‘Yes, It Can Be Done’--and It Is

What is most significant in political life in today’s Mexico is the emergence of a new “civil society”: a public serious about participating in the shaping of its own fate, where before there was inertia, submission, fear, fatalism, the selling of a vote for a handful of gifts or to ensure a few basic services for the neighborhood.

The scope of the effort is as remarkable as the transformation of the people’s thinking.

For more than a century, the citizenry remained politically passive, grateful to live in a time of “stability” that held the promise of some sort of upward mobility. It even was possible for some children of peasants and workers to study at colleges and universities. The illusion of general upward mobility was evenly distributed, even though real social rise was basically unattainable. The occasional protests against corruption, one of the most disgraceful acts in a poor country like Mexico, were diluted by the cynicism that is imposed by the concentration of political and economic power in very few hands.

In recent years, the wish to build up a civic life has destroyed fatalism and cynicism as natural responses. It is no accident that both the political right and the left frequently use the same slogan: “Yes, it can be done.” It is this new attitude that has created the widespread and highly visible phenomenon called “democratization from the bottom up,” which has chipped away at all the old hierarchical structures. Innovative theatrical techniques are now used during political demonstrations, and there are new social actors who represent the different ethnic, cultural and sexual minorities.

It is the continued presence of this new attitude that has turned social mores upside down. There are situations no one would have thought possible before. Example: The favored method of public demonstrations is now the collective striptease. The street sweepers, merchants, bank debtors, miners, bureaucrats--all have stripteased their demands in public places, such as the halls of Congress, the lobbies of banks or the foyers of churches. Defending the behavior of workers who took their clothes off during a protest in front of the cathedral in Chihuahua, a sympathetic priest reminded an astonished audience that “Jesus Christ, our Lord, was born naked.”

Another example: To protest against the corruption of their bosses who force them to demand bribes from the people, a group of policemen has been staging a theatrical crucifixion in the streets of the capital.

And another: It has become almost common for women to capture a rapist and put him in public with a sign hanging from his neck that confesses his crime before turning him in to the authorities.

Perhaps it was to be expected that the sudden awakening of communal action would produce some very negative episodes, the worst being a resurgence of public lynching. Once a community, whether it is a rural town or urban neighborhood, is fed up with criminal behavior or with the conduct of the police and captures someone in a flagrant criminal act, he may be “tried” on the spot and executed, all in a matter of minutes. In the state of Veracruz, the townspeople hired a video crew to film their lynching.

It must be stated, however, that the general trend of collective participation is highly civilized, as has been demonstrated in the popular support for the peace process in Chiapas and also in the fight in defense of human rights, a basic cause of Mexican society today.

In Mexico, the transition to democracy has a name: alternation in power, the coming and going of the three major parties in municipalities and state offices. Today, the alternation theory gets tested in the voting for Congress. In three years, the vote will be for president. The PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and President Ernesto Zedillo have reminded the voters that democratic alternation means also having the PRI win. This is obviously true in the formal sense, but there is no way the people, including those who vote for the PRI, will believe that there is democracy in Mexico until the PRI loses in a meaningful way.

Well beyond the celebrated opposition victories around the country, one thing is certain: Given the power of the dominant system, given the frightful network of complicities and bossism that the PRI has set in place through many decades, given the hugely unequal economic resources among the political parties, a new victory of the PRI in Mexico City or the continuation of its mechanistic majority in Congress won’t be easy to explain and could cause a disastrous moral outrage.

In the days prior to the election, each one of the likely voters had to feel a sense of responsibility for his or her own decision, whichever way they make it. This is something I gather from the polls, from numerous conversations I have had, by listening to radio call-in shows and sensing the social atmosphere.

We should also add to the mix the spirit of modernity that can change all past electoral traditions. Instead of the parades and rallies seeking voters’ support, the candidates hold debates on radio and television; in the video clips, ideology has subsided and the message is now the look of the candidate and party. There are no more doctrinaire speeches; instead there are advertising strategies.

This time, however, the political conscience of society won’t be shaped by the image makers but by the experiences of the voters in their personal and family economic situations. It will also be determined by the desire to inaugurate a newly won right of citizenry, the most relevant feature of Mexico’s political landscape in 1997.