Being in Mexico, suddenly makes "the situation" immeasurably more complicated.
Everyone agrees the situation is awful; everyone agrees things have gotten worse.
I'm shocked (but shouldn't be) to here things like: "It's a fight between them, nothing to do with us."
And then I turn on the television and I remember what the news feeds people every day; this analysis of the good President fighting against the bad Criminals, this supposed war against (Fill in the blank).
"Los protagonistas de la historia, somos todos." The television reminds us everything is fine, everything is fine. In the words of Abigael Bohórquez in the poem "Duelo:"
Pero está bien;
en este mundo todo está bien:
el hambre, la sequía, las moscas,
el apartheid, la guerra santa, el SIDA
My translation:
But it’s fine;
en este mundo todo está bien:
el hambre, la sequía, las moscas,
el apartheid, la guerra santa, el SIDA
My translation:
But it’s fine;
everything in this world is fine:
hunger, drought, flies,
apartheid, holy war, AIDS
It's amazing how much works, despite the utter collapse.
On the Frontera-List (an email list that disseminates links to articles about "the violence" in Mexico), a report from MSNBC says that, "Earlier on Monday, six men were shot dead in Monterrey, in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon."
On the television here in Monterrey, we only hear about the arrival of the Pope to Guanajuato and the construction of new highway bridges. The images cut between the grounds where the pope will speak and diagrams showing the layout of the new bridges over the Río Santa Catarina.
There are no bodies. It is as Cristina Rivera Garza writes in her new book Dolerse: Textos desde un país herido: the neoliberal state has always had a relationship with its citizens that lacked entrañas, that lacked bodies, guts, the dirty mess of intestines and blood and flesh. As she describes, this isn't a war against the narcos, it's a war on the entire citizenry, fed by capital and rapacious greed.
Invisible bodies everywhere.
Invisible bodies everywhere.