Mexican Drug Wars – Narco Cultura

A large part of this documentary focuses on the Mexican drug wars effect on and situation in the city of Juárez, Mexico, which is located right next to the Mexican-American border, just across the river from the city of El Paso, Texas. Incredible violence is being caused by these drug wars, with people being found decapitated and dismembered in public squares. People can only be very seldom found walking the street of Juarez, even in broad daylight.

Within Juárez, the documentary follows a criminal investigator named Richi Soto, a local of the city who was born, raised, and continues to live there today. He recalls being safe to play in the streets as a child, and is sad to see that that’s not possible for the young ones growing up now.

Juárez became the most dangerous city in Mexico when one of the country’s five major drug cartels Sinaloa Cartel lead by ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán decided to fight for control of Juárez. We can see the number of deaths rise greatly during the years this cartel came to Juárez with there being 320 murders in 2007, 1623 in 2008, 2754 in 2009, and 3622 in 2010.

To give perspective to just how big this business of drugs has become, it was estimated that about 40 billion dollars are made by the drug cartels each year. The fact that most of this money is coming from the United States was the real incentive for the US government to begin their campaign against drugs; it was not the fact that thousands of people were being killed in the city of Miami, Florida because of the drug trade but because of the huge amount of money that was flowing out of the States and into Latin America.

It is incredibly interesting and also extremely concerning to see the influence these drugs and violence are having on Mexican and American culture, especially on the youth. Some girls say they want to become girlfriends of Narcos and although they say that this life of drugs and violence is not always good, it’s now their culture and is a way of life – a way to make a living so to speak. A journalist that was interviewed provided the interesting insight that these Narcos (people involved in dealing drugs and with this violence) are the ‘Robin Hoods’ of today; the Narcos symbolize power, respect, and success – they are now the ones some people are looking up to and want to embody.

Another part of the documentary looked at the Narcocorrido songs – songs about killing, drugs, and violence – that has emerged from the drugs and violence in Latin America and the United States, with a focus on a band called Buknas de Culiacan which originates in Los Angeles. These songs are light hearted and upbeat in tune and note, but incredibly violent in lyric. This Narcos music is very popular in certain circles of people across the United States and in Mexico, with the music being sold in US chain stores like Wal-Mart. Today this music is banned from Mexican radio and television stations.

There is a lot of criticism against the police in Mexico and other countries in Latin America, saying that they’re also the ‘bad guys’, that many of them are corrupt and harm innocent people. It was found that 97% of the investigations that are carried out by the police are not investigated. The crime scene information is simply collected and then that’s it – the investigation does not continue and no efforts are made to track down the killers. Only a few cases of the 3% that do have a full investigation actually lead to charges or punishment. There have been many many incidences of people finding out that authorities are collaborating with criminal organizations.

60,000 people were murdered in Mexico alone since 2006 – the year the Mexican drug war ‘officially’ started.

Narco Cultura. Dir. Shaul Schwarz. Prd. Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Todd Hagopian. Cinedigm, K5 International, Parts & Labor, Ocean Size Pictures. 2013. Netflix. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

The Beginnings of Pablo Escobar and the Drug Wars

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, infamous for being the most powerful man in the drug trade, kicked off the Drug War in the early 1980’s when he started trafficking cocaine from Colombia by plane to Miami, Florida. But his rise to power and wealth started before that time and even before his involvement with cocaine – it started with his ‘business’ of trafficking marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol.

Chile was becoming the largest processor and exporter of cocaine in 1973, but President Pinochet at the time (who President Nixon of the United States helped bring into power) ended up shutting down 33 cocaine producing laboratories and arresting and then killing 346 of the drug dealers. One of these Chilean drug dealers escaped Pinochet’s grasp, Mateo Moreno ‘Cockroach’, and ended up being the one to introduce Escobar to cocaine and eventually partnering with him in beginning the mass production and trafficking of the drug. Cockroach, already having the expertise on the production of cocaine, was looking for someone to help him traffic the drug from Peru to Colombia and elsewhere. At the time cocaine was already selling at the expensive price of ten dollars per gram in Chile. Moreno was eventually killed by Escobar, as were many other people who he saw as getting in his way or meddling with things.
Part of the reason cocaine was so ‘successful’ is that it acts upon the part of the brain that deals with pleasure. In fact, researchers found it was so ‘pleasurable’ that rats they were testing the drug on preferred it over food, water, and sex. No wonder it was became so popular…

