| | |  Editorials | Opinions 
Finally: It Looks Like Mexico Is Taking Civic Cooperation Seriously
 Guillermo Ramon Adames y Suari - PVNN
September 06, 2010
 |  | Education is, to my mind, the basis of all human evolution including the current evolution in Mexico. |  | | |
So finally, Mexico seems to be opening the “civic door”. As most people seem to be more and more concerned with the inefficiency of our various governments (whichever level, whichever political party), more and more people seem to take over the needs of the Mexican population: Benefits for the low income classes, for the uneducated, for the well known “niños de la calle” in Mexico City and in other cities such as Guadalajara, Puebla etc. for all those minorities that are systematically ignored or set aside. What does all this indicate? Simply: The taking conscience process of a country with all their problems and all their implications. There have never been as many ONG’s in Mexico really working as there are now: Some 10,500 ONG’s are recognized and working in Mexico.
What will emerge of these situations is that the current governments will receive a smash flat on their faces and certainly before 2012: A fully structured demand from the people that pay for government officials’ salaries and prove to them that they are doing close to nothing. The problem with Mexico is that well known fact of: “nothing happens” ("no pasa nada") but for the first time (the very first time) the government will have to face a popular and civic demand.
The governments’ possible response: Unfortunately the governments will “react”, not act. A government must “react” to a catastrophe, but governments must be able to have a working plan in which the requests by the population are included valued and have been thoroughly thought of. There will be “presentation of interactions between population and congressmen” with no improvement for anybody. The next reactions will be that a lawyer X (big name, in Mexico all is big names), will come along the way and draft populations’ requests to be satisfied by Congressmen. The requests will be supported with a statement of the sort: “do this or we will vote against your party and block the streets; now”. And again there will be chaos, “image building” will come along the way, cross relation sections, web experts and you name it. Current politicians want to stay in power but have not an idea of what is “serving and helping” the population for everybody’s benefit: A social give-give situation.
Let’s swift to Education which is, to my mind, the basis of all human evolution including the current evolution in Mexico. Not civic education, but “education 101”, needed to support this movement and make it successful. To me as a professor at a prestigious University (everything is prestigious in Mexico), education is weak. Grosso modo, this is the way it operates: Parents pay for their kid’s education, therefore they are “good parents” investing in their children’s education but forgetting that education starts and finishes at home. They have paid for their children to be “educated”… but parents are never there for their children which is the strongest part of education. Parents are involved in all sorts of “world deciding committees” in case of the male parent or at the sports clubs for their moms together with “the girls”… the daughter of so and so (big name, the bigger the name, the better), the sister of Minister “X” or the wife of President of “big international company name” (of course foreign because Mexican companies are decided by Mexican entrepreneurs for their children, nephews, sons, in laws and… so if you are not in the “family”, forget it, you will not be in the list).
All of these processes have to do with the “prior” education that is needed in Mexico, prior and/or together with civic education. I repeat: parents are not there and I see it every day: Often kids are brought up by chauffeurs, servants, maids who’s main concern is simply survival. What education can these kids get? Don’t take me wrong!!! I respect everybody’s work but: Would you leave the building of principles, character morale and family values of your child to a third party? At the end of the day, they are YOUR children and if you do not follow up (for whichever reason) it is YOUR responsibility.
On the other hand, the reality: Which is the mass of people involved in this “conscious” process? There are “various” Mexico’s: there is the “conscious” Mexico which wants some social progress, the “political” Mexico which is the Mexican left wing, whatever “left” might mean: “fighting for the rights of the poor” not accomplishing anything but who live like kings with services and privileges paid for by their government. The” intellectual” Mexico formed by thinkers of some sort (university professors, writers, free thinkers, etc.) and some others; the “popular” Mexico structured by all those “ambulantes” (about 2 million in Mexico City alone) who run the DF’s commerce altogether and drug cartels in the city and the “students”, some of them real students who want to do something out of their lives and the ones who block the streets because they did not pass a given course. The “artist” Mexico formed up by those artists “who have made it and think they are exceptional” (some have even made it as Senators), and those “who would love to make it” and other less fortunate who would do anything for survival. We cannot exclude the typical Mexican “beggars”: They are a huge community in Mexico. There is no single corner in the DF (of cour$e, tolerated by the city’s government) that has not a beggar. In Mexico everybody asks for money and everybody gives. A couple of days ago, I had a beggar asking me for money “who could simply not survive” but whose cell phone rang right in front of me…. this might be “the connected” beggar. She would be equipped to vote via telephone.
Despite this overall folkloric description, there is a certain duality of consciousness/fedupness of many, very many Mexicans with its current governments (local and federal) including the police and all other services; this is what current governments are facing: the taking up consciousness of the inefficiency of governments’ per se and services by the people, for the people and the “fedupness” of minimum results: “the government cannot do anything so let’s do it ourselves”. THIS is what is emerging in Mexico today.
In my previous articles in Civic Education, this is the momentum that Mexico needs: but I want it stronger!! You want to do something for and with our country? You must know what your rights are, what your privileges are, what your obligations are and the procedure IS this. We are still far from this procedure but I am very happy to see that for whichever reason, (in Mexico nothing can be explained easily). Mexico “seems” to be taking consciousness that our own people can do something positive for the country itself. The way is not easy and some will profit out of this start, but in the end there will be (I hope) a good constructive result.
Guillermo Ramón Adames y Suari is a former electoral officer of the United Nations Organization. Contact him at gui.voting(at)gmail.com |
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