Henry Miller and Dreaming Wide Awake

"Books are human actions in death".   Balzac

Henry Miller once said, the brain is in the heart. I remember these words, like profound dreams and hallucinatory visions, because they illustrate Mr. Miller's fundamental premise that no writer can ever put down what he intends to say.
 
Miller often wrote about what occurs in people's minds prior to actually picking up a pen, brush or whatever instrument at hand. Or as he put it, the deep primal flux that precludes creation or expression. A state with no dimension, no form and no true element:
 
"In this preliminary state... what disappears suffers no destruction; something which was already there, something imperishable, like memory, or matter, or God, is summoned and in it one flings himself like a twig into a torrent."
 
Which means, I think, that by trying to capture the imperishable, we change it. 
 
Tao-like
 
Miller relished both spirit and flesh, which is to say, he was incapable of understanding things with just his intellect. 
 
So he wrote about the importance of surpassing so-called understanding through acceptance, a type of metaphysics beyond words and wordplay; a way of "becoming" and "being" akin to the spirit of Tao:
 
"It cannot be understood; it can only be accepted or rejected. If accepted we are revitalized; if rejected we are diminished."
 
In other words, the most we can really expect are tiny reminders of what is fluid and intangible - which is to say, the universe.
 
What of art?
 
Mr Miller described those who try to put miraculous happenings down as people who haven't learned to accept things as they are and, as such, not fully awake.
 
In his estimation, art and all forms of expression - no matter how subtle or ingenious - are just crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow.
 
"If we could accept ourselves completely, a work of art, in fact the whole world of art, would die of malnutrition." (his italics)
 
So what would life be like if everyone could accept the world as it is?
 
"Long before that, books would cease to exist... men wide awake and dreaming, their powers of communication (with one another and with the spirit that moves them) would be so enhanced as to make writing seem like the harsh and raucous squawks of an idiot."
 
Which means, I guess, that nobody would be satisfied with an imitation if the real thing were available.
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Filed under  //   dreams   Henry Miller   literature  

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Mexico versus Argentina

The title says it all, an epic match between the perennial champions and the all-time underdogs, two prideful Latin footballer nations that play at full volume but whose matches invariably fade into background notes.

I know nothing about soccer. But I'm aware enough to get worried every time Mexico wins a World Cup match. At the Angel of Independence several blocks from where I live, kilometers of cars break out with honks and deafening music until sunrise. The street becomes an alcoholic sports-orgy in the heart of the Mexican republic. I can't sleep until 630 or 7 AM.
 
Yesterday I watched the US-Ghana game in a local cantina and felt the pent-up rage Mexicans feel toward the US (team), at once passing, fleeting and superficial (isn't everyone supposed to root against the gringos?) but at the same time, an antagonistic clash of opposites.
 
Although soccer inspires cheap nationalism, it's also a lightning rod for true-felt pride and emotions that surge in the heat of competition. The masks come off when your home team is in the World Cup. Everyone becomes a nationalist. Which is what makes it so cathartic and real, a cheap yet spot-on catalyst that cuts sharply all ways.
 
Or perhaps this isn't really about soccer, or at least not winning soccer. After all, why would a country that loses so many soccer matches have so many delirious soccer celebrations? In South Africa's World Cup, the Mexican fans, one of the biggest delegations, are the loudest, most ardent and colorful in the stadium.
 
Is it just a game? When the Tri plays abroad, the rhythm and ordinariness of life is broken. In the capital and every provincial Mexican city, the world fills with mayhem and shouts of solidarity.
 
I witness what I call "breakDown" every time the Selección Mexicana wins a major match, which thankfully isn't often. After the last winning World Cup game with France, over 60 teenagers were arrested at the Angel for smashing bottles ecstatically.
 
Mariachi sing "The King"
 
The famous mariachi Son de San Pedro arrived last week in Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City on the day of the Uruguay match to sing El Rey to thousands of delirious fans. This is the romance of triumph, a ritual performed each year with lots of cold beer, music and pageantry. 
 
An obsession with being number one.
 
Mexico lost the march 1-0. But since the team moved to the second round anyway, over 70,000 fans gathered at the Angel and Zócalo where they screamed and frenetically waved Mexican flags. Over 70,000 strong, with 23 arrests for vandalism and 7 injured police officers.
 
