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 Editorials | May 2005 
Mexico In The U.S. Imagination
 Fred Rosen - The Herald Mexico
| | Few pop culture phrases are destined to stand the test of time. When screenwriter B. Traven penned the line, "I don't have to show you any stinking badges" in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it's doubtful he thought the phrase would become a lasting part of the American vernacular. |
All of us who go back and forth between the United States and Mexico — or who simply have a foot in both cultures — know that North Americans have certain images of Mexico that shape the way they see and understand Mexican events, culture, politics and people. (The same goes for Mexicans looking at the United States, but that's for another column.)
Some of this comes from the movies, some from the way news is covered in the U.S. media, some from the very specific U.S. concerns of the moment that shape the way Americans see just about everything (like the War on Terror), and some from an even broader typecasting of Mexico as coterminous with Latin America as a whole.
Some years ago, working as a freelance reporter, I bought a car in Texas that I intended to use for a year or so in Mexico and then drive back to my then-home town, New York. On the drive back I got stopped by a Missouri State Trooper for not having my Texas registration sticker — so he thought — properly displayed. In the course of our cautious (on my part) trooper-driver conversation, I had to explain the unlikely combination of Texas plates and a New York driver's license, and that led to my telling him a short but convincing story about my professional needs as a reporter in Mexico.
“Oh,” he said, “you were writing about Mexico.”
“Yes,” I replied, not looking forward to a long conversation about the content of my reportage.
“So you were writing about corruption.”
“Well, yeah…”
“Well, God bless you,” he said, and sent me on my way.
Which brings us to the desafuero. (Doesn't everything bring us to the desafuero?) In the dominant U.S. media, the conflict, after long being ignored, has been played out like a typecast drama, each to his allotted, predetermined part: the “firebrand” radical mayor; his opponents, both scrupulous and less-than-scrupulous; the poor masses yearning for a “strongman” to set things straight; the terminally corrupt bit players in the drama.
Those characters interact in a narrative that involves a “minor land dispute” (that's the term I've seen more than any other, and always compared to the millions stolen by other Mexican politicians); the unprincipled use of that dispute to prevent the not-entirely-trustworthy (except in the view of the yearning masses) firebrand from running for president; the statesmanlike intervention by President Fox(!); the fragile condition of Mexico's “new” democracy; and finally, the concern of the informed Mexican public that this all be resolved — stretching the scenario to the 2006 elections — in a peaceful, democratic, U.S.-friendly way. Like the trooper's remarks, this unadorned narrative is not devoid of truth but it won't play in Mexico City — not without a good second act in which all the daggers come out and all the treachery is unveiled.
What the U.S. narrative seems to reflect is the threat the entire desafuero process has represented to the crucial role Mexico has been assigned as a Latin American harbinger of all the things “we” (the American people through its last few elected governments) say we want to promote on a global scale: democracy (free elections), free trade (openings to investment and access to markets) and global security (a dominant role for the United States in global governance), all within the context of a U.S.-led hemispheric alliance. Hence the mixed feelings expressed for Mexico City's so-called firebrand, strongman, friend-of-the-poor mayor and his right to run for president.
From the vantage point of democracy “we” want him to run; from the vantage point of free trade “we” want him to lose: from the vantage point of global security “we” have no idea what's going on and are understandably worried about all the talk of “sovereignty” in South America. And that's the way “we” understand and write the news.
Three final comments:
First, should the next Mexican president decide to join Lula et al in the quest for greater Latin American independence, this would be a practical, not an ideological step-oppositional only if Washington made it so.
Second, the image of López Obrador as a radical strongman who will leave either radical transformation or radical ruin in his wake is belied by his pragmatic relationship with Mexico City entrepreneurs, his very modest (though greatly appreciated) social programs and the relatively sound fiscal shape in which he is leaving the city government.
And third: The most pernicious assumption behind the general U.S. mistrust of Mexico City's chief of government is that anyone who promises — much less delivers — anything good to the poor must be fundamentally dishonest.
frosen@cablevision.net.mx |
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