They produced the cocaine from first crushing coca leaves (which they employed children to do since they claimed their small feet were ideal for the job) then mixed in kerosene to extract the drug from the leaves. Sulfuric acid was used after this to concentrate the drug during a distillation process and then was mixed with gasoline and strained. The final step was then to add ammonia which yielded a white paste which was then baked. Much of this production was done in the middle of jungles where there was ample room and less fear of being discovered.

When trafficking started from Colombia to the USA – namely Miami – in the early 1980’s, different methods were used to conceal the cocaine during smuggling. The drug was hidden in bags of coffee beans and flour and within the bellies of fish being exported to the United States. People called ‘mules’ were alternately used to transport the drug; these people were paid to swallow plastic packets filled with the drug and then fly to the United States. This lead to the deaths of many people as sometimes packets burst within them during the travel, causing a cocaine overdose. Eventually Escobar chartered a small airplane to fly cockpits full of cocaine directly to Miami from Colombia.

As cocaine gained popularity in the United States, the war on drugs commenced. Between 1979 and 1984 3245 people were killed in Miami – the time during which the popularity and demand for cocaine rose.

‘Descenso’ Narcos. Paul Eckstein. Gaumont International Television, 2015. Netflix. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Week Nine

Week Nine
Some people call the United States ‘a bully,’ and there’s definitely some evidence in this chapter to support this claim. ‘When the United States took on larger nations, the results were not always favorable. General John Pershing’s “Punitive Expedition” in Mexico…. Mexico proved too great a challenge for a state that was not prepared to embrace total war. It was instead in the smaller countries of the Caribbean and Central America where American officials could flex their military muscles in the support of U.S. foreign policy without putting the country as a whole on a war footing.’ (Dawson, 185) Basically the United States tried to militarily interfere with Mexico and was unsuccessful so then backed off and stuck to interfering with smaller Latin American nations including Cuba, Panama, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Nicaragua, among others.

I found it very interesting to see examples of the US intervention in Latin American countries and the ways it acted as an ‘undercover’ imperialist country.

On the topic of the ‘banana republic’ (a name given to the nations that were central to the export of bananas to the United States through the controversial UFCO [United Fruit Company] which included Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Cuba, Panama, and the Dominican Republic). I had heard of the banana republic before, having watched part of a documentary on the banana industry in the Dominican Republic. I remember being shocked at the reality of it: incredible poverty ensued with the installation of the UFCO. Many people had few other options for work as the UFCO took monopoly over the banana market and took a huge amount of local land. I saw clips and images of the poverty people were forced into because of it and heard about their personal and collective struggles. It was such a clear example of systemically perpetuated problems.
What I found interesting was how exactly the United States gained so much influence over not just the banana plantations but also the minds and desires of the people. I was surprised to find out that UFCO branched off into running radio and television stations, schools, hospitals, banks, etc. It is argued that it was through this that the United States promoted consumerism in Latin America and ‘brainwashed’ Latin Americans into wanting products specifically from the United States.