Thank god there was no real party.
 
Keeping the faith
 
Maybe there isn't much deep meaning here, just tumult and a going to extremes; a release of fierce and noble feelings repressed by the frustration of too much ordinariness.
 
Or perhaps this frenzy is something larger, a violent outpouring in which "the Mexican, drunk with his own self, is aware at last, in a mortal embrace, of his fellow Mexican".
 
All I can say is: Viva el Tri!
 
 
 
* all quotes are from Octavio Paz, Labyrinth of Solitude.
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Filed under  //   Argentina   fiesta   football   Mexico   soccer   World Cup  

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Arizona and the Untruth

On April 23, 2010, governor Jan Brewer, an Arizona Republican, signed what is probably the toughest legislation in the US against illegal immigrants. It shall take effect on July 29 pending several legal challenges and a formal review by the Justice Department.

Under the law, police investigating an incident or crime will be required to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also prohibits solicitation of day-labor work on the state's streets and makes being in Arizona without papers a misdemeanor.
 
The law is supposed to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and discourage them from making the journey. It has outraged civil rights groups, drawn rebuke from the Obama administration and led to mass protests by people on both sides of the issue.
 
The law's backers say that Congress has failed to reform federal immigration policy, so the state has been forced to address the issue.
 
Why'd they do it?
 
What were Arizona citizens' motives?
 
Many cite major budget shortfalls, overcrowded hospitals and public schools with thousands of extra kids and no money. In sum, the economy is a mess.
 
Another reason is security, fear of the daily narco killings right over the border and even terrorism. A third reason is law and order or, rather, the uniquely American way in which Arizonans think about the law. 
 
In many towns across the state, up to 50% of residents don't have papers. They speak a different language and live on the outskirts. Few from the community know who they are.
 
And of course, there are racists.
 
The Race Card
 
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund recently predicted that the law would create “a spiral of pervasive fear, community distrust, increased crime and costly litigation, with nationwide repercussions.”
 
For these reasons (and others), this law is deeply flawed.
 
But there are untruths, exaggerations and omissions about why it happened, as well as a strong dose of hypocrisy, in Mexico and elsewhere.
 
Let's start with race. This argument alleges that the law is racist because (a) it overwhelmingly "discriminates" against Latinos; and (b) it involves judging people based on their physical appearance (what many call "racial profiling").
 
Are these arguments valid?
 
Maybe. But if they are, wouldn't ANY law that restricts illegal immigration be considered racist by definition?
 
Would nations lose their right to secure their borders because of possible racial discrimination?
 
Loss of perspective
 
The race card can always be used at its wielder's convenience. When it involves different races or ethnicities, nationalism itself becomes a type of racism.
 
And if the authorities judge people based on physical appearance, it becomes by definition a form of racism ("racial profiling").
 
Yet in a sense, aren't we all racists? If I presume that someone is Mexican because "he looks Mexican," isn't this a (benign) form of racism?
 
We all judge others based on how they look.
 
And yes, there are hard-core racists among those opposed to open borders.
 
But just because a law affects one ethnic group over another doesn't necessarily make it racist. 
 
Put differently, if there were hundreds of thousands of poor foreigners who spoke a different language and pledged allegiance to a different flag streaming each year over an insecure border, would the locals not complain just because they were of the same race?
 
Clearly, we need to put things in perspective.
 
As Time magazine recently said: "Just because there are some racists influencing the debate doesn't mean anyone who is for immigration control is a racist."
 
Shadow of hypocrisy
 
In April 2010, Amnesty International issued a report which urged Mexico to adopt procedures to protect the human rights of Central Americans in the country illegally.
 
The document, titled "Invisible Victims: Immigrants and Movement in Mexico" describes tens of thousands of kidnappings, torture, rape and other forms of abuse committed every year by Mexican police, border officials and citizens against Central Americans.
 
"Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis," said Rupert Knox, Mexico Researcher at Amnesty International. 
 
"Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world."
 
Kidnappings of illegal immigrants in Mexico is now at an all-time high. The National Human Rights Commission reported that in 2009, nearly 10,000 people were abducted in a six month period, nearly half of them involving public officials.
 
