New Year Resolution: No More Criminals and Migrants

As 2019 ended, I recalled two interviews that I had heard on BBC radio. The first was with the pastor of a church in Texas, explaining why his congregation supported the separation of children from parents who had been apprehended crossing the border with Mexico. The pastor explained that if the police raided a drug den in Los Angeles, for example, the children would have to be separated from Mummy and Daddy to be cared for by Social Services. Similarly, when Mummy and Daddy cross the border, they have broken the law and the children must be separated from them. I consulted a friend who is a retired New Jersey judge. He told me that crossing the border without the correct papers is a misdemeanour, which in New Jersey includes offences such as spitting in the street, punishable by imprisonment only after three offences.

The second interviewee was a stand-up comic who had been a volunteer with a charity that supports people living near Calais, who are seeking to get to the UK. Some of these people at least are children, separated from other family members during a long and perilous journey, and who are trying to join family members in the UK. The British government has an agreement with France to prevent their reaching the UK and has spent considerable sums to do so. I suspect that little or nothing has been spent to make life more tolerable for people stranded between two unwelcoming governments. The comic explained that she had first volunteered when the people she helped lived in temporary structures known as the “Jungle”. Subsequently, under the terms of the agreement between the two governments the “Jungle” structures were destroyed to “encourage” the residents to seek refuge in the French government’s “reception” centres. However, many residents soon returned to live in tents. Apparently, the Compagnie Républicaine de Sécurité (riot police) now slash the tents during the night and remove the shoes of those asleep in them, including the shoes of children. This is a rather heartless deterrence strategy.

The comic told of meeting a young Syrian man who was homeless in the UK while he waited for his asylum claim to be assessed. He was an architect, a graduate of a fine university in Damascus, but now homeless for reasons with which we are all familiar. As their friendship developed, the comic came to realize that the Syrian architect was not in any real sense a “migrant” but quite simply a person struggling with circumstances that we can barely comprehend, who had lost the right to live in his own land and was seeking a place on Earth that would give him a temporary refuge. In other words, “migrant” was not his identity, his personality, his profession, still less his identity. It is just a lazy word we use to lump together as one amorphous whole individuals struggling with misfortune.

This made me ponder that I was twice a “migrant”. The first occasion was from 1974-1976 when I was a research student in Mexico. On the second occasion, I arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1977 to set up a small Delaware corporation, Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, Inc., in its turn a subsidiary of a Hong Kong corporation, owned ultimately by Macmillan Publishers. In Mexico I was a pale-skinned rarity, especially in small mountain towns which I visited to meet the few remaining veterans of the 1910-1920 Revolution. I was asked “Do you have tea at 5pm every day?” or “Is it true that the English bathe only once a week?” Once it was evident that I was not a gringo, I was readily stereotyped. I was equally noteworthy when I visited a Texas college campus, or my printer in Virginia. My accent and strange choices of vocabulary marked me out as different, but in America gave me much more prestige than was afforded to a Mexican chamber maid, or a Central American farm worker.

I also once received a criminal conviction: for driving without due care and attention, an offence that probably qualifies as a misdemeanour in the USA. I wonder if the Texas pastor would have recommended a referral of my sons to Social Services.

So, my New Year’s resolution is not to label anybody a migrant or a criminal, but to attempt to see the person. And I will do my best to encourage others to avoid fitting labels to people who have qualities that labels do not describe.

How does the general election result matter?

This may be of more interest to friends beyond the UK, but I hope all will find something to provoke thought, even if you disagree.

The day after the general election we drove to Suffolk to visit my family. As I waited to pay for car fuel, a European lorry driver came into the shop clutching a 50 Euro note. He did not join the queue waiting to pay. A British driver called out “Oi mate there’s a queue here.” The other driver tried to explain that he just wanted to ask a question (he was unsure whether he could pay with Euros). The British driver responded “For f***k’s sake. Bloody ignorance. Good job we voted to get out yesterday.” This was the first reference I have heard to the election beyond the media. I cannot claim that this incident was typical, but it does illustrate one strand of the emotions aroused by Brexit.

Brexit                          

The election results mean that the UK will certainly leave the EU from a formal perspective on 31 January. Certain arrangements will continue for a transition period, which in theory ends on 31 December 2020. After that, all depends on negotiations. In the meantime, there remain many uncertainties, particularly for UK citizens who live in the EU (like our youngest son) whose rights are immediately reduced and far from clear, and for EU citizens in the UK.

By casting the Brexit decision as a Yes/No or Remain/Leave choice, the Conservative Party created two political camps with opposing views. Now, there are, of course differing views on any political issue. For example, one can have different views about the rate at which we can moderate CO² emissions, or how to prioritize transport investment. As the subjects are debated, policies can change in either direction. Brexit is fundamentally different in that it is an either/or choice for ever, or at least for a very long time. One section of the population wins and another loses everything. In the post-referendum political debate, the Conservative Party has been the party of Brexit, effectively telling those opposed to Brexit that the pro-Brexit faction has taken charge and Brexit opponents no longer have a say. A new noun was invented (“remoaners”) to label those who dislike Brexit as “bad losers”. No possibility of reconsideration or re-evaluation of the decision has been permitted. The Prime Minister’s first statement, after winning the election, that remoaners should “put a sock in it” reflect this attitude precisely. His subsequent speech was more conciliatory, but I suspect that reconciliation will be difficult in the short term at least.

It should also be noted that Brexit was not supported by Scotland, Northern Ireland, London and other large cities. Brexit was also supported disproportionately by older voters and opposed disproportionately by younger voters. Thus, Brexit is a project of the English regions outside major urban centres and of a generation who will be less affected by Brexit than its younger opponents.

