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Page 15 of 82
What to Make of Why No Mexican Vigilantes?
February 4, 2009
In the 1993 movie "Falling Down", Michael Douglas plays a middle class middle manager in Los Angeles on a very hot day. He starts to take offense at the myriad of small aggressions that we all suffer simply by living in big cities. His character is denied change at a Korean grocer, for example. He makes the mistake of sitting on top of a pile of graffitied rubble in a derelict part of LA, leading to an attempted hold-up. In both instances, he decides he's had enough, lashing out violently against his aggressors and getting the upper hand simply because his antagonists never expected this Dilbert-like salaryman to fight back.
Mexico City is full of opportunities for middle managers to take it to their aggressors. Every day in a myriad of different ways, criminals, demonstrators and others go out of their way to make life difficult for their fellow citizens. Unlike in the US, getting a shotgun to teach them a lesson requires crossing the line into the dark recesses of illegality. Nevertheless, it is astonishing how infrequently people fight back. When a group of demonstrators take to the streets in order to blackmail more money from the government, why doesn't the Honda CRV-driving tax-paying accountant gun the gas pedal of his SUV and run them down? Given the indignities he suffers on a daily basis, why isn't he "going postal"?
It's not that Mexicans don't engage in any sort of momentary public tantrums. We are perfectly willing to cut off our fellow drivers at an intersection, even when it means putting ourselves in danger; Mexican urbanites can be surprisingly aggressive when faced with others who dare snag the right of way. But confront them with an anarchist, or a marauding vandal in a Che Guevara T-shirt and he who was so willing to "echar lámina" ("throw steel") at a stoplight 50 feet back becomes a resigned pacifist.
In the US it is often the other way around. People who would never think of invading a crosswalk are one bandana-clad dirty look away from pulling out their '45 and blowing their antagonist sky-high. This is the sort of indignant desperation that fuels vigilantism. If neighborhoods in the US were to be menaced by gun-toting narcotraffickers, like they are in several Mexican cities, people would be creating militias. In Mexico, either they hire other thugs ("bodyguards"), if they have money, or they cower helplessly, or they move to the Woodlands, Texas. In fact, why do people in Tijuana move to San Diego, but people in menacing inner-city Detroit never move to safe Windsor, Ontario?
The traditional answer to why the US has Wyett Earps and mythical Dirty Harrys is that the it had a Wild West cowboy culture that set individual European settlers against marauding Indians. But most of the original cowboy culture was lifted from early Mexico (hence the Spanish names: "rodeo", "lasso", "burro", etc.). Saltillo was attacked by Indians into the first years of the 20th century. The very word "vigilante" comes from the Spanish. There has to be something else.
Vigilantism and "going postal" rage are middle class phenomena. Perhaps Mexicans are so tolerant of anti-social behavior when it pretends to have a "social" root because of middle class guilt. Where middle class Americans fume indignantly at most sorts of anti-social behavior, Mexicans must feel that there is some underlying legitimacy to the traffic-choking protests.
Hard-working, middle class Americans who get fed-up feel they are a majority that is being overrun by interlopers. Hard-working, middle class Mexicans (often whiter than their protesting counterparts) could feel that they are the minority. Perhaps it is this sense of being the outsider, of not fully belonging, that so often leads to so many of these professionals picking up and crossing the border in a final act of desperation. In the Woodlands they, their families (and their consumption patterns), are the norm.
Of course, vigilantism is not the answer. There are excellent reasons why the State should maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. But there's an "I'm up to here" desperation that could be helpful in these times. Most of what passes for social activism in Mexico takes the form of silly signs with personal attacks on politicians, or damaging anti-social protests themselves. These just serve to further fray the already tattered fabric of our society and have yet to solve anything.
No, what Mexico needs is an intelligent indignation rooted in a profound sense of belonging. We need people who are willing to make an honest effort at making their towns into safe havens before deciding to give up on the country altogether. But, first, we need to believe that we deserve better.
For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page
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