Another report describes frequent anti-immigrant round-ups in Chiapas and southeast Mexico. Central Americans are often held for years in municipal jails and subject to torture, extortion and other abuse. 
 
Why?
 
The answer is simple: under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms.
 
In addition, the General Law on Population enacted in April 2000 requires federal, local and municipal police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in the arrests of illegals.
 
Which all means that Central Americans in Mexico are prey. They are hunted down based on their physical appearance. They are rounded up and sent to prison. They are extorted, beaten and abused.
 
In 2009, an estimated six out of 10 Central American women who illegally crossed the Mexican border were sexually abused.
 
The report calls the problem an "immigration holocaust".
 
Convenient omissions
 
This detail is rarely mentioned by Mexican officials (or average Mexicans) in the clamor inspired by Arizona. But isn't it relevant?
 
Let's suppose the Mexican economy started booming and thousands of workers came flooding into Mexico City. 
 
After 4 or 5 good years, more than half a million illegal immigrants were living in the Mexico City metropolitan area, most of them from Central America.
 
Suddenly, the economy tanks.
 
What would the Mexican government do about poor Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Hondurans (including many blacks) who registered their children in public schools now in crisis? How would Mexican officials react to overcrowded hospitals and public deficits?
 
According to Article 125 of the General Law on Population, the authorities would be required to arrest and deport them en masse.
 
Yet in the sunami against Arizona, politicians from every Mexican political party build careers on deriding the US for human rights abuse against Mexicans.
 
Is there a solution?
 
The Arizona law is a forced, narrowly-crafted attempt to address a pressing problem plainly outside the state's jurisdiction.
 
But if there's a human rights component of this law, it isn't racism: it's desperation.
 
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, "a better solution is comprehensive immigration reform."
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Filed under  //   Arizona   immigration   law   Mexico  

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Neruda's Light

In the midst of so much darkness and light, let's honor a great Chilean poet from a different epoch yet with so much

light
like a green
latticework of branches,
shining
on every leaf,
drifting like clean
white sand.
 
Now we have such different light, a dearth of clean light now, exceeded only by a dearth of clean white sand. The light that illumined the poetry of Neruda seems so distant from the light that breaks darkness now.
 
The present is not "as smooth - as a board - and fresh - this hour - this day - as clean - as an untouched glass."
 
Perhaps Neruda is only a touch of the past. For our present, as we cut it, size it and direct it, "brings nothing from yesterday that can't be redeemed - nothing from the past."
 
Or perhaps, as Neruda surmised, we're only
 
step
by step
feet firmly
planted on the wood
of the moment
 
irrevocably wed to what happens now. Which for me is what we see in the same light, our common ground. 
 
That Light 
(my translation which, quite frankly, is a shadow of the original)
 
The light in Celon gave me life
but was also living death - for to live
in a diamond's intensity
is a lonely vocation for corpses:
a bird made diaphonous, or
a spider webbing the sky, then gone.
 
Hurt by this island light
I now keep circumspect
as though a beam of distant honey
might suddenly change me into ash.
 
I arrived more foreign then a puma,
kept a distance, knowing nobody
dreading the occipital light of a paradise
that might alter my brain.
(Light that falls on black clothing
pierces the cloth and all decorum.)
Since then my goal has been
to save each day's nakedness for myself.
 
Perhaps those who've never strayed
in order to get closer, as I did
can ever understand
nor be as lost as I was,
a carbonized number in the dark.
 
Since then, only bread and the light.
 
The soul's light and kitchen light
night light and the light of morning
light under the sheets of a dream
suckled by light,
I live as I must
in my destiny's ruthless lucidity
between desperation and brillance
disowned
by kingdoms that were never mine
 
The nets that tremble in the light
come up pure from the ocean.
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Filed under  //   literature   Pablo Neruda   poetry  

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In Mexico, the Law Bites the Shoeless

What happens when a nation's elite no longer values the truth for its own sake? What happens when the custom of "sayings things as they are" becomes rude?

Last week Marco Sánchez Ruiz, a businessman from Sonora with a Texas can-do attitude, was sworn in as the new director of the Business Coordination Advisory Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, the most prestigious business organization in Mexico.
 
