Mexico City, 2009, 14

riday, November 13, 2009, 6:06 PM

I just did a walk along Obregon in the middle of the boulevard, enjoying again the statues and fountains.  However the traffic as always is deadly and many of the crossings are particularly dangerous with a lack of visible pedestrian lights and drivers who seem to think their last name is God and their first name is Jesus or Mohammed.  I came very close to getting run over a couple of times and gave the drivers a sample of Canadian road rage.  I know I´ve already promised not to harp on about this but this has sent my brain wheels spinning.  I believe that the traffic in this city is a metaphor and this indicates a huge need for social change here.  Mexico is still considered a developing country.  Whether it is a failed state as some journalists have proposed is to me open to debate and the jury remains out on this subject.  However, the sense of entitlement that drivers have here, and the dense volume of traffic, abetted by the many autopistas criss-crossing the city, begs a few observations here. First of all, why would any government permit traffic to so get out of hand that this should jeopardize the lives and safety of so many of its own citizens? (I will not mention  here pollution, carbon emissions or air-quality as these are already-givens)  What does this say about the society here, the values and the infrastructure?  Well, owning your own car is a huge rite of passage in the lives of the huge majority of Mexicans, as it is for many Americans and Canadians.  It symbolizes independence, freedom, power and social status.  Sounds a bit like the American Way, huh?  The powerful trampling, or running over the vulnerable? To my knowledge Mexico has never been governed by a social-democratic administration.  Following seventy years of quasi-fascist rule, this country has since had Vicente Fox and now Felipe Calderon for presidents, both conservatives.  Conservative values tend to be centred in law and order, the primacy of the family (and in many cases, the church) and free enterprise, and a strong military presence.  Individual rights and freedoms  (especially economic rights and rights to housing, health care and education) are subordinated to the demands of the state and society.  Wealth is concentrated and contained in the upper echelons of society. The care of the poor and vulnerable is relegated to the family, the church and charity work.  This of course creates a huge underclass of desperately poor, unemployed and underemployed, creating a flourishing industry of crime that is further opposed through draconian measures of law-enforcement and punishment, creating a nasty vicious circle, which this country is gravely suffering from now. Now what does this have to do with traffic?  Well, first of all the auto and petroleum industries need to be kept going, as this provides employment, foreign investment and a fat economy, theoretically anyway.  This also matches up with people´s needs to assert their value as individuals in a society that does not care whether or not they exist.  This also pairs rather well with the huge pressures that working people live under in order to survive: especially the competitive pressures of maintaining remunerative employment and balancing long hours of hard work with their families and social networks.  So, they drive everywhere, demand better and more efficient roads and freeways which further undermines the quality of life for the community.  I realize that I am making some sweeping generalizations here, but please bear with me, since this is a mere travel journal based upon the not always accurate observations of a first time visitor. This country badly needs social democracy, a government infrastructure that is free enough from corruption so that wealth through taxation and other sources can be redistributed into such social  structures, education and employment opportunities that more Mexicans can be lifted out of poverty.  Don´t count on the market to do this.  The successes of unbridled free market capitalism are always shortterm and limited.  Without a sound social infrastructure in which basic human rights are protected and the poorest and most vulnerable are going to be protected the success of rampant capitalism will result in huge class and economic inequalities that will eventual implode resulting in the worst kind of anarchy and/or revolution.  I am not against free enterprise by the way and I think it has its place as part of a mixed economy with guaranteed social and protections.  It is the current monster of unfettered global capitalism that I am against. Neither am I against cars.  Despite their impact on the environment they are in many cases a necessary evil.  What this brings to mind for me is our need to question our sense of entitlement and to learn new ways of expressing our rights and freedoms, which is to say maintaining our focus on the benefit of the community and the greater good of others in balance with our own self-interest. Che Guevara, whom I find particularly irritating given his penchant for taking out and shooting anyone who disagreed with him and his revolution, did mention in his book ´´La revolucion y el nuevo hombre´´ (Revolution and the new man)  the need for people to change so that their focus is on the common good as opposed to their individual gratification.  Unfortunately he confined this to his narrow interpretation of ´´socialist principals.´´ I really think that we can do better.  That we can derive from a huge number of sources,  mentors and role-models: Voltaire, Rousseau, , Karl  Marx, the Fabian Socialists, St. Francis  of Assissi, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Jean Vanier, to name but a few.  This however cannot be forced upon people.  It needs to be role-modeled through such as are prepared to mentor and parent the succeeding generations without coercion.  Maybe there are already some who are being prepared for this task. Why am I picking on Mexico?  I´m not, really.  I´m actually picking on my own darling Canada, especially given the slide our own country is taking in the area of social and economic inequality. While I´ve been working on this little rant I have also been simultaneously having a conversation with three other guests here (a couple from Alberta and a guy from Miami).  It began with the American commenting how nice Canadians are so I replied, laughing, ´´Oh fuck off and die!´´Somehow the subject of trickle-down economics came up and I mentioned that trickle down means piss on the poor, which turned into an interesting discussion about poverty and homelessness and the activism I´m involved in and so on.  So the cat is out of the bag. And now I´m going to shut up. (you´re most welcome!)