The Labour Party

For about the last 100 years the Labour Party has vied for governmental power with the Conservative and Unionist Party. The principal third party, the Liberals (now the Liberal Democrats), has been a voice for change and new ideas, but without any role in government apart from the five years of coalition 2010-2015. In short, the Labour Party has been, and still is the only alternative to the Conservatives.     

Labour’s origins in the late 19^th- and early 20-centuries was deeply rooted in trade unions, the cooperative movement and Methodism. And, geographically, the party’s heartlands lay in the Midlands, Northern England, the Welsh Valleys and Scotland’s cities. These were the coal-mining and industrial areas where working-class solidarity was a bedrock of society. When I reached voting age in 1970, it was still common for Labour MPs to rise to political office by being union officials. The 21^st-century Labour MP is now much more likely to be a lawyer or other professional. The party’s share of the vote in its old heartlands has declined as its leadership has had less in common with its heritage. Tony Blair, for example, was a privately-educated, Oxford-graduate lawyer who  represented Sedgefield in the County Durham coal-mining area. In this election, the Conservatives defeated the Labour Party in Sedgefield and elsewhere by targeting the pro-Brexit, largely older, voters in places such as Sedgefield which elected a Conservative MP for the first time since 1930.

The Results

There are 652 MPs. The Conservative Party received 43.8% of votes cast and won 365 seats, about 58% of MPs. Labour received 32.2% of votes and 203 seats, about 32% or so of MPs. However, the Liberal Democrats with 11.5% of the votes have only 11 MPs, while the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) with 3.9% of votes has 48 MPs. The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin had about 10% of the number of votes received by the Liberal Democrats  but have 15 MPs.  Similarly, Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists received a tiny number of votes, about 5% of those received by the Liberal Democrats, but have 4 MPs, more than a third of the number of Liberal Democrat MPs.

In short, where a party receives its votes, can have a disproportionate effect on the number of MPs elected. By winning more votes than Labour in Northern England and Wales and the West Midlands, the Conservatives were able to win a larger proportion of MPs than the party’s share of votes. The disproportionate share of MPs compared to votes is still more marked in the smaller “nations” (as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are now termed) than in England. This raised serious questions concerning national unity.

Scotland

Not long ago, Labour dominated Scottish politics. Indeed, it was Labour that devolved power to form the Scottish Parliament to placate emerging nationalist sentiments. There are 59 Scottish MPs, of which SNP has now 48. The Conservatives (who once had scarcely one) now have 6, the Liberal Democrats 4 and Labour a single seat. Moreover, the SNP is the governing party in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP lost the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. However, Scotland voted to remain in the EU and is being dragged out by England. A strong nationalist party combined with resentment against Brexit and the English creates a climate in which independence sentiment can flourish. Another independence referendum is not imminent, but is likely within the decade. If Scotland eventually leaves the UK, Brexit and the Conservative Party’s Brexit obsession will be in large part responsible.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland exists as a compromise solution to the movement for Irish independence from Britain in 1919. Contending unionist and Irish nationalist interests drive Northern Irish politics. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, to some extent constrained the potential for conflict, at least for armed conflict, but has recently been under severe strain. Now, the Republic of Ireland is a signatory of the agreement and plays a part in maintaining it.  Since Ireland is a member of the EU, the status of the border and of customs and trading arrangements between  the Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, constitutes a volatile element of Brexit, an element concerning which Conservative Party Brexiters were both ignorant and indifferent when Brexit negotiations began. The issue prevented approval of Mrs. May’s agreement with the EU and ended her Prime Ministership. Mr Johnson’s achievement of a revised agreement was the basis of his success in this election.

However, the picture is complicated. After her failure to win a majority in the 2017 election, Mrs May relied on the support of ten Democratic Unionist MPs. The Democratic Unionists were resolutely pro-Brexit, although Northern Ireland voted against Brexit in the referendum. They insisted that the EU agreement should not in any way treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK. Nationalists were resolutely opposed to Brexit. The EU insisted on an arrangement that prevented the reimposition of any kind of border between the Republic and the North as a result of Brexit. Therefore, Mrs May negotiated the Northern Ireland “Backstop” (a contingency device to prevent imposition of a border if trade negotiations with the UK failed). The Backstop was fiercely opposed by the committed Brexiters in the Conservative Party and by Mr Johnson. Mr Johnson’s agreement creates a special customs/trade status for Northern Ireland, which is fiercely opposed by the Democrat Unionists.

In the election the DUP lost 2 of its 10 seats in Westminster, nationalist Sinn Féin retained 7 seats and the nationalist SDLP gained 2. Thus, there is now one more nationalist MP than unionist. So, Brexit and the election has altered the balance of power and sentiment between pro- and anti-nationalist groups with cosenquences that could, in the long run, further threaten the unity of the UK.

In short, Mr Johnson may be pleased with his victory and his rout of Labour, but the consequences for our nation that result from the Brexit obsession may be very serious.

Aphrodisiac elections

Jan and I will mark X next to our chosen candidate for our constituency tomorrow. We can walk through winter rain joyful in the knowledge that starting Friday we can engage in a prolonged period of erotic enthusiasm. This is what our current Prime Minister has promised us if he is chosen to lead our country. He tells us that he correctly predicted before the 2012 London Olympics that the Games would be such a success that Britons would become so hyperactive in the marital bedroom (or in his case anywhere else, one gathers) that the birth rate would increase substantially. He likewise predicts that Brexit will stimulate further reproductive excitement.

Who could resist voting for a man possessed of such priapic predictive powers? However, it seems that in 2013, following the Games, the birth rate fell. Perhaps the British electorate will suffer a profound Brexit anticlimax.

