Mexico on the Brink – But of What?

The Mexican government blames the nationwide protests on groups seeking to ‘destabilize the country’ and undermine the ‘reform agenda.’ But in this militarized, corrupt society, the risk of escalation of violence is immense.
For the vast majority of people living in Mexico, one thing has become abundantly clear: things can no longer carry on the way they are. Too much innocent blood has been spilled, too much trust in government betrayed.
In many ways, Mexico has been on the brink for years, perhaps even decades; it was merely a question of when it would fall off. Now the country finds itself in an existential position: either renewal and regeneration; or political repression, a complete breakdown in law and order and, in the worst possible case scenario, international intervention or civil war.
To achieve renewal and regeneration will require a united, carefully coordinated and sustained response from all prominent members of the country’s civil society. As the internationally renowned security expert Eduardo Buscaglia says, it will mean using the same techniques of social activism and non-violent resistance employed by Italy after the mafia’s assassination of two judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino; the same techniques that helped Americans of all creeds and colours overcome the state-sponsored racism of the 1950s and ’60s and which Gandhi pioneered in India’s struggle for national independence.

This post was published at Wolf Street on November 23, 2014.