Before legislators, ministers, labor leaders and governors, not to mention the crème de la crème of Mexican business society, Mr. Sánchez claimed that nearly every problem the nation faced (i.e., corruption, poverty, unemployment and violence) all had one root: unlawfulness.
 
According to Mr. Sánchez, the nation's only hope was "if everybody transformed their own personal vision".
 
"In Mexico nearly all our problems start with illegality: piracy, tax evasion, vote rigging, abuse of the public trust and even failure to respect small rules".
 
What a breath of fresh air! A northerner with a sharp tongue in Mexico City telling it like it is to the seasoned political class.
 
"We Mexicans must once and for all confront illegality" warned Mr. Sánchez. 
 
In Mexico, every rat has a tail
 
In fact, most of the politicians and execs in that room owed their success (at least in part) to their abilities to bypass, skirt or simply break the law.
 
But there was something else even more important that people rarely mentioned: Mexicans (especially ambitious ones) considered breaking the law as an affirmation of who they are, an expression of a deeply sustained way of life that derives from principles rooted in how things are in Mexico.
 
Why this is true is beyond the scope of this entry. But it always begins when people sense deep, unresolved ambiguity in their surroundings.
 
Ironically, none of the elected officials in the room were required under law to pay income taxes. They were all corrupt (to speak only of minor offenses) yet protected by fuero, a legal shield used extensively by Mexican politicians to avoid prosecution.
 
In other words, they were legally immune.
 
The businessmen and corporate execs in the room, among the richest in Latin America, enjoyed what citizens of any modern nation would call class impunity; nearly any legal complication was fix-able on the basis of contacts and money.
 
But these are trifles, common knowledge that ordinary Mexicans take for granted.
 
The real truth was that none of what Mr. Sanchez said was even thinkable unless everyone in that room - members of a deeply elitist society - were willing to renounce privileges that defined a fundamental part of who they were and what they were about.
 
Any takers?
 
Although Mr. Sanchez is a businessman, he knew well enough to speak as a politician. His language was earnest (just like Sonora!) yet concealed, provocative without being in any way too specific (taboo at such a gathering in the capital).
 
"Nearly every difficulty we Mexicans face as a nation starts with illegality," he resounded.
 
"Si Señor!" responded the crowd. Most in the room - politicians, corporate execs and so-called juniors with perks and impunity that would astound their 1st world counterparts - clapped heartily.
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Filed under  //   corruption   elitism   hypocrisy   Mexico   politics  

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San Judas: The Cult

In Mexico in the year 2010, San Judas Tadeo (San Juditas, as he's called by followers) is the most popular male saint in Mexico.
 
Millions of followers - more than for any besides the Guadalupe - now celebrate the patron saint of lost causes.
 
Santa Muerte
 
San Juditas, Malverde, Santa Muerte... a canon of holy figures recruited by petty thieves, prostitutes and drug dealers. 
 
The downtrodden and oppressed, the ones without hope.
 
San Judas is the wretched street urchin who vomits his guts in a dark alley, an impoverished teenage streetwalker with bad ovaries and bulging veins. 
 
San Judas is the worst it gets and yet - after you've been down - you realize that the journey wasn't for naught. 
 
The Character
 
San Judas was the man who brothered Jesus Christ, close friend and servant. 
 
Perhaps "son of god" is beyond human connection, for Christ is the Other.
 
Perhaps the Jews in their own abstract way avoided something Christians couldn't: raw embrace of the downtrodden.
 
In Mexico this intimacy is the most a saint can offer, which explains why millions of young followers arrive each month from the far corners of the country carrying sculptures of Juditas which they adorn with necklaces, stamps and flower rings. 
 
And red roses, always red roses.
 
In the church of San Hipólite in the capital, and in chapels throughout the north, the alter has been adopted by San Judas, its walls and urns flush with requests, promises and thank you notes.
 
All too human
 
On the street hope is submerged where children abandoned by addict mothers live like rats in sewers.
 
San Judas is where the government never goes. 
 
Someone who knew (like many here "know") that it's better to stare injustice in the face.
 
To see ourselves as we are: weak, greedy and unrepentant. 
 