In case my friends overseas think that I am making this up and that nobody running for public office, let alone an aspirant to lead our country, could say something so preposterous, let me introduce you to “Boris being Boris”. This is the phrase used by his Conservative party colleagues to reassure the public that he is just a jolly British eccentric, a political Billy Bunter, whom we should so love that we fail to consider whether what he says is true or not. “Boris being Boris” is a carefully constructed contrivance designed to allow him to lie and dissemble shamelessly without any consequences.

The reference to the 2012 Olympic Games is part of this contrivance, because Mr Johnson was Mayor of London during the Games. He was therefore constantly in the media and claimed credit for the success of the Games. However, he was first elected Mayor of London in 2008, after the Labour government had won the bid to host the Games. The planning and most of the execution was carried out by Labour politicians. Thus, Mr Johnson can claim little credit for the Games, but that does not prevent his doing so.

Behind the jolly japes, untruths and boundless bluster and false bonhomie, lies an ugly intent. During the tenure of the Conservative government the number of foodbanks in our country has increased many fold. The uncomfortable fact that destitution and hunger have increased under Conservative rule does not quite fit the jolly japes picture. When one of Mr Johnson’s colleagues, the Home Secretary Priti Patel was challenged about the increased reliance on foodbanks to feed families, she stated that the government bears no responsibility for increased destitution. This, she declared is the responsibility of local governments whose funding has been decimated under her party’s rule. Do you think she cares or that a government in which she is a senior minister will do anything toreduce poverty?

The party that now promises us a “Points-based Australian-style immigration system”, has been responsible for deporting British citizens (who just happen to be of Caribbean heritage) because they could not produce sufficient documentation to satisfy Ms Patel’s department. In other words, the government does not have to prove that one is a citizen with full citizen’s rights, the citizen must prove it (unless he or she is of the correct colour). Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that Ms Patel’s department has illegally imprisoned victims of torture seeking asylum, with inestimable damage to their mental health. And the Conservative Party manifesto promises to make life difficult for Gypsy and other traveller communities.

Can anybody guess for which party I will cast my vote tomorrow?

Divided by Two Languages

The truism that the UK and the USA are two countries divided by a common language formed a leitmotiv of my working life, since I spent a good half of my time in publishing in North America. I must confess that I rather shamelessly used my exotic accent and formal suit and tie, to ensure that a visit from Ian Jacobs was a memorable affair. But I still had to make sure that I used terminology that was readily understood. In my last job at Thames & Hudson, I regularly referred to Vincent Van Go (in Japan I learned that he is Gogo), and had to remind myself that he was Van Gogh whenever I had a meeting in London.

Jokes abound of ignorant Brits in the USA failing to ask for an eraser or looking for a lift. But, of course, the differences are not simply a question of linguistics. I recall an urbane music publisher who was from the Deep South, explaining to me and our Yankee colleagues that where he came from, the polite way to accept an invitation is to reply “I don’t care to at all”. The phrase had the opposite meaning to that understood in New York City. Behind the language differences are real, and often profound differences of culture, even within the same country. Yankees may have fought a Civil War, but folks from Tennessee or Texas valiantly defended their homes against rapacious northerners in the War Between the States.

 

The pledge of the Children of the Confederacy defines the War Between the States

Last year, while on holiday in Spain, we sheltered from a downpour in a shopfront in Valencia and got into conversation with a Spanish couple who were also waiting for the storm to abate. I did not hear one remark and used the standard Mexican phrase that means “Excuse me”: mande usted (literally, “instruct me” or “give me orders”). In Spain a more direct ¿Cómo? or ¿Qué? (”what?”) is used. Our Spanish acquaintances explained to me that my Mexican phrase is considered to be servile. I could have replied that, to my ears, Spanish directness smacks of plain rudeness, but we did not pursue that topic of conversation any further.

Just as a Brit has to re-learn his native language in the USA, when I arrived in Mexico proudly speaking Castilian, my friends suggested that it would be much more agreeable if I were to speak like a Mexican. There are probably considerably more differences of vocabulary between Mexican and Castilian Spanish than there are between British and American English. A drinking straw is a popote not a pajita. You catch a  camión (literally a truck) rather than an autobús, and the verb you use for to catch is never coger (English f**k) but agarrar ("grab"), conseguir ("get hold of") or tomar ("take").

 

A road sign to the Central Camionera, officially known as the Central de Autobuses

It is perhaps in the social graces that a foreigner first notices that the differences are far more than merely linguistic. Mexicans retain the use of the formal usted (derived from the antique phrase vuestra merced, or “your honour”) and the familiar tu to say "you", a distinction shockingly abandoned in contemporary Spain. In addition to learning whom to address as usted, the newcomer soon learns to litter his speech with titles and honorifics. You do not ask for señor Sánchez, but for licenciado (a person with a first degree), arquitecto, ingeniero, doctor, maestro (somebody of superior education), señor director and the like. The use of first names is for friends and close colleagues, rarely for new acquaintances unless permission is explicitly or implicitly given, and certainly not to address social superiors. In other words, language expresses quite an elaborate social hierarchy.

At this stage you might agree with the Spaniards that all of this is much too servile. But these language conventions are an integral element of a society in which politeness, respect, consideration and an instinctive generosity towards, and desire to please, new acquaintances is quite profoundly and sincerely felt. Of course, in crowded and stressful urban environments, an elbow in the ribs to get on a bus, or a rude remark if displeased with someone, is quite common, but nevertheless a visitor is much more keenly aware of courtesy than in Spain.

