Mexico: Why a Few Are Rich and the People Poor

Preface

xi Preface This offbeat disquisition on Mexico’s warped march from century to century opens with the sterling views of my father, a doting Mexican patriot who, when I was young, never tired of telling me stories from his country’s past. As his own father had done, he had served in his country’s military, but had abandoned that life shortly before the collapse of the Old Regime. Always in the grip of misplaced dreams and outright delusions, he would say Mexico someday would be “un gran país” (a great country). Well, my father died in Mazatlán, a port city on the Pacific Ocean, not far from where he first saw the light of day. He departed this earth in 1976 with unsettling echoes of the past in his troubled mind, never seeing his prediction come true, but never doubting that it would, as he swore when I last saw him. Nor do I doubt it, though I have devoted a lifetime to writing about Mexico, alert to any sign of an untrodden path, but until today my hopes have been dashed. Still, it is possible, if one is so disposed, to argue that all is well in Mexico, particularly if one is pleased with what we are told by tourists enamored of the pyramids of Teotihuacán and the dance of the old men in xii p r e f a c e Uruapan, Michoacán, or seduced by tales of macroeconomic miracles told by mendacious courtiers of the oligarchy blind to the plight of the poor. But tourists are a notoriously poor judge of a country’s social health, and official pedants are a rascally lot. Mexico may be picturesque, but for those of us who know the country, its glaring social maladies weigh upon our opinions. If truth be told, Mexico has been, and still is, a povertystricken , hungry nation and, to cite the opinion of some tortured Mexican souls, suffers the pains of a “distorted” economy, an idea I find sophistic. Any interpretation of Mexican reality must bring to the table two truths, or else we will simply draw a lopsided picture. Not all is tragedy in Mexico: we must not blind ourselves to the triumphs of its people in the arts and literature and, from time to time, in the realm of social change. How these dramatic achievements came about, in the face of sundry ills, is a story I leave for others to explore. But surely it is multifarious : these triumphs were spurred largely by the “Revolution” of 1910, which achieved its ends only in fragments but was apotheosized by hypocritical Mexican politicos and an army of adoring historians on both sides of the border. Why did this conflagration ignite an artistic awakening and, after years of the arts lying dormant, open doors to a radical metastasis? And we also must acknowledge that Mexican history is the epic saga of a mestizo people, partly Indian and partly Spanish, trying to forge a nationality and a culture, an effort made all the more difficult by the omnipotent presence of the United States, the neighbor next door. Despite this parade of triumphs, and they are mighty indeed, the history of Mexico, if the happiness and welfare of the underdogs are our barometer for judgment, is mostly a tragedy. From the Spanish Conquest on, when the cross and the sword of the Europeans bent ancient Anáhuac to their will, the poor, usually bronze of skin and racially more Indian than Spanish, have carried the burdens of Mexico, victims of man’s inhumanity to man. Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself—at best it sometimes rhymes.” Mexico’s history certainly rhymes. Again and again, similar patterns of development, or, better put, underdevelopment , repeat themselves. But, then, to recall my father’s steadfast faith in his country’s destiny, does not hope spring eternally? A steady drop of water erodes even the hardest rock. p r e f a c e xiii That is the topic of this book. Of the more than 100 million Mexicans, why do over half live in poverty, some 20 million of them enduring daily hunger, barely able to keep body and soul together? Whatever pundits might argue, whatever macroeconomic mumbo jumbo might say, Mexico is a peripheral country, part of the ubiquitous Third World, now more than ever at the beck...