Week Eight

One concept that I found particularly interesting was from this weeks’ video when Alexander Dawson said that nobody ‘wins’ a revolution. People win wars but not revolutions.
Something else that came up for me during this weeks’ discourse was the question of what do we do now – what do we do TODAY – to ‘right the wrongs of the past’. One of my major questions right now is what can or needs to be done today by the colonizing countries (Spain, Britain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany) to deal with the repercussions that the people they colonized (and not  themselves as the colonizers) experience today? When the Zapatistas alongside Emiliano Zapata in the Agrarian revolutionary group demanded their land be returned to them and autonomy reinstated, I ask what that would look like today in present day Latin America? I then further wonder how this relates to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
My question is: will we collectively decide to make decisions today that are based on history, or will we decide to ‘forget’  or  ‘move on’ from the past and make decisions for the present that are based on the present and what our needs today are?
I found the excerpt from ‘The Problem of the Indian’ from Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (1928) by Jose Carlos Mariategui very interesting. I particularly empathized with and understood his final summary of the problems created in Peru when he wrote ‘Colonization, failing to organize even a feudal economy in Peru, introduced elements of a slave economy.’ (171) He wrote before this final statement that colonization took away a system that was working and that had been integral to the culture and way of life of the Peruvians (and the historical Incas) when it removed the agrarian economy which included collective/communal ownership of land and instated capitalism. He is saying that this basically forced the Peruvians into servitude and slavery and did nothing to improve life for the people.
I found Jose Vasconcelos’ excerpt from La Raza Cosmica (1925) very intriguing and agreed with some of his comments. I quite liked his ideas on love: that love needs to be the basis of our movements in life. What I wonder about is if his idea that people should marry for love and not for economic growth or stability was before his time or if there were many others who were also thinking this way?
On the topic of the Zapatistas, I find their persistence and resilience incredibly admirable and humbling. I first learned about the Zapatistas only last year when I was reading a book called ‘Walk Out, Walk On’ (a fantastic book). I am particularly moved by them ‘choosing their moments’ wisely as to when to ‘attack’. To paraphrase a sentence from ‘Walk Out, Walk On’, the Zapatistas know it’s integral to their survival that they wait sometimes in the shadows and emerge with force at intelligently, wisely chosen moments to ensure success and the least number of injuries to their people. I see them as strategic and persistent; they’re still ‘alive’ today. They are a group that I would really like to know more about.
Overall I quite enjoyed this weeks’ topics!

Week Seven

This week’s chapter of ‘The Export Boom as Modernity’ made me reflect on the value of perpetual growth that is so closely connected with and integral to the idea of ‘modernity’. I feel the pressure in almost every moment of my day to be ‘productive’ and consequently one of the more challenging feelings is feeling ‘unproductive’ or that I am ‘wasting my time’. A sense of guilt and anxiety ensues as thoughts of what I could be doing rush at unprecedented rates through my mind. There is a huge pressure to be creative – not in the imaginative, but in the ‘output’ sense – pressure to DO things and MAKE things. I would like to see the intensity of the value of producing and productivity (with a focus on the physical) be lessened and the value of creativity in the imaginative sense given more value.
One problem I see with ‘western society’ is the focus on constantly increasing production and growth. When someone speaks about business, the question people ALWAYS asks is ‘so what is your plan for the future?’ (by which they mean to ask what is this person’s plan for increasing production) and the answer is ALWAYS ‘oh, I plan to increase the number of offices, work to maximize profits, increase sales, etc.’. The answer is always ‘expansion’. Never do I hear people answer ‘we are working on sustaining ourselves in this business and want to see how we can work with our employees to make their lives better’. I imagine people would laugh or scoff at or at least look surprised if someone were to say their plan for the future was to maintain/sustain the current state of their business. I always hear profit before the happiness and/or well-being of the employees and the people affected by the business – whatever it may be. And actually, regard given to PEOPLE is more of a side note, if it is mentioned at all.
It actually makes me very angry, because there are SO MANY people who are suffering today because of this capitalistic mentality, and yet it has such a strong grip on many parts of the world.
There was a quote I came across on facebook the other day by Mark Twain which read ‘When the rich rob the poor it is called business. When the poor fight back, it is called violence’. I think this sums it up. We see in so many cases that the poor are taken brutal advantage of by the rich. Perhaps the whole thing behind this thing of capitalism is fear; fear of not having enough, fear of being left behind by others if we do not participate and play in the same game, fear of being seen as ‘less than’ instead of as the amazing beings that we all are.
One thing I’d like to add was something my friend told me the other day when we were discussing gender and equality; what he said was ‘Power is imagined. Force is real.’ In light of this, I think it is key for people to come to understand if the power someone is exerting over them is real or imagined. People do not have power if others do not acknowledge that they do; if someone’s power is not recognized by others, then its spell is broken and they have power no more. Having said this, I know first hand – as many do – that things can be hard to get away from whether they be real (‘force’) or imagined (‘power’). Society has the capacity to create huge pressures on people and expectations/social norms, that when double crossed, create much trouble for the outlier individual.
In closing, I want to add that again it was challenging to read about how the poor, indigenous, and marginalized in Mexico were being treated at the time of the boom in export, the rule of Porfirio Diaz, and ‘modernization’. And it brings up this intense feeling of anger that THIS IS STILL HAPPENING TODAY! What gets me excited is now to think of how we can change this how much better things can and WILL be in the future.

