Death and mourning in the political class

El Universal. 

By Samuel Gonzalez

Translated by un vato for Borderland Beat

(politica@eluniversal.com.mx )

Friday, October 5, 2012. For years we have held that the spiral of violence in this country would reach the highest levels of the political, business and social classes. Today, unfortunately, it touched a 25 year old young man, son of one of the most important politicians in Mexico today. He enjoys privileged status because of his proximity with the next president's team and with Ruben Moreira.

In the case of the homicide of the young Moreira, we should also remember that the challenge is even greater because they murdered him knowing that his uncle Ruben is the current governor of that state and that his aunt works very closely with the current President-elect, Enrique Pena Nieto. This homicide is a reminder that the violence unleashed these last eight years doesn't distinguish by social class, nor by business, political or cultural status.

It's about a transverse violence that we are all subject to. It's a product of our inability as a society to strengthen the Mexican State, and to reach agreement on a transition that will allow the country's  burdens and benefits to be distributed correctly. This crisis of  weakness in the Mexican State is patent and manifest, it can be seen throughout the length and breadth of the country because we have created preserves of power where there exists a true Mexican feudalism.

We have studied diverse realities from Colombia to Ireland, from Afghanistan to Italy, and in all of them, we find that there is a certain turning point after which the governing elites in a country begin to understand what they have to do to reverse the violence process. Like a great paradox, each famous death, and the pain  it causes, represents a hope that the governing elites will understand what they have to do to have a State capable of providing security and justice for everybody, an environment in which all of us can exercise our rights without a fear of being executed in an absurd war in which criminals impose their law because they know that, one way or another, impunity will prevail and they will not be brought to justice.

This, the impunity, is the product of the weakness of the Mexican State that allows anyone to challenge authority without there being any consequences. The challenge for the next administration is to strengthen the State, to make political actors understand that the State's strength derives from a respect for the law and from the establishment of a system that sanctions everybody equally, that will distribute income to prevent hundreds of thousands from joining organized crime because they don't have any other alternative. It will happen by applying an integrated strategy, something the current administration understood too late. The challenge is not to spend more on federal forces, but to achieve security through fighting corruption, creating transparency, reducing violence and ending a feudalism in political and economic sectors that threatens everybody's future equally.