Mexico
is known for its demagogues – self inflating populists whose real agenda
is their own empowerment - who exploit the clamoring needs of the people
by promising unrealistic and unsustainable benefits. In the last Mexican
presidential election, won by Felipe Calderon, his opponent Manuel Lopez
Obregon literally hijacked the electorate in his refusal to acknowledge
his loss in a fair election. His behavior typifies the populist
demagogue politico who has plagued Mexico
since its independence from
Spain
some two centuries ago.
Therefore, it is most
refreshing when a voice arises above the fray with an honest and
truthful message of truth and hope. The voice is one of a woman born in
Mexico
of a Oaxaca
mother and a Belgian-American father.
With a doctorate degree from Princeton University, a Professor in
Political Science at the prestigious Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de
Mexico (ITAM), a columnist for the leading newspaper
Reforma and the weekly
magazine Proceso, an
associate editor of the Los Angeles Times and the co-author of the best
selling book, a satire entitled “Mexico: What every citizen would (not)
like to know about his country,” Dr. Denise Dresser articulates the
needs of her countrymen with a clarity and passion based on the love for
her country and its people she so deeply feels despite the failings of
its government. What is most amazing is that her incisive exposures to
corruption, exploitation, deceit, treachery, fraud, misrepresentation
and ineptitude on the part of government and business interests has not
led to her demise. In Mexico tolerance for truth and
critique has its limits. Witness what happened to Hector “El Gato Felix”
Miranda, the acclaimed
co-founder and journalist of the weekly Zeta in Tijuana who was murdered
by a local oligarch and whose foul deed, known by all ‘influential’s’ in
the Border region, is still shielded by the government.
“She is cut from the
same clay that sculptured Prime Ministers Golda Meyers of
Israel
and Margaret Thatcher of
England,” acclaim her admirers. And,
indeed, to the Mexican political watchers, such as yours truly, Dr.
Dresser’s biting satire, bathed in truth, aimed at the most powerful
interests in Mexico, such as billionaire Carlos Slim of Telmex fame, her
dissertations are a welcome sign that Mexico has finally matured as a
democracy and that freedom of speech and of the press are alive and
well. Her speech, her writings, her denouncements and critiques and her
exposures are testimony to the right to express these in a free society.
Even more, her daring and courageous exposure in defiance of the
powerful authoritarian click in
Mexico, are the inspiration to many
other fellow countrymen, men and women, who dare follow her lead. When
asked about concern for her safety she answered “What I worry about is
not making a difference, of not leaving a mark.”
The real question is:
Will Dr. Dresser’s exposures and recommended reforms come to fruition?
In a recent interview by Inside
Mexico (April 2007) she provided the answer:
“There is a long list of
what’s wrong with
Mexico
… But this is still a country under construction. It’s an incipient
democracy.” Her beloved country has a long ways to go, but it’s getting
there.
Her analysis of issues
and recommend solutions, such as more recently expressed in an Op-Ed in
the Los Angeles Times (Friday, August 7, 2009), entitled
“Mexico’s
War on Civil Rights” are not always on mark. Postulating that
Mexico’s war on drugs conducted by the military is coupled with civil
rights violations, such as illegal search and seizure, false arrest,
rape and torture – conduct comparable to that of America under the Bush
Administration’s war on terrorism – she recommends that President Obama
on his current visit in Mexico put at risk the $1.4 billion U.S.
counter-narcotics aid to Mexico’s, an obligation of the U.S. under the
Merida Initiative.
She suffers a remarkable
lapse in logic, uncharacteristic of her, when she forgets that the war
on drugs is the U.S. and Mexico’s
war, caused and fueled by America’s
insatiable demand for the drugs and
America’s shipment of weapons to
narco dealers who become
better armed than
Mexico’s military. Her recommendation
is akin to suggesting that we stop supporting the U.N. because its
representatives in Africa
committed an untold number of rapes.
But worse, should our
country follow Dr. Dresser’s advise, also voiced by U.S. Senator Patrick
Leahy of Vermont, once more we would be guilty of the imperialistic
policies that have robbed us of moral authority in the international
community.
The hypocritical Golden
Rule “He who has the gold makes the rules” which characterizes
imperialism, has the inevitable consequence of resentment and defiance.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barrack Obama,
fortunately, have steered America’s
foreign policy on a just and equitable course designed to respect the
rights of its neighbors.
America
is promulgating the advice of Benito Juarez,
Mexico’s venerable statesman, whose doctrine was,
and continues to be Mexico’s foreign policy as well: “Respeto al
derecho ajeno es la paz.”
(Peace is [achieved] by the respect of your neighbor’s rights).
Dr. Denise Dresser, we
admire you and laud your outstanding contribution to the meritorious
cause of your noble countrymen. We may not always agree with you. But we
hope that you achieve the elusive reforms that have handicapped the
Mexican people’s rights to self government and social justice.
By
Sal Osio, JD