Whether a name for religion or spiritism or whatever else you call it - Juditas is what many Mexicans feel again after all hope has been taken. 
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Filed under  //   Mexico   narcos   religion   saints  

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What About Death?

Is it any kind of freedom?
or just a loaded metaphor 
 
in the name of power 
and inadequate extension.
 
In our own name and the
names of our children
 
many have always colored
death. Those who never 
 
ran from a cluster bomb or 
lived scrub to the ground.
 
The cage door's always open
 
they say, answering each question 
with another question.
 
In the name of rebels and martyrs 
thrown into the unknown,
 
our fate (our death) becomes
like the golden breath of day.
 
But with God as our strength
does our so-called inspiration 
 
qualify for Death? Or do we peer 
onward in a valley of make-believe
 
avoiding the same questions 
our parents never asked?
 
Perhaps we must unlearn death, or
reach another point that must be 
 
reached to understand.  Men, 
armies, centuries die and are
 
put away forever, yet nothing
happens again and again. 
 
No pictures of the funeral, nor 
the object of grieving.
 
Does it matter? Is it of interest?
We've nearly reached that point,
 
inspired by our own tapestries
and rapt by tales, by rhymes 
 
and toasting our lives a thousand 
times, as though the dead are 
 
to be desired. With walls and 
barbed wire upon us, we say 
 
what's right and never blink. 
 
But what if we imagine our own 
children in rage, in withered 
 
bloody veins and sudden laughter 
springing from their lips? 
 
Can we ever boast of such a 
cage? To go where?  
 
In that Dark - to that God? 
A radiance? Or a Lord in the 
 
void?  Maybe men created Death 
so that being dead, we rise.
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Filed under  //   death   poetic  

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Televisa & Azteca Show Their Hands

On Sunday April 4, 2010 Mexicali was the epicenter of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. Its effects were felt as far north as Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Over 900,00 people live in the Mexicali metropolitan area.

If you include nearby towns in Baja California, over 1 million people in Mexican territory felt the quake, the largest to hit northern Mexico in over 40 years. 

While it happened, however, no mention of it appeared on the nation's airwaves.

In fact, not until the end of regular programming - long after rescue efforts had begun - did either major network report the event.

Awkward Silence

Without a passing text across the screen on either network, the non-reaction seemed strangely in sync.

Milenio Online wondered: "What can TV viewers like you and I do? More importantly, what are Televisa and TV Azteca going to do?

The answer is probably nothing - at least not for the foreseeable future. 

Tenochtitlan, Mexico City

The event provides a telling glimpse into a deeply embedded bias in a deeply centralized nation. 

The roots for centralized rule in Mesoamerica result from hundreds of years of orders from above and always from the same place. 

Despite a population of nearly 110 million, Mexico currently has only two national TV channels. Yet the fear of relinquishing the broadcast media's role as an instrument of control makes reform practically impossible.

Mexican political parties already have their hands full of feisty newspaper editors and the internet to worry about another TV channel. 

And why permit decisionmaking in Torreon or Mérida when the oligarchs live in the capital? In this case, power does trump money.

On the Ball?

Maybe Televisa and Azteca believed that their audience wouldn't be interested in tremors up north. Or perhaps they just didn't care enough to interupt a "classic" match between Chivas and América (Televisa) or a musical reality show (Azteca). 

We'll probably never know the details. The lapse was nonetheless a lucid reminder of what nearly everyone already knows, a rare moment when the oligarchs showed their hand. 

For a couple of days, it seemed sharp Mexicans in the national newsroom were genuinely startled. 

Maybe that in itself means something.

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Filed under  //   broadcast   media   Mexico   oligopoly  

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A Note About the Unnamable

In Mexico, he's rarely referred to in public (at least not negatively) because if you mention "Carlos Slim" at a gathering or in the press, influential people listen way too closely.
 
Mr. Slim is linked to just about everything Mexican: banks, railroads, retail, parking, highways, real estate and of course telecommunications. 
 
His company, Telmex, is the owner of 92% of Mexican phone lines nearly 20 years after privatization. Its sister company, América Móvil, is Latin America's top mobile carrier and owns nearly 3/4 of the Mexican cell phone market.
 
