Mexico and its growing subordination Chronicle
There was a time when Mexico fought for its own project, even against the will of Washington. Today no longer seems the case Monday, January 11, 2010
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Changing focus
View from this side, there was a time when the dynamics of the relationship between our country and its powerful northern neighbor could be understood within the framework of resistance, anti-imperialism especially when the Mexican Revolution was still alive. However, for some time now, the historic Mexican resistance has almost ceased. What is now seeking political elites, economic and intellectual accommodate Mexican is just pathetic in the least possible demands and interests of hegemonic power. The current relationship between Mexico and the United States tends to register and be understood in terms of the theory of subordination and no longer in the logic of a national project that seeks to expand the sovereignty possible within the constraints of geography and the power asymmetry imposed from the beginning.
As is known, the subaltern approach emerged in southern Asia and corresponds to postcolonial theory. In very general terms, the objective is to understand how it operates and what the implications of the worldview that the colonialists imposed on the colonized and that many of them eventually internalize. This approach seeks to expose how, to explain himself themselves and to get their point against the other, subordinates in colonial and postcolonial relationships are driven to adopt the discourse and values \u200b\u200bof imperial culture although in many ways, they are disadvantageous.
The dominant group in Mexico appears committed to explain and act as a mere appendage of the United States: as the exotic North America but, finally, is also "U.S.." The goal is not to provoke Washington and accommodate as best as possible to what the best they can have for us in economic, immigration, combating drug trafficking and management of the relationship. In short, Mexico no longer raises his voice and hopes that the opacity in its foreign policy coupled with a certain resignation is the best combination to take root a modus vivendi acceptable to the great power.
And this takes place precisely in a world where other players from China, India, Brazil to Venezuela or Iran to Russia, they think they can build on what was considered a postnorteamericana. One that allows and rewards, the risk of seeking development paths that do not have to be those adopted by Washington. In contrast, Mexico remains a country where the "American factor" is still the one that determines the how and the direction in which to act.
Quiet Is Mexico looks better?
Mexico's attitude as a subordinate who tries to please the powerful shows. Thus, The Economist (December 5-11, 2009), the famous British conservative weekly, noting Mexico's policy against its neighbor applauds the "maturity" of the Mexican government. For this review, this unequal relationship has improved because our authorities and learned to shut up and not the nest headpiece internal American policy demanding, especially an agreement to allow a minimum of labor rights to 6 million of our fellow countrymen found working illegally beyond the Bravo. The free exchange institutionalized in North America works on trade and investment, but in relation to labor informality prevails imposed by the United States, a Darwinian informality, where only the most able can overcome the barrier that now covers almost one third of the border to escape the 20 thousand troops from the Border Patrol and live with a wage so low that make it attractive for employers to risk hiring undocumented workers. An example of this is Barack Obama reform America's health care system to benefit 30 million people but it leaves out a minority which include the 12 million undocumented workers, who work hard, earn little and pay taxes, but whose health is in the hands of providence.
regard to drug trafficking, an issue which dominates the policy demanded by the United States, Mexico proposed "Merida Initiative", which is an institutional framework for bilateral cooperation on Mexican soil to combat drug supply to the U.S. and that involves U.S. aid for other modest, since this is only a thousand 350 million dollars over three years to address a business that is calculated for the case of Mexico, between 19 thousand and 30 billion dollars annually. However, the Mexican government has failed to make much noise in his claim that Washington really controls the sale of weapons to individuals who end up in the hands of organized crime in Mexico because, says The Economist, that upset the powerful lobby that have shaped U.S. manufacturers, retailers and private consumers of weapons.
Among foreign observers and a number of Mexican citizens, there is growing suspicion that drug trafficking in Mexico is waging war on its soil an American who also can not win. Example of this suspicion are the considerations made by Antonio Payan, University of Texas at El Paso, El Universal (25 December). And is that Mexico has no way of affecting 30 million consumers living substances banned in the U.S. can not, by itself, try a form of legalized consumption of Mexicans addicted to reduce the space of lawlessness in which organized crime operates internally. The worst thing is that, over time, drug trafficking organizations take root deeper and have spread to activities that affect mainly to Mexican citizens, such as kidnapping and extortion, spread the culture of crime and progress in their efforts to corrupt and control the ever-weak institutions of the Mexican state.
economic model
As a result of the great crash of 1982, Carlos Salinas and his group took to the Mexican economy head-lifeguard unprepared following almost verbatim the highly respected and no and respectable "Washington Consensus" - the pool of globalization that, in practice, there was nothing more than narrowing it to the U.S. market for 80 percent of its exports. When the economy of northern giant went well, in Mexico showed no growth particularly remarkable, but when America entered the Great Recession, our country suffered a fall of over 7 percent of GDP and had the worst behavior of all Latin American economies.
In economic news, today Mexico contrasts most unfavorably with some of the emerging orthodoxy that obeyed some International Monetary Fund, such as Brazil, India or China. In each of these three cases, their foreign trade is not linked, like ours, to one country or left the domestic market or left the bulk of its foreign-owned banks.
Mexico today has a very domestic and foreign policy acceptable to Washington: no expropriations and nationalizations as in 1930, nothing to keep a separate line for nearby countries, as was the case with Cuba in the past, nothing to propose something desires than Americans in Central America as in 1980. In reality and our country does not mind - of possibilities? - To try to motions even in the Latin American context, as seen in the case of Honduras, where the Brazilian position was more determined than Mexican. In conclusion
studies classes and subordinate cultures show that one way to relate these to the external power that can and seeks to impose its interests and values \u200b\u200bis to avoid confrontation and accept the terms of the charge-the humiliation awaiting the right moment to enforce their rights. However, such an approach carries a risk: that the subject becomes accustomed to their role effectively to the point that natural internalized and accepted as such subordination. That's the best way to lose respect for the powerful and, worse, self-esteem.
The goal of Mexico, in 1810 and 1910 but in 1867 or in 1938 challenged outside powers on behalf of a personal project, it must be that: the quest for independence and sovereignty in the terms of the time. For now, that does not seem to be the case.
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