Do you think that the levels of insecurity that we live in are going to improve? Under current conditions, I don’t think so. I admit that I am pessimistic. But in no way am I a pessimist in the sense of a person who is defeated by seeing the world of violence, barbarism and despair that is lived in the streets.
I am a pessimist in the manner of Eduard Von Hartmann, in his work “Philosophy of the unconscious”, who recognizes reality and does not expect things to improve by themselves, (and that is why he does not give up, nor defeat in the face of adversity ), precisely because he does not trust the speeches of politicians who solve everything in the air, those who ask us to leave things in their hands. I believe that things are not going to improve (my pessimism), and for that reason, I cannot leave them in the hands of the authorities alone.
I do not mean to say that the responsibility of the authorities disappears. Nothing more foreign to my opinion. Authorities at all levels, from all parties, from all law enforcement agencies; They have failed us. All. Due to negligence, inexperience, corruption, abandonment, weakness, inability, improvisation. For thousands of reasons, they have failed us. They keep doing it. They have a series of specific obligations to act and give us a public security system that protects us, defends us, investigates, and eliminates impunity. They have not done it.
But faced with these obligations of the State and its authorities, we are. The society. And we also have a wide margin of responsibility (and options for action). Just a few days ago, in the city of Los Mochis, a young woman, mother and teacher, was brutally murdered. According to the authorities, the murderer was a fellow professor of his. For a debt. Atrocious femicide must be punished; but perhaps we do not see something else there. Aren’t we doing something wrong as a society? Does a man who was dedicated to teaching children, apparently without drug use, commit the most violent action to collect a debt? Was that his only option?
In Chihuahua, two priests were killed in a temple, while they were protecting a tour guide who had been following him. The roots of the priests in the community did not matter at all. Nor the work they did. Not even that they were 80 and 76 years old, while the guide had turned 60. They were killed by a known criminal in the area who, despite having an arrest warrant, led a community life, sponsoring baseball teams. There, as in the whole country, the criminals are perfectly integrated.
Just a few hours ago, in Mexico City, a 79-year-old man killed his 21-year-old wife in a restaurant in Colonia del Valle. She was a young singer of regional music. During an argument, her husband shot her three times. There was a 58-year difference between them. In a society that promotes, legitimizes and justifies such great inequalities, the marital relationship translates into a possession, and disposition, of women. The man committed the crime and withdrew without further moral conflict. Something is not right.
If we cannot recognize that there are things that are wrong (that violence, undue advantage, illicit, corruption, inequality, abuse, discrimination, classism, racism, impunity, criminal life, money laundering of money, are actions that are wrong), will continue to reproduce each time, with greater virulence. We have to acknowledge our reality.
If we do not start from the fact that this reality we live in is the product, precisely, of legitimizing and justifying the worst criminal forms of human depredation, we will not be able to get out. It is impossible to change this reality that we are living, if we do not reflect (and rebel), before these criminal behaviors, their perversities, injustices and baseness. In fact, we cannot even ask ourselves: how can we change them?, when we stopped questioning them a long time ago. When we have accepted and justified them.
On the one hand, we lament the situation of violence that is so serious that we are experiencing, but on the other hand, (as a society), we continue to promote and justify it through the mass media, movies, television series, songs , social networks and programs, criminal life, romanticizing criminals, justifying their crimes and vile actions, such as femicide and massacres, displacements, disappearances, kidnappings, robberies, rapes, homicides, threats, unexplained enrichments. Life full of luxuries and excesses at the expense of corruption, of criminal life, regardless of where the money comes from (or the damage it does to thousands of people), too.
This Mexico of barbarism, pain and violence is not our irremediable destiny. But do not believe in the optimistic speeches that mask the terrible situation we are experiencing. One must not naively wait for things to change by themselves, says Carlos Javier Serrano, in the prologue to Hartmann’s work. We can have a more civilized Mexico.
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