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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