A government infiltrated by drug lords is a failed one

Two months ago, 43 students of a teachers college in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, were kidnapped and murdered in the city of Iguala. This crime has shocked Mexican public conscience. Thousands of demonstrators have taken the streets to express their frustration and anger. However, as it is often the case, the aims of some of the protesters are confusing and even opaque. In order to understand what is happening, we must draw some relevant distinctions.

In many public protests against the monstrous slaughter in Iguala, demonstrators can be seen carrying a banner that reads: “Fue el estado.” (“The state did it.”) Although we can argue that not everything that is yelled during a demonstration should be taken seriously, those words tell half the truth. Mexico has to go deeper.

First, we should remember that the state is not a monolith. In Mexico, as well as elsewhere, the state is divided into parts that need to be further analyzed to make sense of the alleged state crime that was perpetrated in Iguala.

The crime was the result of a macabre complicity between local authorities and the drug lords. It could even be said that it was a narco-state crime. However, there are no reasons to believe that the whole country is governed by a narco-state. On the contrary, there are several branches of the Mexican government in combat with organized crime and its infiltration in the government itself.

If the reports released so far are correct, the crime was apparently committed following a direct order from Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, acting alone. In this case, the crime would be municipal — a municipal narco-state crime.

If the order did not come from Angel Aguirre, former governor of Guerrero, or Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, then it makes no sense to compare what happened in Iguala with other proven state crimes, such as the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, in which scores of students and civilians were shot by security forces in Mexico City shortly before the start of the 1968 Summer Olympics. Back then President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz confessed that the order to repress the students in Tlatelolco was his. Not all state crimes are the same. If we want the real culprits to pay for their crimes, we must not dilute the guilt. 

But this leads to an important point: even if the governor and the president are not guilty of the crimes in Iguala, that does not mean that they are not responsible. The governor is actually very much responsible for whatever happens within the state of Guerrero, and the president is responsible for whatever happens in Mexico. That does not mean they should be put on trial for homicide, but it does mean that they share responsibility for the violence that occurred. The resignation of Governor Aguirre was an act of elementary political decency, and those asking for the resignation of President Peña Nieto do have a point, but there are others who are simply trying to damage the government’s reputation in anticipation of elections in 2015 and 2018.

Corruption has been the curse of Mexican politics for a long time. However, the effect of organized crime’s infiltration into government has been lethal. Mexico´s government can be described as a failed government. The massacre of Iguala could only have happened if the government failed. The problem becomes systemic, and deserves a resolute response. Street protest can be a first step towards that end, but much more needs to be done.

Mexico needs to work much harder on institutional reform — more failures cannot be accepted. Mexico is in dire need of a government that follows the rule of law, but in order to achieve this, we must not destroy the state but rebuild it. Mexicans must regroup in all sorts of new political organizations to build the kind of nation that we want for ourselves. We also need new political leaders, women and men who are willing to sacrifice their personal interests in order to practice decent politics. Most of the upstanding politicians we have today are not perceived as such by the citizens of Mexico.

After Iguala, Mexican public life cannot be the same. The main political parties have to adapt immediately to the new circumstances if they do not want to become redundant. They have to listen closely to people, formulate new discourses, and drastically change their programs. New political parties should be created to help boost democratic engagement, and more respected citizens should run as independent candidates.

However, Mexico’s main issue is not just political, but moral. Mexicans need to reconsider their views of the public sphere. Bad governments are often a consequence of bad habits of the people. Unless we learn to acknowledge our failures as a society, we will not have better governments.