Week Five

[Pardon the tardiness: my original response got lost before I was to upload it due to an app malfunction on my device…. So here we go: Week Five response round two.]

I found the concept of the Caudillo very interesting. I was intrigued by the fact that the Caudillos emerged by themselves out of the public. It’s interesting to me how forms of leadership come about. I’m curious to know to what extent the culture of Latin America at the time had to do with the birth of the Caudillos and, if the culture had been different, what kind of leadership would have emerged. I’m interested to look at how a culture’s values are expressed in the type of leadership(s) that takes hold.

I found the story of the Slaughterhouse well written and engaging as a story. It was curious to note the clear use of Catholic/Christian symbolism used throughout and the vocalized divide and animosity between the Unitarians and Federalists. The Unitarians were going for a centralized government operating out of Buenos Aires to rule over all of Argentina whereas the Federalists pushed for a federation between independent/semi-autonomous provinces within the country. Personally, I would have taken the side of the Federalists for I think this way of governing works better (as I outline below).

I wonder what the feelings of the people were with living in partnership with Caudillos – if people ever feared their Caudillo, what they thought of their actions, and if they ever wanted to shift their alliances to a different Caudillo. I wonder what happened if someone didn’t like their Caudillo any longer? Were they free to leave and support a new one? I imagine it would have been rather difficult to do this as the networks that Caudillos ‘ruled’ over were tight-knit communities of both real and fictive kin type personal relationships. To change Caudillos sounds like it would have meant extracting oneself from family, friends, relatives, and close alliances – something not easily done or desirable.

It sounds like Caudillos worked better than many governments today because there seemed to have been much dialogue between the people and their Caudillo. The Caudillo would have been nothing without their supporters and likewise the people would not (in most cases) have their interests taken to heart and requests or needs attempted to be fulfilled without their Caudillo (as the government wasn’t taking care of them). I think that smaller communities work better than large ones (large meaning countries). It’s so hard to hear the voices of your citizens if you have thousands upon thousands, let alone millions to take care of and represent! Politics seemed to have been less tumultuous in villages and small communities because everyone’s voice could be heard and everyone was faced with the consequences for their actions, meaning they likely took more responsibility for what they did. I do recognize, however, the intense suffering that was caused by the Caudillos – namely when conflicts arose and violence was the means of settling disputes as well as generating revenue, something I definitely don’t agree with.

It looks like Caudillos were good and bad at the same time. As usual, it depended on your perspective or situation. It came down to whether you were the one protected or the one being attacked by a Caudillo. Caudillos obviously were more concerned with the needs and desires of their followers than the elites in the government were back in Buenos Aires. So on the one hand, I can see the Caudillos as better leaders and protectors of the people than the government, yet on the other hand the Caudillos killed and stole from many.

As a closing not, it’s interesting to me to see which Caudillos genuinely cared about the well-being of their supporters and which ones were really assuming on this leadership position for the power and money.

Week Six

I found it very interesting when, in the chapter ‘Citizenship and Rights in the New Republics’, they wrote that ‘freedom and equality have always been the product of local circumstances’ (73). It’s as if they’re saying either that freedom and equality are subjective and look different to different people (that different people have different ideas of freedom and equality) or that freedom and equality were achieved in different ways throughout history and possibly the ‘type’ of freedom and equality born is unique to the ‘local circumstances’ (potentially meaning: location, geography, culture, current society beliefs, etc.). Either way, this quote from the text struck me…
I always wondered why citizenship was such a big deal… I understand now why becoming a citizen of a country is and was so important to people – because it is only when someone is recognized as a citizen is it then that they are respected with ‘freedom and equality under the law’. If you’re not from a country but you find yourself there, you will not be respected with the same liberties or protection as a citizen of that country.

