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Book Review by the American Patrol Report
by Wilson Beck (Author) [Click here for other chapters of this review]
October 22, 2009
Chapter V -- How Mexico got into the 21st Century
"Modern Mexican History begins with the Liberal political victory of 1867," Beck writes. It was under Benito Juarez, who Beck likens to Abraham Lincoln, that the reform movement really took place. This was made possible when the reformists, liberals, democrats and nationalists united and expelled the French monarchists.
"The Reformists introduced Mexico to the concepts of democracy, human rights, capitalism, separation of church and state, privatization of property, reduction of military, mass education, free elections, and the orderly, systematic transition of government," Beck writes. Unfortunately for the Mexicans these dreams didn't last long.
"The new experiment in democracy was short-lived and was replaced by a brutal dictatorship which lasted for forty years."
Juarez was an enigmatic personality. He was a full-blooded Zapotec Indian elected to office. "Can you imagine if Lincoln were black?" Beck asks. "Well think of Juarez as black."
Beck was born in rural Mississippi. "I never thought bigotry, discrimination, and hateful racism could ever have a more dreadful face than rural southern Mississippi. I was wrong. The racism as practiced in Mexico was worse, in many ways, than the racism I had seen in Mississippi."
Beck says that in 1858 the brown-skinned Mexican was "still not considered a decent human being by the white Criollos." But, Beck observes, "After three hundred years of intermingling there were few truly pureblood Spaniards in Mexico in 1858." "And, incredibly, Benito Juarez, a very dark-skinned Zapotec, became president of Mexico!"
"Juarez fought to change Mexico. He fought with his intelligence, leadership, and diplomacy, but sadly was able to accomplish very few lasting reforms that benefited Mexico."
The first ten years of Juarez' leadership was under the parallel government of the conservatives and the French. After Maximilian was ousted and executed in 1867 he was able to start his reforms.
Interestingly, Beck argues that Juarez and the liberal revolution "destroyed the historic fabric of Mexico on the one hand, and created an opportunity for an even more exaggerated abuse of the same-type of system on the other." As an example he points to the schools built under Juarez. After his death in office (heart attack) his successors turned the schools into resources for Criollo, white males only. Beck says this continues today.
In another example, Beck says Juarez confiscated non-religious church property for distribution to the people, but it ended up in the hands of corrupt Criollo officials or to the wealthy. By 1910 over one-half of all rural Mexicans lived and worked on large haciendas. "While the majority of the modern republics around the world were establishing democracies in the 20th century, Mexico was going backwards," Beck writes.
Beck says Porfirio Diaz, elected president in 1876, was one of the reasons Mexico was going backwards. He was a national hero who led the successful battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 (Cinco de Mayo).
Diaz had led two unsuccessful coups against Juarez and, even though one of his major goals was presidential term limits, he became the dictator of Mexico for almost 40 years. "I equate Benito Juarez with Abraham Lincoln. Porfirio Diaz, on the other hand, was Mexico's Joseph Stalin," Beck writes.
Historians, Beck says, try to judge Diaz by balancing the good and evil of Diaz, but he believes the evil far outweighed the good. Much of the problem stemmed from the concentration of land in the hands of few. "In the state of Chihuahua, Don Louis Terrazas became the Carlos Slim of the 19th century," Beck says. His holding were eight times the size of the legendary King Ranch in Texas.
"The workers on these haciendas had few or no human rights," Beck observes. In fact, president Diaz established a law that made it unlawful for indebted workers to travel or work on another Hacienda.
In 1910 Mexico erupted into a revolution. "The revolution was as chaotic as Mexico," Beck says.
Diaz was re-elected for the eighth time in October 1910. "The elections was, of course, fraudulent, as eighty-five percent of the electorate was illiterate."
By 1910, Beck observes, "…ninety-five percent of the country's wealth was held by three percent of the population."
Beck says the revolution broke out all over the Republic there were four major focal points. "Pancho Villa emerged as the leader of the northwest quadrant."
Venustiano Carranza, a successful cattle baron, led the northeast rebellion. "He was aligned with Texas cattlemen but hated Americans in general," Beck says
The northeast quadrant was under the leadership of Alvaro Obregon, a mechanic from Sonora. "Many of his followers were Yaquis, the blood kinsman of Pancho Villa," Beck wrote/
The final quadrant was led by Emiliano Zapata. "His real agenda was liberation for his family and fellow campesinos," Beck writes.
According to Beck, President Diaz sensed defeat early on and grabbed money and fled to Europe.
