Raising the alarm

For those of you keeping track of world politics, I moved to Mexico about a week after the federal election in which winner Felipe Calderon edged out runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by less than half a percent amid rampant accusations of fraud, election buying, and other nefarious doings. (Known narco with blood on his hands Roberto Madrazo came third.)

Among the numerous and still continuing results of this controversy was first the attendance of one million people, dressed in yellow, howling their protest that Obrador was the rightful winner, followed by the installation of an encampment of several thousand people for more than a month right down the middle of Paseo de la Reforma, one of the main east/west traffic thoroughfares in the this city. The encampment would finally break disperse, allegedly of its own volition, the weekend before the September 16th Day of Independence, on which the Mexican army always rolls right down that street, protestors or no protestors, tents or no tents, children or no children.

Since then, now working high above the intersection of Reforma and Archimedes, where political protestors inevitably head in the attempt to send a message to Los Pinos, the home of the country’s President, I have witnessed many other and equal marches and sit- ins. The most recent was yesterday, in which teachers in Morelos not only closed off Reforma, but pretty successfully shut down any possibility of traffic moving within half a kilometre of this building for the entire afternoon. Some of my colleagues, waiting eternally for their lunch order from Subway, were apoplectic, while others snapped pictures and ran back and forth across the office to monitor developments in each of the eight or so blockades. Vendors started to show up, pushing their little carts of chips and salsa and fruit and magazines and whatnot through the throngs (opportunity is not a lengthy visitor!).

“Oh!” I said to one colleague, pressed equally enthusiastically against the window to try to make out what the assembling crowds were singing, “I just *love* this about Mexico City!”

And I do, I do love this about Mexico! I mean, let’s just put aside the idea that you can count the number of cities in Canada with a population greater than one million on one hand (or have we squeaked to both hands yet with the Alberta oil boom?) – just imagining what it would take to rouse one million Canadians into vociferous protest is a delicious exercise in futility. It’s not that we’re not a passionate people, as I do believe we are in many ways, we’re just… well, we’re just not a taking to the streets and howling about it kind of people. When the United States entered Iraq, in what the majority of Canadians believe to be an illegal and immoral war, two hundred or so people appeared on the front step of the federal parliament building and burnt a flag! When the Canadian government was implementing a much-opposed two-tiered healthcare system a few years back, the public outcry was so intense that some people were driven to write a few letters to the editor!!

Oh Mexico, oh hearty, passionate Mexico, how you enthrall me with your mighty fervour for having a voice! I don’t drive, so I’m not bothered by your roadblocks. I’m just impressed and amazed by your rabid love for action.

Or I was, at least, up until the moment I made that comment to my colleague, but, as it happens, said colleague happens to know how all it works. And so my dreams of the little man taking to the streets in democratic fury were crushed.

There is a taco lady at the base of our building, who sells lovely crammed full tacos from the back of her car. They are delicious.

The taco lady, however, does not have a permit for vending. Street vending, anyone who’s visited Mexico City might be surprised to learn, is not generally allowed.

So let’s say Mrs. Taco earns a thousand pesos a day (she could dream!) selling her truck boot creations.

At which point Mr. Junior Police Office walks up and says, hey, you don’t have a license to sell those. Give me five hundred pesos and I won’t shut you down and throw you in jail. So Mrs. Taco does, going on to serve tacos another day.

Mr. Junior Police Officer goes back to the precinct, where Mr. Senior Police Officer says, hey, how much did you get today? And Mr. Senior Police Officer takes $300 of Mrs. Taco’s extorted $500.

And so it goes, up and up and up, each one getting their share of poor Mrs. Taco’s earnings, until the money ends up in some government body’s coffers AND…

Oh no....

... funds protests against the government in power.

My beautiful, musical, colourful, vibrant, colossal, spectacular, fiestas of the street are not only not an expression of one’s right and need to speak your piece, and not only the result of the endemic corruption plaguing every step of life in this country, they are merely ploys by Obrador against Calderon, or Calderon against Obrador, or some man-child against some man-child, hastily pocketing their share of Mrs. Taco’s profits while pouring gracious thanks to the people who “support” their cause.

I am… gutted. I so much preferred my idea of Mexican as walking powder kegs of democratic ferocity to struggling campesinos so desperate for money that they will camp for a month in the middle of a main thoroughfare and make their signs and shout their slogans so long as the pesos to keep them there keep tricking in.

Not to mention poor Mrs. Taco...


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Note for all you who flipped me notes wondering about the silence: Um, yeah, sorry about that. The sad reality to a twelve hour workday is not only the complete lack of time and energy to blog, but a kind of mental exhaustion that reduces your ability to form opinions to, "huh, how 'bout that..." I'll try and be better!