Bowden in Mexico

Commentator JD pointed me to a new profile of a Mexican reporter fleeing vengeful army troops, written by Charles Bowden. Down by the River was one of the pieces of writing that first interested me in Mexico, and, as always with Bowden, there's a lot to admire in this piece. He has a sharp eye for detail and a noir-ish style that, while it might rub some people the wrong way, I usually find rather gripping.

But this piece was not nearly as satisfying as Bowden's book, in part because Mexico's drug traffickers aren't as new to me as they were in 2002, but also because of several flaws in the article. The problems of military abuse are real, and something to which Mexican officials don't pay nearly enough attention. Compared to my experience in Torreón, he overstates it; I've heard rumors about and read reports of soldierly misconduct here, but there is a definitely a sense of respect for them as both more hard-assed and more professional than the average cop. I've never been asked for a bribe by a soldier, but I probably have been hit up half a dozen times by cops. I think geography explains a lot of that; on average, a hopper in West Baltimore probably hates the police more than his law-abiding cousin Bowie. Which takes me to my second point, that rural Chihuahua isn't reflective of the country at large. It's like looking at the US through the lens of the ugliest street corner in Detroit or Los Angeles. Focusing as it did on one man in one troubled region and asking readers to extrapolate from his troubles a coherent view of Mexico, the piece was too narrow to make an effective denunciation of army abuse.

Bowden seemed to want to make up for the narrowness of his facts with broad, poorly supported accusations. Take this: "To have a general speak to you is not something to be desired. They can hand out death like a party favor." That's a nice, provocative statement for a cocktail party, or a novel, but what is it doing in a serious magazine article? Another example: "The Army, the largest gang, is not attempting to seize the bankrupt and withering state, but grabbing market share in a place whose two largest industries are supplying American drug habits and exporting millions of people." Bowden has offered little to support what is an extremely sweeping allegation besides his instinct, which is insufficient. The Human Rights Watch report that came out earlier this year, which avoided the hyperbolic conclusions in favor of the specific details of the more than a dozen cases it investigated, was a far more illuminating look at the army's weaknesses. As was today's Post story.

I think a lot of what's wrong with this piece is summarized in this portion:

There are two Mexicos.

There is the one reported by the US press, a place where the Mexican president is fighting a valiant war on drugs, aided by the Mexican Army and the Mérida Initiative, the $1.4 billion in aid the United States has committed to the cause. This Mexico has newspapers, courts, laws, and is seen by the United States government as a sister republic.

It does not exist.

There is a second Mexico where the war is for drugs, where the police and the military fight for their share of drug profits, where the press is restrained by the murder of reporters and feasts on a steady diet of bribes, and where the line between the government and the drug world has never existed.

The choice between those who know the real Mexico and the saps who buy into the mendacious narrative is a false one. I don't consider myself a wide-eyed sucker on Mexico, but in point of fact, there are newspapers operating here, many of them run by jokers, but many of them muck-raking and aggressive as well. To suggest that there aren't is an insult to people like Jesús Blancornelas. Likewise, there are laws and courts and police--obviously, they don't operate effectively as they need to, and there's a different standard for the rich and the poor, but they operate. For all of the dirty cops and crooked politicians, there are honest officials working in Mexico.

Bowden's contention to the contrary is insidious even beyond its obvious incorrectness. There is a tendency in Mexico to leap to the lowest common moral denominator, to assume that because one official was crooked, they all are, and to believe that because one government engaged in cover-ups, everything with a stamp of officialdom is a lie. This habit is an enormous barrier to a more open, democratic society. It's part of the explanation for why Mexicans don't believe in their institutions, even the ones that work. It's why Mexicans who are abused by authorities are hesitant to seek penalties, which of course encourages more official wrongdoing. This tendency allows a truly dirty official to shrug off any accusation as mere mudslinging, and puts honest politicians under undue suspicion. It's why outlandish conspiracy theories often have more credibility than the boring, verifiable truth. It seems to me that it's a reporter's obligation to fight through the morass of conspiracy and untruth and look for some objective conclusions based on facts, narrow though they may be.