The age of the Antihero

Angst of Mexico

How does an ordinary citizen come to grips with the fact that his nation will never be the same again? How does he manage to keep his rationality intact & his hopes for the future alive when the terrors of a most brutal war come knocking on his door everyday? Where daily executions, fear of being kidnapped for ransom, getting caught in a shootout between warring groups, nightly curfews, shuttered businesses lining the marketplace and deserted neighborhoods blight the landscape.One might think that a faraway country like Afghanistan or Iraq is being described, but actually we are talking about a state in our own backyard , it is our southern neighbor of Mexico which is going through indescribable horrors and whose challenge at nationhood has never been so gravely compromised. The drug war which has increased in intensity in the last few years has been threatening to sunder the country. Most of the time countries fail because they are unable to quell nationalistic feelings of a subsection of a population or because of economic catastrophes that come visiting every so often, however in Mexico's case it is the obsession for drug money by few well entrenched cartel bosses that is holding hostage the aspirations of their nation.For most americans the debate on mexico begins & ends with illegal immigration, depending on which side of the divide you are on Mexico is either villified as one of the ills plaguing the US or its unique culture celebrated as indeed our own. However what US owes to Mexico more than anything else is a balanced viewpoint which while taking into account the contentious issue of immigration also includes how Mexico has become a focal point of a drug war that in the short term not only threatens the fabric of democracy in that nation but also has long term implications to the health of US as a sovereign state.To briefly recall the last few years in this saga, after the collapse of drug cartels in Colombia & other South American nations ( against whom the US covertly & sometime overtly but always actively waged a campaign) , Mexico underwent a transformation from a subservient staging area into the US to an active & more threatening narco state whose small time mafiosso took it upon themselves to take the place of their estwhile South American masters. They subverted the drug trade thanks to a pliant government & the natural advantage of a shared border with US to ensure seamless drug transit to US. Somewhere along the way these guys stopped getting along with each other & with the Mexican government waking upto the menace these cartels posed ,the entire drug trade morphed into a full blown drug war. To introduce the actors on one side you have the most feared & the biggest drug cartel in the world the Sinaloa cartel led by dimunitive Joaquin Guzman allied with the Gulf cartel, La Familia Michoacana cartel pitted against the Military style Los Zetas, Juarez & the Tijuana cartels. These alliances are like shifting sands as they keep changing allies in an attempt gain short term leverage. All of these are battling the government forces although their have been allegations of favoritism towards Sinaloa cartel on its part.What is the bone of contention here? It is control for lucrative drug routes also known as "plazas" into mainland US passing through bordertowns of both countries. While US bordertowns McAllen,Brownsville Texas & San Diego,Calif & especially El Paso,Texas are some of the safest places in US with very low crime rates, death seems to stalking their compatriots in Mexico. Previously peaceful cities of Reynosa,Matamoros(bordering the first two US towns mentioned) have exploded in violence while Tijuana bordering San Diego is on the brink. The most tragic case is that of Ciudad Juarez bordering El Paso which has earned the unwanted sobriquet of most unsafe city in the world ahead of any other hotspot in the world. Juarez was the same city which saw the worst of unsolved murders of women workers earlier on in the decade. Little did the weary citizens know that worse was to follow.Entire cities & towns along the border on the Mexican side have emptied of their denizens to set the stage for a macabre interplay of violence that shows no sign of abating.There is the curiously symbiotic but also sinister relationship between US & mexico , as is famously known drugs flow up to the north from Mexico into US, but sophisticated weaponry/ammunition even anti tank munitions flow south into Mexico into the hands of the cartels . Thanks to the 4th amendment we have unwittingly been arming the cartels of mexico & have acted as enablers to satiate our appetite for illicit drugs. I have been to mexico and what I found was a deeply religious country with their common folk being very humble in their conduct & like most of US have an ethic built on hardwork. It is therefore not pleasant to see their country being torn apart by the ravages of this unwanted war forced upon the populace. For the situation to get better Mexicans need to emulate the spirit of Don Alejo a 77 year old rancher who refused to relinquish control of ranch to a drug cartel & fought them single handedly taking out a handful of their members before sacrificing his own life.

Read his story here:http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/north-america-mainmenu-36/5334-don-alejo-garza-tamez-true-grit

The US needs to approach the situation with extra sensitivity and think about ways & means by which flow of arms into mexico can be reduced & the much bigger & maybe nearly impossible goal of weaning users in this country away from illegal narcotics. Ultimately the fate of two nations & not one depend on the outcome of this war.

To follow microtrends in Mexico:www.borderlandbeat.com

The precarious state of manliness

Watching my year old son play in the living room with his assortment of toys brought out squeals of delight from my wife & nod of approvals from me , indeed our Sunday morning ritual of having coffee in the living room while he went about upturning the house is one of those rare events that we will probably cherish over the course of the years & reminisce with maybe a certain nostalgia.
My thoughts take a turn to the abstract & I realize that his eventual chrysalis into a young man will be fraught with a strange sort of an identity crisis. One in which he will constantly question his sense of developing manhood & be bewildered by the conflicting signals from the world that will pervade his mind.

Take a look around you, it is a Woman's world now, most of the images, illustrations & reflections bandied around by the mass media, internet, TV etc are becoming more female centric. There has been a virtual revolution of sorts where womanly accoutrements & consequently feminine qualities are touted to the extreme, from a comical point of view it might be because the fairer sex are more susceptible to seduction of marketing . But a more sinister trend is that it has led to the feminizing of the male persona which is no laughing matter.

The awakening of femininity make no mistake is a welcome trend & a long overdue one no doubt. This apart from being a suave marketing strategem is also a celebration of emancipation of women, a liberation of sorts after generations of marginalization. But the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, womanliness after being celebrated is subtly being touted as a blueprint for the conduct of men, which is uncalled for.

To illustrate a small point consider the current generation actors such as Robert Pattinson of the twilight fame or Shia Le Beuof of the transformers fame , compare them with yesteryear actors or not so contemporary actors like Gregory Peck, Tom Selleck or even Harrison Ford. Who evokes more images of manlihood? I would guess you would'nt need me to spell it out . Or check out the hoardings staring down at you in malls or fashion plazas , I personally have a hard time telling apart the male models.

Somewhere along the lines of us discovering new fangled concepts like metrosexuality we seem to have lost out on old fashioned manliness.

Women often wonder why men obsess so much behind american football, that most manly of sports . At the risk of stating the obvious , it is because the style of play appeals to the inherent hardwiring in most men. It is probably one of the last few bastions of pure expression of manliness whose vicariousness appeals to most men.

This is not an exhortation for men rush out their doors mallets & axes to prove their manliness, indeed there will be a breakdown in civil society if we give in to our deepest instincts. This is a call to recognize to just get in touch with our inner men & take the lead in shouldering responsibility , in becoming better fathers and display profound judgement. We are better off for the various influences women have brought into our lives but at the same time we need to distinguish between asserting our manliness versus deferring totally to our feminine impulses