our governments -which aren't perfect, but we allow them to stay in office and pay their salaries. We've had shit times, and then we have had shit times, and time and time again we forget we overcame them. So we gripe. And yet, there's little action coming from the complaining. Little understanding of our national history, not enough pride at our accomplishments. Our social security, that as bad as it might be at times, means all of us have it. Our retirement plans, that will never allow a middle class worker to retire into opulence but doesn't mean that we don't have them. The government programs for housing, meaning with a less than 500 dollars a month I can own a house in 10 to 15 years. Public education from kinder garden to College means anyone can enroll and have a good education, with our national greatest house of studies and center of research, the UNAM, being a public university that charges you around 1 peso a semester. With the current 1 dollar-14.30 pesos exchange, that's less than 7 cents. Which means once I'm done with my education I have no reason to be under crushing debt. Sure, State universities aren't quite as cheap as the UNAM, so you pay about a hundred dollars a semester in my State U. If one of your parents has state health care, the children have coverage until they turn 23, and the coverage can be extended to spouse and elderly parents. Out of all the countries in Latin America, Mexico is the biggest economic supporter of efforts of peace in the continent. So, you know, maybe we could be doing a lot worse. Sure, we're a developing economy, a social force that hasn't matured yet, with a flawed and super expensive democratic system that still botches from time to time, but we still have time. We aren't doing that bad of a job out of it. I think all countries have set backs. All humans can be corrupted, all countries have organized crime. Mexico is just not that private about our problems, we have an historical custom called malinchismo, seeing how green everybody's yard is and never turning to look at our own. But our yard? It's resilient to plague and fertile and awesome. Not perfect, but definitely awesome.
What was it, last month? US government officials said we were a failed state, because we're dealing with a war on drugs that won't see an easy end anytime soon. They have rectified and apologized and go wishy washy 'that's not what I meant'. But let me show you our 'failed' state. We're not going to let a waging war stop us. Over 5000 soldiers were sent to reinforce the forces here at my state -currently the most violent of the country, with over 2400 drug traffic-related deaths in the past 15 months-, so that's on top of the soldiers that were already here, the special forces, the state police, the federal police and the municipal police. We have about 4 or 5 drug-related assassinations any given day, with bad days going up to 20 or so. We're not just lala-dancing here. We're fighting. And it's hard and it's scary because it's a war waged inside the cities and the towns where we live, but we're not giving in, either.
It's all about money. The war is acute here because it's not just the State trying to stop drug cartels, but because two warring cartels are fighting over the territory. We're a profitable gate towards international drug dealing -which, in all honesty, will never stop as long as there is a demand of drugs. It's not just our problem, here. So, we feel a tiny bit insulted when measures to protect the US border meant sending 116 more agents. We're a failed state, but while the last drug ring operation in the US took 2 years to concrete and swept 78 people involved with it, we've detained 20,000 people in the past 5 years. And let's not be simplistic and go for the notion that there's just more people involved in drug traffic here than there. Once they are across the border they don't just sit there waiting for customers. With so many people involved, our justice system can't keep up with it. It's just wayyyy too much money and danger for humans to stay uncorrupted and devoted to justice. To think otherwise is completely unrealistic.
So either drugs are magically disappearing once they cross the border, or a lot of someones are turning a blind eye to it on both sides. I don't think it takes living in a border city like Tijuana-San Isidro or Cd. Juarez-El Paso or any other number of border bi-national urban centers to understand there isn't a single problem that isn't shared by both parts of the city to some extent. To think you can contain the violence to our side might sound very nice and clean on paper, but that just means you are not living in the border. It's not a matter of our violence spilling into their country. It's that we, as in both of us, have a problem. We are selling them drugs, they are buying us drugs. They are selling us armament, we are buying them armament. BOTH OF US HAVE A PROBLEM. Nothing of that nonsense about Mexican violence or Mexico's war on drugs or how we're a failed state or any of that shit. We have a war.
In any case, in light of the current situation, I have come to really appreciate my country, a sort of nationalism I had never felt before, that I'm sure not all of my fellow Mexicans share, but that has given me a renewed desire to stay put and work with my people to better our lives.