Later on in the chapter, I was shocked to read that the ‘elite males’ assumed that their sexual advances towards the Indigenous women who worked for them rather like slaves were welcome! I can’t believe it. I was also shocked upon reading that ‘one of the greatest prizes a mestizo male could gain was a wife who was whiter than himself…’ (76). I can appreciate that it would mean his children would have better opportunities and hopefully a better life than him, but still. Reading about these inequalities and how sexuality and sex, two very powerful yet vulnerable things, and marriage were tied up in power and climbing the social ladder upsets me so much (even though this happened a lot in many different histories all over the world and in different cultures). I feel so terrible even imagining that someone would marry a person whiter than them for their colour.

One thing I would like to explore are the present day cultures of the different countries across Latin America and see how the different combinations and concentrations of cultures coupled with the geography created the cultures that we experience today in those countries. I would also like to look more closely at the values held by the different peoples in Latin America both today and back in the 19th century – look more closely at the values and cultures of the different Indigenous groups, the Spanish, French, Portuguese, British, West Africans, etc.
‘Those places where slavery was not a centrally important institution generally produced different kinds of histories than those where it was’ (78).

The slaves in Latin America lived two-thirds the number of years of the non-slaves living in Latin America (many slaves died within their first three years of working in Latin America). In the United States at that same time, the slaves lived 90 percent of the lifespan of white people. This was because it was more expensive for North Americans to buy slaves since they were farther from the West African Slave Coast than Latin America was, so the slave owners in the United States realized it was ‘in their best interest’ to take care of their slaves in ways that would make them live longer; this did not mean they lead better lives or were forced to engage in less grueling labour.
One thing I was surprised (and encouraged) to hear was that it was common in Brazil for a slave and their master to set a price for which the slave could by their own freedom. (This practice did not happen in the United States.)
What I found incredibly interesting was the connection race and slavery had back then in Latin America and in the United States and how that affected the way race is seen today in these places. In Latin America,  the connection between slavery and people of African descent was not enforced or engrained by politics; in the United States, however, politics came into play and created the pervasive narrative that the ‘white people’ had to band together and protect each other from the ‘black people’ (this narrative did arise in Cuba, however). This narrative is seen still today in the United States. We can see that this narrative is not present in Latin America where people of colour or ‘black people’ are not discriminated against at least in the way they are in the United States. (I want to know more about how ‘others’ see people of colour in Latin America – if there’s another narrative today.)
Right now I am taking a course entitled ‘An Introduction to African Studies’; this week we began speaking about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the illegitimate slave trading between groups in Western Africa and in the Americas. It’s very interesting to be receiving ‘both sides of the story’ as in the morning I learn about what was going on in Africa at this time and in the afternoon in this course, LAST100, what was going on across the ocean in North, Central, and South America. One very interesting thing I learned was that some African Kings themselves traded their slaves, contributing to the exodus of Africans – it was not only that the Europeans were kidnapping and illegally taking millions of Africans from their homes, but that many African leaders/Kings willingly engaged in this slave trade. And in fact, slave trading and the ‘institution’ of slaves had been happening as early as 1000 AD within Africa (and then between Africa and Arab nations, Chinese, and Europeans).

Week Four

From this week’s lecture, I found the idea of ‘representation’ (one thing standing for another) very interesting. In light of the statement ‘not a single man of those who assume [so enormous, so unlimited a power] is chosen by us, or is subject to our control or influence’ (‘Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of taking up Arm,’ 1775), I think that today it is seen as though the ‘leader’ (the person who is representing others, speaking on their behalf, and making decisions that affect the whole) is the one who the people are serving. I think, actually, that it should be (and is meant to be) the other way around: that a true leader is the one who is serving the people. In this way of leadership, the leader themselves does not raise their personal interests above those of the people they are representing; they do not let their wants or needs influence their decisions and actions. It is real ‘representation’ when the leader treats their own wants and needs as equal to the wants and needs of the people they are ‘standing for’.