"Carranza with his troops entered the capitol first, declared victory and terminated the revolution," "What a joke," Beck says. Beck says Carranza was corrupted within twenty-four hours. "Obregon aligned with Carranza, Zapata aligned with Villa and the real civil war started anew."
The revolution went on for ten years and more than 1.5 million people died needlessly. "The Mexican continued to be too egocentric to put the nation before the individual," Beck writes. The revolution just about destroyed the entire Mexican infrastructure and the infant mortality rate skyrocketed. "There were two million fewer Mexicans in 1920 than 1910," Beck says.
The revolutionary war "was reminiscent of the Pre-Columbian wars of central Mexico, savage, bloody. Mutilations became common. Beheadings and genital dismemberments were the rage," Beck reports.
The war ended in 19017 with Carranza the new dictator. A Constitution was written, but this time it seemed to stick for a while, but not long. Carranza did not follow the guidelines and, as coup arose, he fled for his life and was murdered on the road to Veracruz. The revolutionary commander Alvaro Obregon assumed the presidency, but another revolution broke out and another 10,000 Mexicans lost their lives.
"The Mexican Republic always plays second fiddle to any group which is powerful enough to arm a rebellion. And that is true today in the form of armed drug lords," Beck says.
Beck says Obregon won re election but was assassinated before he could take office. "The dictator-like Plutarco Calles took charge of the government."
Calles was president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928. He founded what is now the PRI which ruled Mexico until the election of Vicente Fox in 2000.
Eventually another rebellion ensued and thousands of Mexican once again died. Beck says the American government got involved and secured the American oilmen a fair shake in legal battles with the Mexican government – that is until 1938 when they were nationalized by Lazaro Cardenas.
Cardenas was the last of the Mexican revolutionaries to rule Mexico. He was president from 1934 to 1940 when the last of the rebellions was quashed. Beck says that with Cardenas, "The revolution ended. Industrialization began. Corruption followed."
"Institutionalized corruption reassumed a face that had been seen in Mexico throughout its history, but it became more proficient," Beck writes.
Beck gives a detailed accounting of the ways and means of corruption in Mexico, including how business have to keep two sets of books to survive. One set of books if for the government and another is to really know what is going on in the business.
"If you want to do business in Mexico, you learn to pay bribes and follow the corrupt system of accounting," he says.
They system of mordida (bribe) is so entrenched in Mexico that some traffic cops pay a commission in order to patrol certain neighborhoods.
The system of accounting results in a very low effective tax rate and rate of collection. This, Beck argues, is why Mexico's infrastructure is so poor.
"The centuries-old acceptance of corruption is the primary reason Mexico is currently in the throes of a national drug war and economic crisis," Beck says. He says the PRI continued the corruption through the 70s, 80s and 90s.
The peso was devalued in 1982, "shortly after President Jose Lopez Portillo purchased a million-dollar mansion for his mistress in Acapulco," Beck observes. His successor, Miguel de la Madrid let inflation run rampant as he became wealthy. The next Mexican president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, took tens of millions of dollars with him after he went into hiding in Europe. That was just after the worse devaluation of the peso in Mexican history.
With all of this baggage, the next president, Zedillo, "had no choice but to dismantle his own party." As Mexico entered the 21st century, "the PRI had finally corrupted itself out of power."
(Note: It was Zedillo who said that Mexican migrants were expanding Mexican territory.)
Vicente Fox of the PAN party took office just did George Bush. While he seemed like a new type of politician, without a majority in the Mexican congress he was unable to pass legislation. Bush and Fox both pushed for immigration reform but the American people were to have nothing of it.
"Fox eventually discovered that Bush was in reality a windshield cowboy and was too timid to even go for a horse ride at his ranch," Beck reports. Fox derided Bush as cocky and unprepared to be president.
Fox was beleaguered by a continuing teachers strike in the city of Oaxaca, which Beck says was financed by Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela. These strikes became violent and were exploited by Manuel Lopez Obrador, the soon-to-be candidate of the PRD party. Although Obrador lost to Calderon in the 2006 election, he claimed the vote to be fraudulent and declared himself to be President of Mexico.
"The mayor of Mexico city does not recognize his (Calderon) legitimacy," Beck writes.
"Mexico has entered the 21st century in chaos," Beck writes. "Its economy is failing in the world economic crisis and its uneducated, poor masses are reverting to the savage, barbarous behavior of the past. All indicators suggest that there is a fifty-fifty chance as to whether or not Mexico is headed for another bloody civil war."
Tomorrow: Chapter VI – 200 Years of Mutual Disrespect
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