Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the outgoing President of Mexico, has a somewhat radical answer to the question of how to deal with the drug cartels that are afflicting the North American Continent in general and Mexico in particular. “Hugs, not bullets” is his motto referring to the thousands of young people that make up the army of cartel “soldiers.”
During his tenure, the President has managed to reinvent the expectation on the part of the poor and marginalized communities that look to government as a facilitator of better living conditions. He associates the youth that are employed by cartels as not having been reached by those new expectations and opportunities.
The President’s approach is not so much to attack the symptoms displayed by violence and lawlessness but to concentrate on the causes that lead to them. For that, he has been heavily criticized in the national and international media and by those opposed to the approach in Mexico and particularly in the United States where crime and violence are the focus of public safety institutions.
In turn, AMLO has repeatedly criticized the “public safety over fundamental causes” approach and offers an example relating to one of his predecessor President Felipe Calderon. As we may remember, Calderon declared an all-out war on the cartels and ended up with ineffective results and severe government corruption.
The President has further indicated that the circumstances that created the cartels are America’s problem since the drug culture was created in the United States and is extensively funded by Americans with plenty of money and an unquenchable appetite for them. As for Mexico and Mexican youth especially, he sees the issue as a generational problem that must be approached gradually over a period of time with the purpose of erasing the economic reasons why these young people chose to make a living in this manner.
The novel approach to changing the direction of a generation is fraught with many hazards because it cannot be a quick fix, as successfully attacking the causes of poverty, social and educational challenges requires a sustained effort over a long period of time. It is ironic that politicians, community leaders, academicians and others often talk about initiatives to solve the causes of our major ills, but do not follow-through mainly because most people expect immediate solutions to perceived problems.
President Manuel Lopez Obrador is the head of the ruling party MORENA, an acronym that stands for the National Regeneration Movement that is committed to what is called the 4th Transformation, a goal in line with 3 others including the Mexican Independence Movement (1810-1821) that freed the country, the Reform War (1858-1861) that established a Liberal Constitution and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) that won important rights for the common citizen. The 4th Transformation is dedicated to doing “away with privileged abuses that had plagued Mexico in decades past.”
At the heart of this is the elevation of the poor and marginalized (54 percent of the country) through effective expansion of opportunities and benefits such as livable pensions for the aged, job training programs for the youth and academic scholarships for all students at the elementary, secondary and university levels. It is initiatives like these that attempt to attack the living conditions that drove young people to the cartel life. It is a long-term effort with a lot of difficulties.
Mexico celebrated its presidential election this past June 2nd and Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo of MORENA won a 6-year mandate. This represents more time to turn a generation around.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of laVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to news@lavozcolorado.com.