In fact, in the days of the Spanish empire, Spaniards had a phrase: “As courteous as a Mexican”. I think that there are quite profound historical reasons for this rhetorical and social formality. In Aztec Mexico a ruler was known as a huey tlatoani (“the man who speaks” or “orator”) and rulers were depicted in ancient manuscripts with speech signs coming out of their mouths. Mexican society began to take shape when prehispanic ritualized behaviour met Spanish social and rhetorical norms in the 16^th century. Some colonists accumulated fabulous wealth. Those who did not had to find positions in the households of the wealthy or seek government appointments. In either case, seeking favour required plenty of deferential forms of address to people of higher social status, while maintaining one’s superiority to indigenous people or African slaves. So, ingratiating yourself was important and adequately deferential forms of address were keys to success.

 

Ahuitzotl, tlatoani of Tenochtitlan. Note the speech symbol

Today, if you are invited to a Mexican’s home for the first time, when you arrive you will be addressed with a phrase such as Aquí tiene su casa (“Here is your home”) or Esta es su casa (“This is your home”). Such phrases are a social ritual, but they reflect sincere pleasure and pride that you have agreed to enter the home. I was told a joke about this language. A Mexican says to an American acquaintance “It would be a great pleasure to have dinner with you where your home is” (Sería un gran placer cenar con usted donde tiene su casa). A date and time is agreed. That day the Mexican host devotes many hours to preparing a sumptuous dinner. But his guest never arrives, because he is at his own home spending many hours preparing an American dinner for his new friend. The American is also disappointed that his expected guest fails to show up.

Commemorative stamp of the Abrazo de Acatempan

Artist's impression of the abrazo de Acatempan

Then, of course, there is the Mexican abrazo. Every year in the small town of Acatempan, Guerrero, the locals celebrate, with great pageantry, perhaps the most significant abrazo in Mexican history. On 10 February 1821 two military leaders met in Acatempan. On one side was general Vicente Guerrero, leader of the rebels seeking independence from Spain. On the other was the royalist general Agustín de Iturbide. The two generals reached an agreement to consummate Mexico’s independence (Iturbide became Emperor Agustín I, although he did not last long as emperor) and sealed the deal with an embrace.

 

The reenactment of the abrazo de Acatempan

I must confess that as a reserved Englishman for whom a handshake was intimate, liberally embracing men took some getting used to. But upon arrival at a party, or a business meeting, embrace one must – repeatedly until all other men have been embraced. The right arm goes over the shoulder of the other man, the left under his right arm, and both pat one another’s backs. They say that the patting was originally a way of checking whether the other man was armed. I can remember social occasions when it took a good few minutes to kiss all the women and embrace all the men. Then another guest would arrive and another few minutes were spent kissing and embracing.

“Abrazos, no balazos” (“hugs not slugs”) and the culiacanazo (“Culiacángate”)

Monument to Francisco Figueroa Mata in the square of Huitzuco

In 1975 I was waiting for a bus in the main square of Huitzuco de los Figueroa, Guerrero. I had just visited Jesús Figueroa Alcocer, a revolutionary veteran, and a member of the family whose name the town bears. As I waited, carrying a gift of Jesús’ memoirs and two bottles of the wine he made, I overheard one lady say to another: “Did you hear that they killed young X?” The other lady replied, “Yes, he always did talk too much.” A certain casual violence, provoked by insults, family feuds, drunkenness, affairs of the heart etc. was part of the culture of Guerrero at the time. Yet in the 1970s Mexico did not have the reputation for violence that organized crime centred on drugs has brought to Mexico today.

Violence in 2019 Mexico that results in deaths can broadly be divided into three kinds: crime of the “everyday” sort (violent street robberies, small-scale drug dealing); more organized general criminality, such as kidnappings, local drug gangs, extorsion rackets (not infrequently run from prisons); the organized international crime of the cartels, which began with drugs, but now includes extorsion, people trafficking and many other forms of “business”. No country can be complacent about violence. The UK has a comparatively low murder rate (1.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018), but we are painfully aware that our cities suffer from serious knife crime that affects young people disproportionately. In the USA murders occur at four times the UK rate: 4.4 per 100,000. Mexico, alas, scores much higher: 22.3 in 2018 and in the first half of 2019 at a rate equivalent to 27.3.

Tijuana accounts for 7.5% of all murders in Mexico

A curious fact is that in just five cities the murder rate is at least three times the national figure: Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez on the US border; Ciudad Victoria in the northeast; Irapuato, an ugly industrial town in central Mexico; Acapulco, once a glamorous resort for the international jet set, on the Pacific coast. In these cities the rate is at least 80 per 100,000. To add some context here, consider the homicide rate in 2018 in some US cities that I have visited unscathed was: St Louis, MO, 60 per 100,000; Baltimore, MD, 52; Newark, NJ, 35.5. The deadliest was East St Louis, MO (I have been there too), 100 (27 murders in a small city of 27,000 people). In 2018 26 US cities, large and small, experienced murder rates higher than Mexico’s national statistics.

 

Police investigating a murder in East St Louis

Violence was already severe when Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, president from 2006-2012, announced a new strategy to counter organized crime. He would deploy the armed forces to hunt down the leaders of the drug cartels, disrupt their activities and bring the country back under control. Successive presidents followed Calderón’s lead. Unfortunately, when an important leader was captured or killed, the result was that violence increased, either because gang factions fought to take over the organization, or because another cartel seized an opportunity to eliminate a rival and seize its territory, or both. A change of government, which happens every six years, has also tended to increase crime

The new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced a new strategy, summarized as abrazos no balazos (“hugs not bullets”). The plan is to abandon or scale back the militarized strategy of previous presidents, denounced by AMLO as the plan of “corrupt conservatives” (in AMLO’s rhetoric “predecessor”, “conservative” and “corrupt” are synonymous). Instead, AMLO emphasizes addressing the social causes of violence (principally poverty, lack of opportunity and governmental corruption). He emphasizes that “we are all Mexicans”, including criminals and that the army should not be deployed against its own people. It is certainly true that the previous militarized strategies have not worked. The question, then, is whether AMLO’s plan is likely to produce better results. The statistics for 2019 are discouraging. However, it was never likely that such a stubborn problem could be eliminated in a single six-year term. The question is whether AMLO’s approach shows early signs of success.

