Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2008 > September > 05
Friday, September 5, 2008
Kidnappings’ shatter the psyche, and the economy
Mexico is living through an epoch of fear and terror, much as it did in the mid-1990’s, when the peso devaluation sparked a crime wave that made the country unlivable for many. Now Mexico is feeling the double whammy of raging drug wars - which tend not to involve innocent bystanders, but make for grisly headlines - and the more immediate threat of kidnappings, which have spread to the previously unaffected middle classes.
So bad is the violence that the Mexican government expects it will shave a full point - about $10 billion - from Mexico’s economic growth this year as investors and companies pull out of Mexico or look for safer climates. Investors, it seems, just aren’t willing to slap down millions in a country that can’t keep its people safe.
On a more personal level, the insecurity has invaded the minds of many Mexico City residents, creating a sense of mass terror as residents see danger lurking around every corner. Our neighborhood of Coyoacan, a pretty place with colonial buildings and tourist trolleys, has seen kidnappings, body dumpings and armed robberies, that at least anecdotally have risen sharply over the last year. Neighbors are scared.
There have been marches, protests and full-throated demands that politicians do something to stop the violence. But I get the sense that many people still feel isolated, unprotected, and on their own when it comes to assuring their safety. Some search for ever more extreme solutions. Dozens of Mexicans have implanted themselves with tracking microchips, that may or may not work in case of kidnapping.
Agustin Barrios Gomez, who runs an online information service for ex-pats, recently wrote in a column that the rash of violence had convinced him that Mexico must relax its gun control laws to allow citizens to arm themselves.
“As much as it pains this author to say it, the Mexican government can no longer legitimately restrict the right of its citizens to protect themselves with firearms,” he wrote in the The News. “In the face of its astonishing failure to protect its citizens, it must now get out of the way. As a global solution (arming citizens) is complete and inadequate. But as an individualistic stopgap measure, primal and unfortunate, it has now become necessary.”
