The large spectrum of an unknown power

Not too long ago somebody asked me who I considered was governing Mexico, in a general way and with plenty reference to parties and electoral history – mostly of recent years, my answer left me a bit unsatisfied and I guess that him, the one who asked, was unconvinced as well.

Right after that time the question has come back to me with different partners; on my way to work while listening to some argue on the radio, as a headline in the cover of a magazine tendentiously denouncing some character of national politics or, the most recent one, as part of a conversation with a friend who just came back to Mexico with the nostalgia that lingers in a place that was once your home.

I cannot remember when was the first time I wondered about it, that first moment wasn’t at all close to the first time I tried to answer, not even to a foreign, but my inability to please his curiosity fed mine at the same time, mostly because I was doubtful with my response.

Trying to explain the complexity of a society like Mexican is a challenge that many have tried to fight, not only because in Mexico coexist an enormous quantity of realities that cannot be simply reflected in an answer, but because each and every one of those who have tried to respond has a different vision that is related to their past. Is like aiming to describe a whole dinner to somebody who has never tried any of the dishes in his life, the spectrum of sensations and factors surrounding the single act of biting and tasting has itself a number of personal, physical and historical references that only the person describing can fully understand, and even when the listener has already tried it, the experience and understanding of each one is different.

That’s the level of complexity in Mexico, its cuisine and its reality.

Who is governing Mexico then? If we exclusively consider the electoral process there could not be a sole posture; the moderate right was in power during 71 years and afterwards there was a change of party that was measured as highly determinant for the country, but 12 years after those historical elections we can only conclude that the so-called "transition" was nothing but a step took away from the change expectations.

Since the entrance of liberal politics in the 80s, the party in power began an internal adjustment that derived in the institutionalization of what nowadays is known as the partisan left, the determination of not giving a step towards (neo) liberalism as a general policy amongst the Mexican State leaded to those who still believed in the State figure to become the opposition and formed, with different kinds of leftists, the third force on board inside the political games in Mexico. In the other hand, the party which had never denied its extreme right characteristics or had not claims on quitting its principles of conservationism, was taking advantage and making steps towards power by slowly filling the empty spaces left in the evolution.

During these 30 years, every process has had a fragile stability that precisely allowed the development of these changes, subtle at times and highly evident at others, but that has always been there, smouldering, silently reminding to those actors the brittle strength of a political system founded in the idea of a country that has never been entirely feet-grounded because it doesn’t reach to completely reflect what Mexico is, or what it can be.

This ghost might be the reason why so many politicians have changed groups, tribes, jackets and discourses depending on the economic time, the environment or the interests put on the table, but something clear is that Mexican population in its generality has never been fully considered as a determinant for decision-making. Worse is the fact that these ‘radical’ changes in the parties only blur the general image of the politician according to the general profile and turns it into a species of flexible prototype, a grey toy which moves depending on the convenient friction, delegitimizing or damaging those wanting to submerge in this complex and tricky cosmos known as Political System.

We don’t know who governs Mexico; if we create a map organized by colours according to the Party, the product would be ironically a politically grey country; a blue federal government, which actions covers and affects every single corner of the territory, a yellow capital constantly trying to fight for expand its capacity of influence and incidence, paradoxically restricted by its own power and condition; and a multiplicity of green-red governments spread on the rest of the State, standing still for a long 100 years now and which have might tinge at moments their strength, but are not at all considering to move a millimetre of their power and where, we must clarify, white has never had a shot.  

This grey is not leftist, neither right nor centre, the inhabitants might be, but as a whole it is nothing but an apocryphal  colour determined by several factors, either internal and external, but always depending on three equally amorphous and dangerous things: fear, incertitude and violence.

About a month ago 49 dead bodies were found in Cadereyta, at the northern part of the country, summed to the scandalous and alarming quantity of deaths that Mexico has lived during the past years as a result of the Drug War. The news had great impact in media, both for the number and for the difficulty on identifying the bodies because those who carried out the work entrusted to erase any trace that would allow to recognize them, those 49 bodies could be from any Mexican, they had no face, no prints and no marks, they were everyone and no one at once.

They symbolically represent the government, the headless and fragmented Mexican power, the faceless elite in reproduction; excluding and including people and making them dispensable as much as forgettable, but they are at the same time the reflection of a tied-up Mexican society attached to these three characters of Mexican life and history; the incertitude, reminding them that power is ephemeral, faddy and easy to mislay, the fear to lose it and the violence born out of them.

“I still don’t understand how Mexicans, after suffering so much violence throughout their history, are able to keep receiving other people with care and how can they give away really valuable friendships” I was told a bit after. I can’t get it either, maybe that is why we have emerged as a colourful society who is ready to keep on moving forward through the political greyscale. Now we are a couple of weeks away from an election that promises to be historical -as usual, and that will test our ability to be governed by a group of economical and political interests that will never overcome the Mexican spirit.