The Caballo Blanco after the attack

In August a group of gunmen, presumed to be members of a drug gang, attacked the Caballo Blanco Bar in Coatzacoalcos, in the state of Veracruz. A 15-year old boy who was a member of the gang threw a molotov cocktail. Some 29 people died from gunshots and burns. The 15-year old himself was badly burned. AMLO denounced the attack as the result of corrupt links between the state prosecutors and organized crime. He said “We must look after our young people, not turn our backs on them. The prisons are full of young people, most of those who lose their lives are young people … So, we must deal with the causes of insecurity and violence.” This is true, but what does AMLO plan to do with the young person, and his accomplices, who had just participated in the murder of 29 people, beyond warm rhetoric and a verbal hug?

El Chapo in custody in New York

At first glance, AMLO’s approach makes more sense than simply sending in the army, often after the event. However, the culiacanazo in October raises serious questions about abrazos no balazos. Before describing the event, a little context is needed. One of the first and most successful organized crime and drug cartels is the Sinaloa Cartel, based in the northern state of Sinaloa, and led by Joaquín, el Chapo (“shorty) Guzmán. El Chapo was twice arrested and jailed in Mexico, but managed to escape. When he was captured for a third time he was extradited, tried in New York, convicted of drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder in the USA (he was not tried for his many crimes in Mexico), and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. AMLO expressed sorrow for Guzmán’s victims, and then commented on the sentence: “I wish no harm to anybody. I don’t like to kick anybody when he’s down. It’s a Biblical principle ... I don’t want anybody to be in jail, I am an idealist. It’s not a pleasant life to be unable to see your family, to live as a fugitive is no kind of life. And when these things result in sentences like this, a life sentence, in a hostile, hard, inhuman jail, well it moves one to pity.” This statement rather blithely ignores a simple fact: El Chapo lived as a fugitive for one simple reason. He was responsible for murders and many other crimes in Mexico and the USA, and is probably less easily moved to pity than his nation’s president.

Ovidio Guzmán in temporary custody

Now, two of El Chapo’s sons have assumed control of the Sinaloa Cartel in their father’s absence. Last month an army patrol raided a house in Culiacán, Sinaloa. One of the occupants was Ovidio Guzmán, one of El Chapo's sons. A video released by the government shows soldiers, with scrupulous courtesy, asking those in the house to please (por favor, “please”, is heard repeatedly) come outside. The soldiers were clearly nervous, and anxious to avoid a shoot-out. When Ovidio, a slim young man, wearing a baseball cap, a smart white shirt and a necklace, emerged from the house he was the very picture of calm. He surely knew that his own armed forces, superior in numbers and armament to the Mexican military, were patrolling the streets arresting, or shooting at, the police and soldiers, and setting vehicles alight to block roads. This is a sufficiently common response that Mexicans have a term for it: a narcobloqueo (narco blockade). In Mexico City government officials, alarmed at the risk to lives of innocent civilians, ordered their soldiers to retire and to leave Ovidio well alone. One of the soldiers handed Ovidio a phone and politely asked him to instruct his men to cease fire so that everybody could go home safely. [See the video and AMLO’s comments at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/mexico-el-chapo-son-ovidio-guzman-lopez-operation]

El culiacanazo

Now, even I know that, if the authorities arrest even a low-level leader, a narcobloqueo will ensue. If you happen to seize a particularly big fish, you can expect the response to be correspondingly large-scale. The desire to avoid the loss of innocent lives is admirable. But the real question is why the army and its masters in Mexico City allowed the raid to proceed, but made no provision to deal with the bloqueo.

When we returned to Mexico City in October, we asked our driver what he made of the culiacanazo. He thinks of the narcos as Robin Hood characters. They make money from crime, but in states such as Sinaloa they build schools and hospitals that the government does not. I have no idea whether this is true, but I pointed out that El Chapo and his sons have murdered a lot of people. We also discussed gun control in Mexico. Our driver explained that to have permission to buy a gun a citizen must apply for a permit from the Ministry of Defence stating why (s)he needs a gun. The Ministry checks the background of the applicant. If issued, the permit will entitle the applicant to buy a handgun of modest capacity. Citizens are not allowed to buy military grade weapons.

How then did the participants in the Culiacán narcobloqueo manage to outgun the military? They did not need to circumvent Mexico’s gun control laws since just to the north lies a country happy to supply them with any firearms they wish to pay for: the United States of America, home of the National Rifle Association and its friend in the White House. Much of the money used to buy the arms is supplied by the US citizens to whom the cartels sell drugs. So, while Mr Trump has been noisily demanding a wall to keep the Mexicans and others out, he has not lifted a finger to protect Mexico in return. America First indeed.

British General Election

Parliament has just agreed to hold a general election on 12 December. The government claims that an election is necessary to “get Brexit done” and blames Parliament, and in particular the Labour Party and, in very personal attacks, its leader for the delay. Since this is the principal explanation of why we need an early election, it bears some scrutiny, which will in turn throw light on the real motivation for an election.

