The Bullshit About Drug War Coverage
The intensifying drug wars ravaging Mexico have been the center of a U.S. media squall for well over a year. The one-sided and condescending tone of the majority of this coverage errs to the nationalistic and propagates a dangerous myth about violence in developing nations.

The basics are true: ruthless drug lords and cartels are kidnapping, mutilating, and publicly displaying the corpses of police officers, military personnel, and their rivals. Drugs are being stuffed into desperate, poverty stricken, bribed, coerced peoples and sent across the border. A drug caravan recently crashed the US border and started a shoot out in Baja California. These things are indisputable. In the lack of insightful interpretation lies the problem.

Let’s take a look: where are these drugs going? North. Where north? Into the United States. The US is the prime drug market in the Americas, and the world (we need only look to the poppy fields supplying our [endnote 1] heroin from Afghanistan as proof for this). The proliferation of cartels and drug lords speaks of the huge demand for illegal drugs in the US. American crackdowns on the border make it harder for drugs to come in, making it harder for the dealers to get their fists in multi-billion dollar drug pot, making said drug dealers very angry, resulting in murders, desperation, and, in some Mexican states, near lawlessness. The market exists because there is demand. Businesses proliferate because of this demand. Suddenly there are too many businesses for the market to support, and the bubble bursts.

It would seem, then, that all of this drug violence is due to the United States’ insatiable appetite for drugs. And where do drug dependents and addicts come from? From desperation, escapism, hedonism, abuse, sexual trauma, poverty, depression, narcissism etc. In short, not from anywhere good. The tremendous drug problem in the United States is indicative of severe societal shortcomings, not only in our inability to deal with drug addiction and possession in an intelligent and compassionate way (ie sending addicts to prison not rehab, imposing mandatory minimum sentences), but also in our inability to provide our society with a framework wherein happiness (by which we mean a modest happiness, not this vainglorious-15-minutes-gimme-the-loot American Dream) seems an attainable and worthwhile goal.

Now, of course, there are a few problems even in this argument. For starters, there will always be those who just want to get fucked up, not because of some problem or trauma or other extenuating circumstance, but simply because that’s who they are and that’s what they want to do. Additionally, to suggest some kind of utopian society wherein happiness for all is achievable is a naive and ridiculous thing. Contrapuntally, though, there must be some median, in which there are those who do drugs, as there will always be the hedonistic and depressed and whatever else, but in which the majority finds other means of occupation; basically, a nation without such a catastrophic appetite for drugs there that there is what has been deemed by most a war in another country to feed that need.

That the American media seems content to ignore the fact that a deeply problematic, uniquely American epidemic is responsible for most of this violence points to a troubling nationalistic racism and condescension, wherein other countries are represented not by their achievements but by their shortcomings. And of course the majority of these shortcomings are resultant of intervention by one or more colonial powers. Case in point, Newsweek’s October 2007 cover article on Pakistan, in which it named the Asian nation the most dangerous in the world. Now, is Pakistan widely feared and loathed by, say, China? Or neighbors like Afghanistan, Iran, or Nepal? Not in the least. Do Malaysia or Japan fear Karachi-launched missile attacks? No. Who is Pakistan really dangerous to? India, the US, Israel, parts of Europe, and of course the UK.



Typical US Media depictions of Mexico; Newsweek's not eve a little bit racist Pakistan story

Let’s break this down: Pakistan is dangerous to India because it was all an intricate system of kingdoms, tribes, and societies which had nothing to do with each other until Britain showed up, forced the whole thing into one nation, starting fucking shit up with Kashmir, and then, voila, 1947, it all falls apart. Due to the rise of radical Islam, and very deep colonial wounds, Pakistan is dangerous to the UK. Radical Islam is notoriously spiteful of the US and it’s cultural exports, and so Pakistan is dangerous to us. Israel is the US’s little pet military project in the Middle East to keep Arab and Persian peoples at bay so oil can be extracted, so of course Pakistan has it in for Israel. But enmity toward the US, UK, and Israel has accrued in the Muslim world at large, and in places as far flung as Somalia, China, Indonesia, and Venezuela (Chavez is a matter for another day, of course). So if a missile takes off from one of these places – say Pakistan, for argument’s sake – and lands itself in Israel or London or Munich or New York, who’s really to blame? The fucked or the fuckers? (endnote 2)

To return to Mexico, the US media seems perfectly content to perpetuate the belief that it is a crime-ridden, blood-thirsty, lawless, depraved nation of murders and psychopaths. While it would be ridiculous to pretend that Juarez, Tijuana, or Mexico City are utopian, crimeless cities, the US short list of Newark, Camden (endnote 3), Detroit, Gary, and even DC don’t exactly make Mexico’s den’s of iniquity look like “City of God”. In fact, more or less, they’re pretty much comparable. In his book First Stop in the New World, author David Lida cites crime statistics showing that for the average citizen, there's virtually no difference between living in Mexico City and Detroit. So what’s really happening here? Mexicans at large are portrayed as coming from a violent, depraved, backward place. This in turn creates problems for the millions of Mexicans living in the United States (endnote 4), who encounter resistance at near every turn because they are perceived as bringing some horrible tide of decadence and decay into the United States, when in fact said tide is only coming because there is demand in the US for it.

Though there are myriad pundits in the US who take a moralistic approach to their condemnation of Mexico’s drug business, let’s take a look at where it comes from. Latin America was very notoriously fucked by the Spaniards, French, English, and Americans. Job markets were virtually non-existent at a time when the global economy had set up shop and forced indigenous peoples to cough up regular payments to continue living their lives in their own fucking countries. Major western businesses shy away from a market called drugs. Indigenous and mestizo peoples tap this market, rake in billions, colonial powers realized they fucked up big time, and put the hammer down hard on the drug dealers, deeming them illegal and imposing severe and of course hypocritical prison terms on those who are trafficking. So while the majority of what’s been happening throughout the drug war is morally indefensible, it seems that in part the patterns of behavior and violence are due to external, colonial influences. Of course only an ignoramus would completely blame the brutality on external influence as we know the Mayans had a taste for a little bit of the old ultraviolence and the Aztecs really enjoyed fucking people up, what with their human sacrifices to vengeful gods. But, the fact remains that external forces were certainly involved in this whole debacle.

Though Mexico undeniably suffers its fair share of violence and societal woes, the American media’s portrayal of the drug war, and country at large, in focusing on the brutality and depravity of the situation and ignoring the American roots of the problem, presents a very one-sided, racist, and ultimately harmful vision of our southern neighbors.



Endnotes:

1.The author, being a US citizen, feels the need to make this clear and proceed accordingly, so this isn’t seen as yet another haughty-taughty European attack on the United States.

2. Now, of course, being what we hope is a relatively compassionate person, I believe no innocent person deserves to die, and that the generations of English and Israeli people living their daily lives have nothing to do with what transpired in times past, are simply victims of circumstance. But this doesn’t alleviate the problems that former colonies are dealing with, and their inability to find footing in a world economically dominated by their former colonizers. And while we must condemn any and all rash actions of violence and hate, can you really blame them for being peeved?

3. Very sincere apologies to the state of New Jersey here, as I am from there and often find myself defending it against ignoramuses, but the fact remains that these two cities are very violent, dangerous places.

4. And briefly on the illegal thing, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California were all illegally taken from Mexico by the US, so who really is in a position to say Mexicans can’t live within the United States’ territories? Well, hypocritical assholes, mostly. And of course this lovely new legislation in Arizona that is-and there's no other word for this-racist, isn't helping matters any. But the of course the opposite argument is Well, if we hadn't been so rutheless to begin with, we wouldn't have what we have.