Later this year, Mr. Slim plans to merge both companies into a single corporate unit. He and his advisors anticipate no opposition from Mexican lawmakers.
 
The Other Carlos
 
The "Unnamable" also refers to Mr. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the ex-president of Mexico and NAFTA co-signer who cut "THE DEAL" with Mr. Slim. 
 
Although American and European critics often question the ethics of this arrangment, few understand its political and social dynamic.
 
For starters, the accusation that Mr. Slim was a prestanombres (name lender) amounts to a non-issue, as "borrowing" someone else's name has always been a common and widely accepted business practice in Mexico.
 
If the deal was indeed "murky", it was no different than any other Mexican presidential accord. Besides, Mexican politicians have rarely been required or expected to make their finances public. 
 
In a word, privacy in Mexico (as it is in many places) is worth more than transparency.
 
In the end, Messrs. Salinas and Slim pulled off one of the great politico-business deals of the late 20th century, rivaling even the Russian government petro firesale of the 1990's.
 
Which is to say that Mr. Slim is not only a shrewd businessman but also a highly astute politico.
 
Model Citizen
 
At closer look, Mr. Slim's thrift, family values and unvarnished patriotism also make him an ideal Mexican role model. 
 
The fact that his company continues to operate as a monopoly and he owns a disproportionate share of his nation's economy (at one point, nearly 40% of Mexican stocks) is not a critique of the man per se but rather the politics and culture in which he lives.
 
When in Rome, do as the Romans.
 
Many of his supporters cite the trickle down effect, emphasizing the benefits of capital concentration to infrastructure and industrial development. But this doesn't seem to have happened, at least not to an extent tangible to most Mexicans.
 
Besides, economists have argued that certain social, cultural and economic conditions must be present (e.g., a middle class, access to capital, social mobility) for the benefits from capital concentration to accrue. 
 
In Mexico, wealth has been amassed in relatively few hands throughout its history, so the returns have already diminished.
 
This fact has not been lost on Mexican leaders. The majority of federal legislators are aware that Telmex's rates are among the highest in the world. They understand that legislation enacted 20 years ago was supposed to break up a monopoly, not extend it. 
 
Yet nothing meaningful to curb Mr. Slim's grip on Mexican telecommunications has been achieved.
 
That's the real story of the Slim fortune: omissions of the Mexican political elite who in practice continue to condone (many would even say protect) Mr. Slim's oligopolic industrial might.
 
The Daily Toll
 
Out of public earshot, Mr. Slim is called many things, most reflecting how people instinctively feel about the idea of a single man owning so much. (At last official count, he owned over 6% of Mexican GDP - surely an underestimate).
 
"Do you know what Slim means in Arabic?" asks one Mexican to another. (Mr. Slim's forebears are from Lebanon).
 
"No, what?" asks the other.
 
"Salinas!"
 
These names invariably mirror the inequity of vast resources concentrated in the hands of so few.
 
A report issued last year by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revealed that Mexico had the worst level of income inequality and poverty among the group’s 30 member states.
 
But this critique is not about Mr. Slim; it's about how he got there and how his monopolies continue to operate.
 
Every day, Mexicans invest a considerable share of their daily allowance to Mr. Slim's holdings: bank fees, tolls, parking, coffee, pastries, clothing, hotels, electronics, Internet access and of course every phone call made via land or cell through Telmex, Telcel, ATT and any other Mexico-based carrier.
 
Mr. Slim (and Mr. Salinas, no doubt) get a piece of it all.
 
Shadow Wealth
 
Although Mr. Salinas has never made the Fortune list, he continues to be one of Latin America's richest men. In Mexico, where he also remains at the epicenter of politics, few know (or openly question) where his wealth comes from. 
 
Before the Telmex deal was struck in 1990, Mr. Slim was already a major contributor to Mr. Salinas' campaigns.
 
In his book Bordering on Chaos, journalist Andrés Oppenheimer describes a dinner organized by Mr. Slim at which Mr. Salinas solicited contributions from 30 prominent Mexican businessmen. 
 
Although Mr. Slim reportedly "wished the funds had been collected privately, rather than at a dinner, because publicity over the banquet could 'turn into a political scandal'", the tycoons at the gathering contributed an average of $25 million apiece. 
 