To begin at the beginning, the Conservatives have been the principal governing party since 2010: 2010-2015 in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, 2015-2017 with a small overall majority, 2017-summer 2019 with a majority formed by a pact with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and since the summer of 2019 a minority government as a result of the Prime Minister’s own actions.

The Conservatives loathed five years of coalition and, rather to their own surprise, won a small majority in 2015, partly by inflicting a heavy defeat on their coalition partners. However, the Conservatives entered the 2015 election terrified that the new UKIP (UK Independence) party would erode is electoral base. Therefore, Prime Minister Cameron included in his election manifesto a promise of an “In or Out Referendum” on EU membership after he had negotiated new arrangements with the EU. To his surprise, Mr Cameron won the election with a small majority. Mr. Cameron advocated remaining in the EU, but, much to his surprise, in the 2016 referendum 52% voted to leave. Mr Cameron had made no plans for a Leave majority. Although he had promised to implement the result of the referendum, he promptly resigned, leaving his successor to devise a plan. The lack of planning suggests hubris, if not incompetence, perhaps both.

The Conservatives then chose Theresa May, the Home Secretary, to be the new Prime Minister. At this point there was no definition of what leaving the EU meant, no evaluation of what the implications were, nor how to achieve it. In short, the Conservatives had invited the electorate to make a decision of momentous import, but had not thought to work out how to implement the decision. Mrs May faced a party divided into two broad camps: the pro-EU MPs, most of whom decided to put to one side their personal judgement and support leaving, and those fiercely opposed to EU membership (many of them members of the blandly named European Research Group).

At this stage Mrs May’s task was to devise a plan and persuade her own party to support it. Now, the EU treaty stipulates that a country that wishes to leave must first give two years’ notice of its intention. Rather than devise her plan, give notice and then negotiate the terms of withdrawal, Mrs May chose to give notice with no plan whatsoever. She therefore wasted part of the two years’ notice period working out a plan.

Then, in 2017, she had a clever idea. The Labour Party and its leader were so unpopular that she would call an election and win a large majority. Mrs May turned out to be incapable of mounting an effective election campaign and Labour’s Mr Corbyn proved to be a much more effective campaigner than Mrs May expected. The election gave her the largest group of MPs in Parliament, but not an overall majority. She remained Prime Minister, but had to agree a pact with the DUP to secure a majority in Parliament. She had by now wasted more time, first devising a plan, then halting negotiations with the EU to call an election, then negotiating a pact with the DUP.

Mrs May succeeded in negotiating an agreement with the EU, but then found to her great dismay that the ERG wing of her party was opposed to it, so was the formerly pro-EU wing, and so was the DUP. In short, Mrs May failed to win the support of her own side. In this situation, the opposition of the Labour Party was neither here nor there. Mrs May was the author of her own fate.

Mrs May resigned as Prime Minister earlier this year. The Conservative Party then elected Boris Johnson as leader. Mr Johnson vowed that the UK would leave the EU on 31 October “do or die” and with or without a deal. In short, he allied himself with the ERG wing of his party even more firmly than Mrs May had done. He also expelled from the government (unless they resigned first) any members of the government who would not support his approach. This created a group of 20 or more opponents on the formerly pro-Eu wing of the party. His plan can be summarized as follows:

·      Initially, to to make a show of refusing even to talk to the EU so as to convince them that he fully intended to leave without a deal, and to show those opposed to the EU that he was one of them

·      To suppress opposition in Parliament by proroguing (suspending sittings) for five weeks. This was subsequently ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court

·      Then to negotiate an agreement with the EU in such a way as to leave minimal time for Parliament to scrutinize its content

·      In the event that he were unable to secure approval for his agreement, to call a general election on the argument that Parliament was frustrating the will of the people

This plan immediately took a turn for the worse. Before it was prorogued Parliament passed a bill requiring Mr Johnson to write to the EU to ask for an extension of membership if an agreement with the EU had not been approved by 19 October. Despite declaring that he would not do so, Mr Johnson sent the letter but refused to sign it. Twnety one Conservative MPS from the formerly pro-EU wing of the Conservative party voted for this bill. Mr Johnson expelled them from the party. Thus, even with the support of the 10 DUP MPs, Mr Johnson had destroyed his own majority. In short, both Mrs May and Mr Johnson themselves took decisions that deprived them of a majority in Parliament.

Mr Johnson succeeded in negotiation a modified version of Mrs May’s agreement. The revised agreement won the support of the ERG, but the DUP fundamentally opposes it because it requires an internal customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Mr Johnson had previously stated that no British Prime Minister could ever agree to such an arrangement. He now promptly agreed to just such an arrangement. Essentially, by choosing to expel members of his own party, and by negotiating an agreement that the DUP was bound to reject, he guaranteed his inability to pass his own agreement, and then blamed the opposition for his impotence.

Mr Johnson then put his agreement to Parliament. Parliament agreed the deal in principle by a majority of 30 votes, but Mr Johnson insisted that the House be allowed only three days to consider the most important change in the country’s constitution, social and economic arrangements in a half century or more. Parliament refused to accept this expedited timetable. Mr Johnson then withdrew the agreement from further consideration. In short, Parliament did not oppose the agreement, but rather asserted its duty to scrutinize it.

At this point a brief aside concerning minority governments is useful. Minority governments and/or coalitions are the norm in many other European countries. The British system assumes that a single party wins a majority of Parliamentary seats and that the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. However, it is perfectly possible to rule with a minority of MPs. This requires political skills, negotiate and compromise, as previous minority governments have shown. A Prime Minister is not obliged to call for an election simply because (s)he lacks a majority.

