June 19th 2011- Mexico City. It’s father’s day and it’s the annual half marathon in the south area of the city and there were over 12, 000 runners plus supporters around the zone. This event needs a lot of organization for it to go according to plan. Police officers were around the whole perimeter making sure everything went well, “My job is to make sure I don’t see any suspicious, I am in charge of the security of the people” said an policemen right there at the event. It is very strange to see policemen at sporting events. This is not a common trait.In global sporting events policeman are not there to watch people. Yes, they are there to and monitor the streets but not to watch over citizens; that is a little bit too much. There is the race a lot of people were cheering and looking for their family members and suddenly a police helicopter came down and started giving spins and spins. “This is not normal, this is too low and it’s distracting people” said a man waiting for his wife to finish the race. Mexico has to be under constant vigilance. These sport events could also bring big trouble.
Mexico is known as a very welcoming country. As a place where everyone is seen as nice and friendly, a typical stereotype made of a country, which sometimes in part, it can be true. I am Mexican most of the year I live in Spain. And when I come back to my country it’s a shame not to be able to see other persons to tell tourists to adventure to the country, or to recommend people to see places I’ve seen myself. Or how it’s basically impossible to travel to the famous beach of Acapulco because it’s so dangerous it has lose its interest.
Mexico is currently going through a crisis. A terrible security and life threatening situations that is uniting the country into poor circumstances, and it doesn’t seem that is going anywhere. I’m talking about the drug war that is currently terrorizing not only Mexico but numerous other countries as well. “About 40 % of our crime is due to the drug related crimes” said an external advisor for the CISEN (The National Security and Investigation center) “We have the drug dealers, trying to plant the drug, fabricating it or distributing it. Then we have one group of against the other and starts killing for more power. Then of course there is the government interfering, including the army and police forces and then of course we have the collateral damage”. In this case it has been thousands of people who have been in the worn place at the wrong time. “The sad part is that cartels are mainly disputing to sell the drugs to the US- and look what is causing in our country” said the advisor.
In 2010 alone there were over eleven thousand deaths linked to drug related crimes compared to a to rate over of two thousand deaths in 2006. It’s been an increasing problem in the last years. People are afraid. They cannot live as they used to live. They can’t really relay on their democracies.
Maria Ballester A Psiconalist expresses the errors the government has committed on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMMqpEnMqXo
According to Freedom House Mexico civilian liberties have declined in the past year http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/fiw/FIW_2011_Booklet.pdf
(page 18).
The Government can’t form a well-structured democracy and it has led to a decline in journalism. There is no security is what newspapers write. Being a journalist is not safe at all; you really can’t write any sort of information relating crime. Blogs have been used as a new alternative. Citizen journalism has been the ultimate way of finding the murders in the last few years. Here is an example of a very explicit blog. Showing picture and the news of what has been happening around the country. http://www.blogdelnarco.com/
The citizens are trying to do something about it. Whether is on the social Media or on the streets there are trying. On 2010 a Facebook launched called NO + sangre (No more blood) which consisted of people chanching their profile pictures into this
image http://culturacomic.com/2011/01/17/no-mas-sangre-campana-promovida-por-rius/
Which meant that the people was sick of all those people getting murder and there was nothing done about it. Paulina, 20, a Mexican communication student says that this sort of campaigns would help raise consciousness on the issue but it could not really do anything about it.
Another example would be a Mexican Poet Javier Sicilia after the death of his son and decided to start a march for piece throughout the country of Mexico not only to protest against Drug related crimes but also organized crime.
If the government fails, at least the citizen can try to change and evoke and make understand that a lot of people have died, and that we have to stop what is going on. We can’t just go on, we all have a voice, and we can use it.
