From West by Northwest.org Voices for the World Oaxaca, a State of Mind By Nat Levy Jan 26, 2007 Despite the constant debate over illegal immigration from Mexico there is a fundamental lack of understanding in this country about what has been happening in Mexico in recent months. The fates of Mexico and the United States have always been intertwined. When something happens here Mexican people are affected. Conversely, significant events in Mexico also affect the United States. Despite this fact, people seem to be ignoring the country unless it is within the context of an immigration issue. Almost 100 years ago, in 1910, the Mexican people rose up against Porfirio Diaz and his dictatorship known as the Porfiriato. Ruling the country both as the President and at times behind the scenes Diaz encouraged political participation and consequently blacklisted those who challenged him. After Francisco Madero, Diaz’s political opponent, was arrested in 1910 the revolution began. Indigenous leaders attempted to redistribute land to the peasants and to create a sustainable democracy. In 2006 this democracy still stands but it appears to be hanging by a thread. On December 1st Felipe Calderon, of the Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN), was sworn in as President. As is tradition the new President was sworn in and given the Presidential Sash by the outgoing President, Vicente Fox. The equivalent of the U.S. inauguration, this ceremony lasted four minutes. The scene of the inauguration was more like that of a soccer riot than a political event. Lawmakers from different parties were brawling with one another. There was audible disapproval of the future president. All the while the opposition continued to demonstrate his mass appeal and case against the election results. Calderon’s opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD), has protested the results claiming fraud and voter intimidation and coercion. Throughout the summer Obrador gathered his supporters, over 100,000, to hold mass peaceful protests of the election. Obrador demanded an official recount after Calderon was initially named the winner on July 6th. He took his case to the Federal Electoral Tribunal, which confirmed Calderon as the winner on September 5th. The margin of victory was only .58 percent of the vote or 243,934 votes. With a total of 130,000 precincts in the nation, that amounts to approximately two votes per precinct. With such a small difference in votes it is easy to say why Obrador demanded a full recount. There are countless claims of fraud in this election. Incidents such as these can be very dangerous to the moral of a nation. One could compare this situation to that of the United States just prior to his election. Our 2000 election was heavily contested with many claiming fraud. President Bush was having a difficult time in his first six months in office. After the events of Septemeber 11th the focus was off President Bush and economic issues and on to the threat of terrorism. Since these events we have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, with both situations growing worse every day. Mexico has been put into a state of disarray by this controversial election while the strikes and subsequent violence in Oaxaca have also been become volatile issues. Now with the controversy seemingly behind him, Calderon has started to impose his policies. Some of the more prevalent issues to Calderon include creating good, high-paying jobs in Mexico in order to keep potential immigrants within the borders, and cracking down on drug runners. Rather than placing all his resources to fight against increased border security, and treatment of migrants, Calderon will be concentrating on job creation and increasing the quality of working conditions. Instead of trying to get more Mexican citizens in the US to work, Calderon is trying to fix the internal issues that cause Mexicans to leave the countries. This is in opposition to Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox. Calderon’s war on drugs has become a very high priority in the first three weeks of his presidency. CNN reports that this year alone there have been over 2,000 drug-related killings. Thus far several raids have been launched, and many drug dealers arrested. Despite this, it is common opinion that Calderon has not made a lot of progress against the drug runners. It is impossible to know beyond any doubt whether or not Calderon was legally elected. Lopez-Obrador still claims that he is the “legitimate president”. With Calderon settling in to office it is now time to see what he can do. It’s obvious that many Mexicans will continue to wonder what if Lopez-Obrador had been elected. Without a lot of events to judge Calderon on, it will take time to see if he is the right man for the job. Regardless of what happens, there will always be many who claim that the election was somehow tampered with. Much like the people in the United States who still think about the 2000 election, whether or not it was tampered with, and what would have happened if the results were different. Why don’t people care more about what happens in Mexico? The citizens in both countries go through a lot of the same crisies. We have both had recent electoral controversies. We are both facing a lot of questions about our countries and wondering if they have helped us in the way that they are capable. A certain political soul-searching, a state of mind? What is for certain is that partisanship without humane solutions, a lack of questions that lead to understanding, will be politically fatal on both sides of the border. The immigration debate is a result of our lack of understanding of our neighbors to the south. We do not ask the questions of why so many Mexican citizens attempt to cross the border. Instead we ask how we can keep them out. What needs to be asked is how conditions within the country can be fixed so Mexicans do not have to cross the border to have good lives. Nat Levy is a journalism major at the University of Oregon. Visit: Sizing up Sizemore: A Look at Oregon Ballot Measures 39, 41 and 48 by Nat Levy © Copyright 2000-2006 by West by Northwest.org