However, Mr Johnson’s response to Parliament’s insistence on scrutinizing his agreement was to demand an election. In the past, the Prime Minister was able to call a general election at will. However, since 2011 when the Conservative-Liberal coalition government passed the Fixed Term Parliament Act, elections can be held every five years or at an earlier date provided that 66% of MPs vote for an election. Mr Johnson attempted to call an election but the Labour Party refused to vote in favour. In essence, the opposition had him where they wanted him: powerless to proceed as he wished, unwilling to negotiate and at the mercy of other parties. You might ask how it is that we are now to have an election on 12 December. The answer is that the opposition was not united. First the Scottish National Party, and then the Liberal Party, both for their own reasons of electoral advantage, proposed a one-time bill to call for an election by a simple majority vote. Labour then concurred.

Until we have heard what each party proposes, we cannot decide how we will vote. The commentators predict that the outcome is extremely volatile and uncertain. However, I think we can confidently state that Mr Johnson’s argument that the Labour Party and its leader are solely responsible for his failure to achieve Brexit by 31 October is untrue. The failure is the result of years of poor decisions and incompetent political leadership on the part of three Prime Ministers, all of them Conservative.

Day of the Dead in Mexico

When we returned to our hotel in Mexico City, we found the lobby decorated in preparation for the Day of the Dead on 1 November. The receptionist joked that the skeletal couple were guests who had not paid their bills.

 

Hotel La Casona, Colonia Roma, Mexico City

Apparently, the phoney Day of the Dead procession with which a recent James Bond film starts, has been adopted in Mexico City as a tourist attraction. In 1975 I was taken to a more traditional celebration in Mixquic, a small town within the modern Mexico City. Mixquic was full of visitors and sellers of food and drink. In the churchyard families sat  by the graves and enjoyed a meal with their dead. The highlight of the day was a competition of skeleton puppets. Skeletons might rise from their coffins, dance or perform other exploits. One acknowledgement to modernity was a skeleton that performed the antics of a popular TV game show of the time, called Sube Pelayo, sube (roughly “Climb Mr. Nobody, climb”). Contestants climbed a greasy pole to grab money and other prizes from the top of the pole. In Mixquic, Pelayo was a skeleton.

The Day of the Dead celebrations are a hybrid of prehispanic and Christian traditions. The many and varied societies of Ancient Mexico shared a preoccupation with death and the underworld. Shamans entered caves (thought to be the entrance to the underworld) to receive trance-induced messages from the gods. Powerful people were buried with offerings, and sometimes sacrificed humans, to accompany them in the afterlife. Sacrificial victims, drugged to facilitate sacrifice, were considered honoured beings who would receive rewards in the underworld, once a priest had removed their hearts: a dubious honour to be sure. The Spanish clerics abhorred human sacrifice, but shared a preoccupation with death and the afterlife. Faced with the task of converting thousands of indigenous people, most of whom understood not a word of Spanish, it suited priests to merge the two traditions.

Near our hotel is the famous Pastelería Suiza (“Swiss Patisserie”), which had on offer an array of death-related goods.

Pan de muerto

A breakfast treat is a pan de muerto (“bread of the dead”), often filled with cream. There are, of course, the brightly coloured skulls made of sugar or of sweet potato or chocolate. Another delight is huesitos de santos (“saints’ bones”) made of white marzipan filled with egg yolk, or tumbas (“tombs” or “coffins”) of chocolate or sugar with lids open to reveal the skeleton.

Día de los Muertos treats at the Pastelería Suiza

The Dolores Olmedo Museum, famed for its collection of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo works, organizes an annual themed display of skeletons (known in Mexico as calacas). This year’s theme was the triumphs of Mexican engineering and architecture.

Mexico City's Metro c.1970

Calacas at the Dolores Olmedo Museum

 

Pilgrims at the modern Sanctuary of Our lady of Guadalupe

The altar, honouring victims of the 1985 and 2017 earthquakes

The 1968 Olympic Stadium

 

La Heróica Escuela Militar ("The Heroic Military Academy")

 

Exit only

Los de Abajo: The Underdogs

Perhaps the most famous novel of the Mexican Revolution is Mariano Azuela’s Los de Abajo, usually translated as The Underdogs.

Los de Abajo, cover design

Underdogs are a frequent theme of Mexican arts. A famous director of early Mexican cinema is “El Indio” Fernández. His film La Perla (The Pearl) is a tale of love, poverty and greed, with the dénouement of one of the great operas. The action takes place on a tropical coast that could well have been the coast of Nayarit where we have been staying. A humble pearl fisher, married to a beautiful young woman, with a new-born baby, finds an enormous pearl, so valuable that it can transform the life of his family. As he puts it, his son would now learn to read and write.

The pearl fisher and his family

Alas, the local landowner is determined to own the marvellous pearl. The fisherman’s wife entreats him to give the pearl to the landowner to save the family, but her husband cannot abandon his dreams. They flee, clutching the precious pearl. They are pursued by the landowners’ armed thugs through mangrove swamps and tropical forests. The new-born baby succumbs to the hardship of the journey. Finally, the fisherman heeds his wife’s entreaties that their love is greater than riches and throws the pearl into the sea. He and his wife return to their home, poor but wiser and in love.

San Angel Inn gardens

In Mexico City we lunched one day at the San Angel Inn, a famous restaurant in the former home of a wealthy landowner, with carefully tended gardens and a large staff to pamper the diners. When one visits the baños, an attentive man in a white coat opens the cubicle door, later squeezes soap on to your hands and hands you a length of paper towel. In return he receives a modest tip. I find it hard to calculate his daily income, but his home life must be far away from that of the diners in San Angel. In contrast, the table next to ours was occupied by four young businessmen, probably in their early 30s. They ate heartily and consumed a number of rounds of tequila and sangrita, a traditional spicy tomato accompaniment sipped after each sip of tequila.