People have very short memories. We easily forget times that were worse in order to gripe about the current woes. We forget how far we have come and instead we slur against our governments -which aren't perfect, but we allow them to stay in office and pay their salaries. We've had shit times, and then we have had shit times, and time and time again we forget we overcame them. So we gripe. And yet, there's little action coming from the complaining. Little understanding of our national history, not enough pride at our accomplishments. Our social security, that as bad as it might be at times, means all of us have it. Our retirement plans, that will never allow a middle class worker to retire into opulence but doesn't mean that we don't have them. The government programs for housing, meaning with a less than 500 dollars a month I can own a house in 10 to 15 years. Public education from kinder garden to College means anyone can enroll and have a good education, with our national greatest house of studies and center of research, the UNAM, being a public university that charges you around 1 peso a semester. With the current 1 dollar-14.30 pesos exchange, that's less than 7 cents. Which means once I'm done with my education I have no reason to be under crushing debt. Sure, State universities aren't quite as cheap as the UNAM, so you pay about a hundred dollars a semester in my State U. If one of your parents has state health care, the children have coverage until they turn 23, and the coverage can be extended to spouse and elderly parents. Out of all the countries in Latin America, Mexico is the biggest economic supporter of efforts of peace in the continent. So, you know, maybe we could be doing a lot worse. Sure, we're a developing economy, a social force that hasn't matured yet, with a flawed and super expensive democratic system that still botches from time to time, but we still have time. We aren't doing that bad of a job out of it. I think all countries have set backs. All humans can be corrupted, all countries have organized crime. Mexico is just not that private about our problems, we have an historical custom called malinchismo, seeing how green everybody's yard is and never turning to look at our own. But our yard? It's resilient to plague and fertile and awesome. Not perfect, but definitely awesome.
What was it, last month? US government officials said we were a failed state, because we're dealing with a war on drugs that won't see an easy end anytime soon. They have rectified and apologized and go wishy washy 'that's not what I meant'. But let me show you our 'failed' state. We're not going to let a waging war stop us. Over 5000 soldiers were sent to reinforce the forces here at my state -currently the most violent of the country, with over 2400 drug traffic-related deaths in the past 15 months-, so that's on top of the soldiers that were already here, the special forces, the state police, the federal police and the municipal police. We have about 4 or 5 drug-related assassinations any given day, with bad days going up to 20 or so. We're not just lala-dancing here. We're fighting. And it's hard and it's scary because it's a war waged inside the cities and the towns where we live, but we're not giving in, either.
It's all about money. The war is acute here because it's not just the State trying to stop drug cartels, but because two warring cartels are fighting over the territory. We're a profitable gate towards international drug dealing -which, in all honesty, will never stop as long as there is a demand of drugs. It's not just our problem, here. So, we feel a tiny bit insulted when measures to protect the US border meant sending 116 more agents. We're a failed state, but while the last drug ring operation in the US took 2 years to concrete and swept 78 people involved with it, we've detained 20,000 people in the past 5 years. And let's not be simplistic and go for the notion that there's just more people involved in drug traffic here than there. Once they are across the border they don't just sit there waiting for customers. With so many people involved, our justice system can't keep up with it. It's just wayyyy too much money and danger for humans to stay uncorrupted and devoted to justice. To think otherwise is completely unrealistic.
So either drugs are magically disappearing once they cross the border, or a lot of someones are turning a blind eye to it on both sides. I don't think it takes living in a border city like Tijuana-San Isidro or Cd. Juarez-El Paso or any other number of border bi-national urban centers to understand there isn't a single problem that isn't shared by both parts of the city to some extent. To think you can contain the violence to our side might sound very nice and clean on paper, but that just means you are not living in the border. It's not a matter of our violence spilling into their country. It's that we, as in both of us, have a problem. We are selling them drugs, they are buying us drugs. They are selling us armament, we are buying them armament. BOTH OF US HAVE A PROBLEM. Nothing of that nonsense about Mexican violence or Mexico's war on drugs or how we're a failed state or any of that shit. We have a war.