Culture Shock

share on:

None of the ills that currently afflict Mexico is especially recent. For centuries, we Mexicans have known corruption, criminality, the wrongdoings of the government, the poor use of public resources and the propensity of diverse communities, above all in certain regions, to rise up and impose their will. If one concurs with these statements, there are at least two questions that would seem pertinent to me: first, what happened in order for all of the above to generate a crisis at this precise moment? Second, if all of this is known, why hasn’t it been resolved? In other words, how is it possible for so many things to have come together over the past few months and from which there appears to be no way out, a circumstance that inevitably tends to stir up unrest and increase the sensation of vulnerability and crisis?
I have been pondering these themes for many months now and meditating on why, but above all how it could be solved? An exchange not long ago in Spain permitted me to see another facet of this disquisition. Spain saw the XX Century in as an underdeveloped country, disorderly, with a bent for hard governments; a nation that exiled many of its best people. However, at the end of that century, Spain had been transformed: it was an ordered country, democratic, fully integrated into Europe and possessing an infrastructure that in quality and quantity does not stop impress. In Spain the combination of leadership, circumstance and geography allowed for an extraordinary transformation; that is, the latter did not happen by chance or by magic, nor was everything that occurred along the way benign.
The contrast between Spain and Mexico could hardly be greater. Although in both nations the population has lived through cataclysmic times, their responses have been very distinct. In Mexico uneasiness, insipidity, disgust with the government and pessimism reign. The economy grows very modestly and problems abound everywhere. In Spain, the economic crisis of the recent years has been highly severe, salaries have fallen not only in real but in nominal terms (that is, many Spaniards earn fewer euros than previously for the same work) and the economy is just beginning to climb. Political effervescence reigns.
Notwithstanding the similarities, the differences are crucial: while in Mexico we suffer from a system of government that not only does not solve even the most elementary problems, such as the security of its citizens, in Spain the quality of the government is extraordinary. The police function, the streets don’t have holes, taxes are paid and people respect the traffic laws. And above all, while the Spanish population can acclaim or reprove the management of each government in particular, the essential part of daily life functions normally thanks to a professional bureaucracy. Contrariwise, in Mexico daily administration is indistinguishable from the government because the key players change every time a new administration comes into power and their criteria are not defined by efficiency or well-being but rather by personal and group advancement. In Mexico we endure a weak government while in Spain there is a strong State that works at the margin of the normal political/legislative conflict that is inherent in everyday political activity.  This became obvious in matters of security with the Chapo’s escape.
Meditating upon this, I come to the conclusion that in Mexico we are experiencing culture shock, while the great success of Spain in the last (several) decades is the product of a cultural transformation. It seems to me that much of what we are living through today in Mexico derives from a frontal shock between the reality and the norms or cultural frameworks that, as a society, characterize us. The problems persist; what’s changed is that now information is ubiquitous.
Although it would be desirable to be able to rely on much better information, for example, of what is taking place when decisions are made in the allocation of resources or how these are spent, what’s relevant is that now it’s impossible to keep information hidden. In fact, the lack of the formalization of governmental transparency exerts the perverse effect of generating rumors and speculations that the technology (the social networks) magnify and render omnipresent. That is, much of what Mexico is undergoing has its origin in the brutal contrast between the discourse and the reality: the expectations that the political culture has shaped in the collective unconscious as well as in the Constitution, on the one hand, and the disorder and deterioration that daily life evidences, on the other. That culture shock has served as a justification of the permanence of the informal economy and the demonstrators’ closing of highways, the absence of effective police forces and governmental corruption. It also explains why Mexicans just laughed when learned about the Chapo’s escape from jail.
Herein the contrast with Spain: that country modernized itself and achieved a seamless cultural transformation. Respect for authority is impressive, as is the quality that would appear to be so trifling as paving the streets. But respect for authority does not translate into respect for the government or the governors: the former speaks to the quality of the State, the latter to the administration of the moment. While we Mexicans know that each government can change the status quo, for good or for ill, in this the Spaniards more closely resemble their partners of northern Europe than us. At the end of the day, what permitted the breaking of the vicious circle was a succession of leaderships that, in combined fashion, transformed their country. But the key lies in that these were annotated by a professional bureaucracy. That’s where it would have to start. It’s not a matter of money but of attitude: the attitude of civilization.

share on:
Luis Rubio

Luis Rubio

He is a contributing editor of Reforma and his analyses and opinions often appear in major newspapers and journals in Mexico, the US and Europe (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio).