Call for Debate

Alberto Aziz Nassif had a thought-provoking column two days ago:

The last several months has borne witness to an odd exchange about security and organized crime between Mexico and the United States. The neighbors to the north launched critical or simply catastrophic affirmations against our nation, and here national discussions are unleashed. The source can be an official or a magazine, but the internal effect is completely disproportional.

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It's a secret to no one that all of the force of the Mexican state isn't sufficient to win the battle against organized crime; maybe because that forced is plagued by holes, complicities, and turncoats. The strategy of confrontation, the punitive path that Calderón's government has followed, hasn't been the most successful and, of course, it's not the only. There are diverse opinions that point toward other paths: the energy and resources must be invested in attending to other portions of the problem, not everything should be about confronting the gunmen and watching how the sum of the dead grows. It is urgent that we recognize that a war was started --for the government to legitimize itself-- with having all the instruments and capacities, because not everything can be resolved with military operations. But it's necessary to debate the topics, not only to settle the most suitable security policy and strategies to carry out.

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[T]he "war" on drugs with the present punitive focus is lost; that's why we must look for a new paradigm that would have the following ingredients: a wide and informed discussion is necessary; drug consumption must be treated as a public health problem (transforming delinquent purchasing addicts into patients); innovative information campaigns, oriented above all toward the young; channeling the repressive strategies and focusing public security on a system of intelligence; reorienting the strategies of repression of the cultivation of illegal drugs.

Staying as we are, with a failed strategy and a powerful partner who doesn't listen to us, is not a solution. It is urgent that we revise the strategies that aren't giving us results, looking at other forms of confronting the problem, as they have done in Europe. It's necessary to take up the problem once more and open the debate.

There's a lot here I don't agree with: the innovative information campaign sounds a lot like the "this is your brain on drugs"-style silliness everyone who grow up in or after the 1980s had to suffer through; the Europe comparisons are of limited use, because Mexico's biggest problem isn't consumption (although that is becoming more worrying) but organized crime; and the idea of an alternative strategy sounds appealing in the abstract when critiquing Calderón's performance, but as far as dealing with the criminal gangs right now, the only truly alternative strategy would be to call off the dogs and let the gangs operate unmolested in some spaces in exchange for a lessening of the violence. That may be an acceptable tradeoff for lots of Mexicans, but it shouldn't be confused with actually addressing the gangs. And it should also be remembered that exactly that sort of Faustian bargain is just what led to the growth of Mexico's gangs over the course of the past three decades. I don't think anyone would deny Mexico should develop its intelligence apparatus as much as possible, and I certainly agree that treating addiction as a public health issue rather than a crime is more humane and effective (and will reduce future headaches for Mexico as addiction rates rise), but in regard to Chapo Guzmán, the Zetas, et cetera, such moves are not strategic changes, they are tactical adjustments.

Nonetheless, I agree with the general thrust of the column that instead of using the criticisms (which, at least from government officials, have been rather measured and respectful) from the United States to whip itself into a nationalist furor, Mexico should instead take it as an occasion for a bit of introspection.