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Milenio (Mexico City) 1/26/10

The Africanization of Mexico

[Portions of an op/col. by Ricardo Monreal Avila, titled as above]

The country that most Mexicans (31 out of every 100) want to be like is the United States, followed distantly by China and Canada (6 and 5 of every 100, respectively) (Nexos, Consulta Mitofsky, January 2010) [“Consulta Mitofsky” is an often cited Mexican public opinion organization.] Granted that the highest percentage in this study is from those who wanted to be like “none of the above” (34 of every 100), without specifying the motive for this “none” (outdated nationalism? ignorance or lack of interest?) the desirable model for almost one third of the Mexican population is clear. Surely, it is that same third of the Mexican population about which, four years ago, the Pew Hispanic Center warned that, if they had the opportunity, these fellow countrymen would move to the United States, or would vote without a second thought so that Mexico would become the 51st state of the United States, causing alarm in Bush’s government and hastening the building of the border fence.

That third of Mexicans who hold the United States as a model, don’t they believe in their country? “I do believe in Mexico….. it’s Mexico that doesn’t believe in me,” a Zacatecan friend, small business owner, made clear to me two decades ago, and who left fleeing from the economic crisis of 1988 to settle in Chicago.

Nevertheless, the collective tragedy that we currently suffer alike, those Mexicans who dream of being like another country as well as those of us who answer “none,” is because during the last decade, the governing political and economic elite, far from reaching the aspirations of looking like our neighbors to the north, has taken us in the opposite direction and too far: to the Africanization of our economy, government, life style, laws, education, ecology and family income.

In effect, we are ever closer to sub-Saharan Africa and farther from the United States. We have the same number of dead out on the street as Rwanda, and as many journalists assassinated as in Somalia. Our level of migrant workers is Nigerian, and the level of learning and educational skills of our children is at the level of Tunisia. Our economic competitiveness is below Botswana’s, while Morocco had more tourists than Mexico last year. The levels of corruption are root-like Algerian, while the inequalities in the salary scales are like those of Ethiopia. The influenza virus made us brother-like to the Congo as far as sanitary risks, while the loss or contamination of environmental resources per resident is similar to Namibia’s. Since the geologic times of Pangea, this territory called Mexico had not been as close to the African continent, as it has in the lost decade that we are enduring. This reality takes anyone’s sleep away. It is the insomnia of those who yearn for the American life style and, perhaps because of that, decide to emigrate. But for the rest of the Mexicans, including the “none of the above”, it is the nightmare of every day.

http://impreso.milenio.com/node/8709154