Favors like this don't take place every day: one dinner, 750 million dollars.
 
"He made his billions because of an extremely close and advantageous relationship with the Salinas government," says professor George W. Grayson, a Mexican policy expert at the College of William & Mary. 
 
Nobody will ever know the details of "THE DEAL", but that's how things work in Mexico (and much of the world). Recently Slim has been investing in all major political parties, ideology aside, a common practice among Mexico's super rich. 
 
The Slim Legacy
 
At a recent dinner in New York City, Mr. Slim was presented with an award from the World Education and Development Fund for his work on infrastructure in the developing world. At the event, Mr. Slim told the audience: "Many people want to leave a better world for their children. I'm trying to leave better children for my world."
 
At first, people weren't sure they heard the word "my", but in retrospect, what a fitting way to describe it. 
 
Mr. Slim has indeed created his own world, a $150 billion business empire whose shadowy government dealings and spectacular growth has turned him into the world's richest man.
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Filed under  //   economics   Mexico   monopoly   social injustice   Telmex  

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Why Chile Turned Right

As darkness settled in central Chile on the 3rd day after the Great Quake of February 2010, residents wielding metal pipes on the outskirts of Los Ángeles placed wooden barriers to block intruders from entering their neighborhood. 

"We're trying to take care of the little we have here," said Ana Bedois, a 34 year-old mother of three infants. "We're here all night, first the mothers then the fathers".

Hobbesian Order

Thomas Hobbes once wrote that without Order imposed by higher authorities, people tend to act "without restraint" in order to dominate their neighbors. When this occurs, there is:

"no Industry... no Culture... no Knowledge... no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and worst of all, continuall feare and danger of violent death; and the life of man (is) solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short."

And so in Chile, for a few short yet interminable days, restraint had broken down.

Merely Economic?

Many claim that Chile suffered from deep-rooted poverty and injustice, which explains, at least in part, why so many disaffected people broke into their neighbors' homes.

But the resulting turmoil seemed to be about more than just poverty. It seemed to be about danger and disorder, the piercing discomfort that something like this could happen at any time not just here but in New York, Paris or Shanghai.

Curiously, Hobbes based his thinking on the assumption that dictators arise because people will do nearly anything to avoid living in fear. That's how he justified dictatorship, a quid pro quo of security for freedom.

In Chile, the Law in many towns broke down to two simple rights: the right to live free from attack and the right to defend oneself if this right was violated. 

So when power and phone lines went down in Concepción, many law-abiding citizens keenly felt the State's absence.

"If the government doesn't lay down a heavy hand soon" said one young mother, "the situation will soon get out of control".

In a word, this was about fear.

The Monster

In a place where many people remember what life was like under the junta, the military is a divisive symbol.

But something happened after the quake... not just about what Chileans thought about the Army, but what they thought about themselves.

In the days after the huge tremor - when aftershocks struck daily and city buildings buckled - people went to bed thinking about losing their possessions.

In towns like Arauco and Cañete - where the jolt had completely knocked out power and communication - residents prayed for the Army.

Just days before, they would have been unnerved by the sight of soldiers on the street.

The Bible

Much was exaggerated, the result of hysteria and panic; most people can't assimilate fear at such short notice. 

But many Chileans sensed, more starkly than ever before, nature's nasty and brutish undertones.

In the Book of Job, it says: 

"If you lay a hand on him

You will remember the struggle...

Any hope of subduing him is false;

The mere sight of him is overpowering...

When he rises, the mighty are terrified."

This terrible sea creature, Leviathan, also symbolized human nature or - put differently - who we often are in the absence of Order.

When Hobbes wrote Leviathan, his message was clear: we disobey this great force at our own peril.

Many Chileans recently had a "mere sight" of this force; it now appears the political consequences may be "overpowering" indeed.

 

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Filed under  //   Chile   earthquake   Latin America   law and order   natural disaster   politics  

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Mine was a clamorous New York childhood spent on boardwalks and in delis between the south shore and the teeming Metropolis. Since childhood, I've strolled with Sicilians and strutted with Latins. Which explains nothing about life in a big Latin American metropolis. Cheers to a big world!