Mediocrity of message: The march against insecurity

"If you can't, resign!" was the overriding cheer during Saturday night's massive march and demonstration against insecurity at the Zocalo in Mexico City. As in, if you, the political elites, cannot solve the intractable problems in Mexican society of delincuency, violence, organized crime, narco warfare, and corruption and impunity, then you should just leave office.

And who might take their places? Doesn't really matter, apparently, so long as the politicians are punished for allowing to govern the way governments have run Mexico since the Revolution. There were calls for the death penalty for kidnappers and narco criminals, but there was no acknowledgment of the complex social failures that often lead to criminal activity, no acknowledgment of the collapse of the social contract in Mexico, or whatever might be left of it.

* Read aggragated coverage of the march at Google News in English and in Spanish.

Comments

[frank]

After reading many stories like this I should write to "Ask a Mexican" and ask him, why gavachos have had enough of illegal aliens from México. But the sensitive fool would tell me something like it's the gavachos fault for wanting to exploit the poor campesinos. We know it's always the gavachos fault. Every crime by a cholo or Mexican drug cartel member is because of oppression by the greedy European gavachos. A la verga

[Laura]

I agree with you that demonstrating against authority is the easy but ineffective way to look at social problems. Latin American cultures are violent for historical reasons not solved by suddenly calling them 'democracies' or avoiding how we all contribute to violence. I've got something about the over-ease of 'No One is Illegal' on my website, called Border Thinking.
Best, Laura
http://www.nodo50.org/Laura_Agustin/border-thinking

[Daniel H.]

Thank you for the link, Laura.

D.

[Margarita]

I think using Rousseau is a bit inadequate to explain this particular case. I personally prefer this article by sociologist Charles Tilly evocatively titled "Warmaking and Statemaking as Organized Crime".

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rohloff/www/war%20making%20and%20state%20making.pdf

I like the demonstrators when they are "mediocre". They could be doing other things like supporting or demanding a military coup. Times they are A-changin', no?

Anyway, so you say "complex social failures"
lead to criminal activity. Shorty and his cronies, never ever promised to solve any of those complex social issues. If anything, they promised security, more prisons and a larger police force. That is it (primero los pobres, my ass). You can't blame those poor bastards who politely ask him to do exactly what he promised. They want some rule of law, dammit! They are demonstrating for authority not against it.

I am also not clear on what Laura means exactly:
"Latin American cultures are violent for historical reasons". Yes, so unlike those other peace-loving countries out there. I hear that in some "cultures" they like soldiers a whole lot, and not because they are good shots. In fact, they sometimes bomb entire civilian populations without warning (ooops).
So my point is: How does one define and categorize a culture as violent or non-violent?