Opinion Archive

What to Make of the American Example

September 10, 2008

President Clinton said last week that the US does better when it leads with "the power of our example" than with "the example of our power". Curiously, while Mexico wrestles with this long period of instability, it needs to heed both. On the one hand, it can look over the border for many of the answers to its public security issues, taking strength in knowing that Mexican-Americans are such an effective part of law enforcement in the US. On the other, it needs to take the responsibility of government with the same seriousness that Americans do. It needs to heed their example of a powerful State that is willing to make difficult decisions in order to safeguard its people. Most urgently, it needs to stop thinking that Mexico is too different to apply the solutions that have worked elsewhere.

We're not so different, you and I

Mexican-American mayors govern enormous American cities (Los Angeles). They govern entire American states (New Mexico) and they patrol the streets across the country as honorable police officers. Recently, a Mexican-American was Attorney General; Mexican-Americans have among the highest rates of participation in the US military. Incredibly, the very chief of the Border Patrol, the most important part of the Department of Homeland Security, is Mexican-American David Aguilar. Mexican-Americans, many of them with two Mexican-born parents (like in the case of LA Mayor Villarraigosa) are keeping millions of Americans safe every day.

So, why is it that Mexicans play such an important and effective role in securing the most threatened country on Earth (the US), but are so astonishingly inept in their own "homeland" (Mexico)? Is it because the 3/4 of the population that has not left for the US is more corrupt, violent and prone to anarchy? Of course not.

Certainly, a good number of our diligent poor, as well as many from our law-abiding, nation-building, professional middle class are now in the suburbs of San Diego, Chicago, Houston, etc. There is no doubt that the country becomes more accommodating to the wrong types of people every time we lose another middle class family to the Woodlands. But, in spite of the lure of the American Dream and the anti-Capitalist rhetoric of the nationalist left, Mexico maintains a 20 million-strong middle class. At the same time, most of the rest of the country is made up of hard-working, honest individuals who just want to do what's best for their families.

But this silent "moral" majority (pace Rev. Falwell) has yet to find its voice, or be effectively organized at the local level. They don't get along with their neighbors, being suspicious of those among them who try to lead because they think they are just acting for their political benefit. Despite the fact that most in the Mexican upper-middle classes visit the US regularly, when it comes to learning what keeps American streets safe, they turn a blind eye, thinking that what works "there" could never work "here". So at home they avoid getting to know their local police. They keep their children from studying criminology, or starting a career in crime prevention. They stand idly by while Mexico's intelligence agency, the already-emasculated CISEN, gets even more pared down for political reasons. Behind their walls, they avoid trying to cure the symptoms of the malaise: the graffiti, the dilapidation, the constant littering, the incessant public demonstrations.

The truth is that the way to make a place safe is the same in Mexico City as it is in New York, or Mumbai. It all comes down to controlling a pre-determined physical space and implementing mechanisms to consolidate this control. The Colombians began with Bogotá and have used their gains there to expand outward. As we've seen in the case of Mexican-Americans, properly trained and incentivized Mexican officers are as good as any in the world... but they need the training, equipment, incentives. And given the current state of infiltration, they need to be incubated, away from contaminated peers.

During an interview on Sunday with Univisión's Jorge Ramos, Republican presidential candidate John McCain talked about President Calderón battling with organized crime "for Mexico's soul". He sees the Mérida Initiative as the beginning of a period of much deeper cooperation between the two countries. Ideally, the US would make the most of the "soft power" so often championed by Senator Obama, as well as Mr. McCain's "hard power" (including applying some of the lessons of Iraq to our border cities, for example).

But more importantly, middle class Mexicans need to be convinced that theirs is not a unique, impossible situation. They need to channel the power of the American example and make an example of their own power.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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