Main street, San Pancho

I am writing this in San Francisco (popularly known as San Pancho), in Nayarit state on the Pacific coast. Had we come here around 1940 we would have found a tiny remote settlement which formed part of an ejido (a collectively-owned farm) created by the government’s land reform programme. The peasants who farmed, tended cattle or fished here may have sent their children to one of the new state schools teaching the “socialist education” in vogue at the time. There may even have been one of the new government clinics, dispensing rudimentary healthcare. Urban services such as potable water or sewage would have been unthinkable: even today in tourist San Pancho water is delivered to homes by tanker trucks. San Pancho boomed briefly from 1970-1976 when President Luis Echeverría built a holiday home for his family there. He channelled money into the town. The government improved housing, established a school, a teaching hospital, an agricultural university, and a fruit-processing factory. However, after Echeverría left office funding stopped and some of the president's projects failed. The modern population of 1,600 souls lives almost entirely from tourism or associated trades, such as construction, taxi-driving and so on.

We arrived just before the tourist season gets into full swing. This part of the coast caters to visitors who escape the cold winters of North America or Europe, or who come from Mexico City or Guadalajara, who arrive at the airport of Puerto Vallarta, served by airlines from Alaska to Mexico City. We have seen a few visitors driving past our rented villa in golf buggies, favoured by the less mobile or those whose accommodation is in the golf club or polo resort just outside town. On the highway to San Pancho we had passed a rather less luxurious form of transportation, a cargo truck, typical of remoter parts of Mexico. The cargo area is enclosed by white wooden slats. Three men sat in the back nursing a trompa, a large doner kebab wrapped in sturdy plastic for a long, but perhaps not very hygienic, journey. As we ate lunch on Friday a similar truck carrying a large refrigerator parked across the street. The truck had no mechanical ramp or other lifting aids, so the driver and his mate lowered the refrigerator carefully from a height of some five or six feet, and carried it quite a distance along the street. The delivery was made in a very humid temperature of some 33^o. Given the distance they had travelled, the financials rewards for the men’s labours must have been very modest.

 

San Pancho beach

We had lunch the next day in a restaurant on the beach. We talked to one of the sellers of tourist goods. His was a story of how, at its best, the Mexican state protects the less privileged. He has a four year old daughter born five months prematurely. The little girl spent four months in intensive care and required intensive physiotherapy to learn to walk. She has now developed further mobility problems, but only private physiotherapy is available, which is far beyond the income of a beach salesman. Her father had heard of Pasitos de Luz, the charity where our son works, but had been unable to make contact. Fortunately, Chris was able to give him the contact details.

Taquería el Arbolito, kitchen

Our first night here we were caught in a violent tropical storm. The owner of a taco restaurant, Taquería el Arbolito, who had closed for the night, offered us shelter, refreshment and pleasant conversation as we watched water pour down the street. Pedro runs a sizeable business, where we had dinner the following night. He must be one of the more prosperous locals who cater to the tourist trade. Pedro’s wife runs the open air kitchen, assisted by two local ladies, one of whom makes the tortillas.

Taquería el Arbolito, living accommodation above

Two young men serve. A dinner of tacos, quesadillas, volcanes (an open taco on a crispy tortilla), or pellizcadas (a taco equivalent of an Italian calzone) filled with ingredients of our choice, additional flavours added at a sauce bar, washed down with cold drinks, costs about 200 -230 pesos (about £10) for three people. Pedro shuts his business for two weeks in August for a holiday in a larger Mexican resort. He makes most of his money from late October to early May and carefully husbands his cash for the rest of the year. The family lives in a modest structure above the restaurant. One of his sons works night shifts in the laundry of the town hospital.

San Pancho, hospital

San Pancho offers some essential facilities to its residents. There is a state pre-school a block from the beach and a hospital two or three blocks further. The centre of town has a variety of restaurants and cafés, a grocery store (tienda de abarrotes) or two, and an art gallery. On the highway is a petrol station and an Oxxo convenience shop. Beyond the highway, the hills, covered in tropical vegetation, rise steeply. These facilities would have been completely lacking in the 1930s. However, friends tell us that those who can afford private insurance (such as the diners at the San Angel Inn) escape the long waits, shortage of medicines and dated equipment and facilities of the public health care system. Health care in Mexico can be as good as any in the world. Indeed, there is a good deal of health tourism from the USA. Foreign citizens can enrol in the public system for a very modest annual contribution (a generous concession, given the demands on the system of Mexico’s own citizens), or can access cheaper private care.

 

San Pancho, community centre and library

Education also tends to be divided in similar fashion. Much public education is part-time (four hours per day). Our driver in Mexico City sent his two children to private schools for a better education and access to university education. They found work in technology businesses in Germany and Estonia. Mexico produces international-class scholars and professionals, and supports a lively cultural scene. The country has come a long way since the era of Los de abajo and La Perla, but limited employment opportunities, enormous inequality and unequal access to education and other essential services are issues that are still far from being solved. Most jobs are poorly paid and terms of employment would be considered very harsh in Europe: a 46-hour week, no holidays at all in the first year, six days in the second year. Even after ten years in the same job, our usual five weeks of holiday is beyond the dreams of a Mexican worker. Salaries, even for middle-class management jobs, are very modest by European standards, and working-class salaries are low indeed. The low-wage economy is precarious. Life outside it (juggling or cleaning windscreens at traffic lights, selling chewing gum on the street) is even more so.