On the topic of how Martí’s essay ‘Our America’ was written, I want to say there is something that is brought to life when poetry and metaphor are used that simple straightforward writing cannot reach or communicate. Just as in the music video we watched in class ‘Latinoamérica’ by Calle 13, someone commented that ‘it works!’ – the music makes us feel. It is in feeling that things are created and brought to life; change happens when the heart is involved. Sometimes the use of just fact in writing is not enough to get our point across and for an action to subsequently arise. It is when the audience has no previous emotional understanding of the situation or concept (such as slavery, oppression, or injustice) that emotion needs to be communicated, which is where music, metaphor, and poetry come in. Emotion is something that can truly connect people, and when people are connected and feel it, they can act as one and, say, a revolution can more successfully arise. This is one reason I think Martí’s ‘Our America’ was successful in its metaphoric style, even though to some it can become irritating for its seeming convolutedness.

I find the differences between Bolívar and Chávez very interesting! Bolívar’s vision was to have political power based in Latin America and in the hands of the Creoles (Europeans born in Latin America) instead of in Europe by the Spaniards. Bolívar then looked to France, the United Kingdom, and the United States as examples of political systems to replicate. Chávez continued the vision of Bolívar but to a certain extent and with some variations. Chávez was advocating that Latin Americans knew best how to govern themselves and didn’t advocate that the power only go to the Creoles. Chávez also continued the vision for a united Latin America.

Personally, I was touched by Hugo Chávez’s G-15 speech in 2004. That’s all I have to say for the moment on that…

I sat for a few minutes contemplating the relationship between the words ‘human’, ‘woman’, and ‘man’, sparked by the quote ‘men are born and remain free and equal in rights’ in the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ 1789 from this week’s lecture and the part of discussion where we talked about stories and how it was dictated throughout history who’s story would be kept and who’s story would be buried; usually it was the man’s and the victor’s stories that were kept and the woman’s and oppressed/victims stories that were buried. ‘Human’ has the word ‘man’ embedded in it; so does ‘woman’. One could look at the preposition ‘wo-’ or ‘wom-’ in ‘woman’ and connect it to ‘womb’; this would translate to man being from or after the woman’s womb. My anecdote to you on etymology and gender…

I’m still struck by how all of these political voices we hear of are of men. Having had many conversations with other women this past year in what we called our ‘Women’s Circle’ and then with our male friends who had also engaged in gender-based conversation, it rose to the surface that there are two narratives going on in the world right now (and actually more correctly, three, as we more publicly begin to enter into conversation about LGBTQ). There is a story that women carry and are affected by every day (and is perhaps universal, but I can’t say), and a different one for men. We briefly touched in class on the fact that in written history, it is mostly the story of men that is written. I am very curious to know about the stories of women. I wonder what woman’s story is during all the events we’ve been reading about and how different they would be from what we read today.

Week One

My name is Diane.

I love people and cultures and am especially drawn to those in Africa, Latin America, and Europe.

One of the things that brings me the most joy is talking with people. Hearing people’s stories is honestly one of my favourite things in life and is something that I believe is very important. To hear someone’s moments of deepest sadness and pain alongside their moments of greatest joy and elation feeds me in a way that few other things do. And it’s not solely in the ‘profound’ that I find joy and meaning, but in the ‘mundane’ or apparently trivial that I too focus.  To hear what someone loves to have for breakfast, what their favourite smells are, what colour they like best, what animal they like, what colour they would choose for their bedroom wall, and what small gestures they make when they’re speaking in conversation all hold a special kind of sacredness, and so it is in both the extremes of joy and suffering painted with the ‘everyday’ or ‘little’ things that draw out a persons’ story and spell out my joy and reverence. All of these things mean something. They mean something to that individual, and each person means something to me, so what is important to them is, in turn, also important to me. I want to experience what it is to feel what you feel and think how you think; to see the world through your eyes; to experience life as you do – a form of essential and deep empathy.

I chose to take the course LAST100 because I want to understand more about Latin American Culture. I am very interested to know what values and morals are connected to this/these culture(s), how the languages play a part in transmitting these values and ideas, how family is understood and played out, and what symbols and stories play a big part in the lives of these people.