Translated by: Amanda Coe
…We talk daily about the weakness of the Mexican State. We describe it as poor, fragile; sometimes we paint it as defenseless against its enemies. I get the impression that that image separates us from what is important. Perhaps it is a mistake to focus on the supposed weakness. I don’t say that to talk about its size but rather because I think it diverts attention from what’s crucial. The fundamental problem of the Mexican State is not so much its rickets, its impotence, but its wild, untamed character. The Mexican State may be able to impose itself, but it does not seem to be able to do so legally. By intervening in conflict, it does not display the impersonal rationality of the rules, but it often exhibits a ferocity as arbitrary as the crime.
The list of abuses is very long. The recent findings by the National Commission on Human Rights [that federal police summarily executed twenty-two supposed criminals in Tanhuato, Michoacán, in May 2015] paints a colorful picture: when provoked with crime, the Mexican State commits unforgivable excess. Instead of acting to bring suspects to trial, it proceeds to decimate the enemy. Instead of releasing a blockaded highway, it ignites the conflict with murders [reference to police action to remove a highway blockade by the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers, CNTE, in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca in which several people died in June this year]. It seems that the will of the law, the determination to apply it, does not hold much more of a solution in our country than resorting to a crude system which does not comply with the rules on which its authority depends. Even for those who hold public power, the Mexican State is an unruly beast.
It is not that the State is unable to recover the flow of avenues and highways. It is not as if it is so weak that it cannot punish those who break the law and violate the rights of others [references to protest actions by the CNTE]. It is that it does not know how to do it legally. Perhaps it cannot do so following its code. That's why State intervention, far from being that insertion of legality able to restore order, usually anticipates arbitrariness and excess. Thus State intervention stirs up the conflict, not moderate it. The State conspires against its own legitimacy. Despite what is said by those advocating applying the heavy hand, who despise the strictness of legal due process and who mock human rights as excuses for criminals, the only way the State can gain the support citizens day to day is through its commitment to the rights of all and channeling its energy through the pathways of the law.
The State is not a ‘what’; it's a ‘how’. It's not the system that imposes the law; it is a system that applies the law legally. Weber said that the State is not a brute supremacy of force. It is a permitted supremacy. Between us, there is no other legitimacy than the law. When the State strays from its statutes, when it violates the rights of others (even of those who challenge and fight the State), it loses the permission that is its essential title. No wonder the wild State has ground to a halt after its intervention. Facing criticism from the media and some public opinion, feeling international pressure or complaint from autonomous institutions, the State is frozen. Better let the transgression pass than make things worse. Knowing that its intervention will end in abuse and will cause scandal, it becomes an observer. The untamed State is willing to forfeit its boldest bets because it is unable to defend them.
Reforma only allows subscribers to access its articles online.
*Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, Mexican academic and essayist, is the son of noted economist Jesús Silva-Herzog Flores, and grandson of historian Jesús Silva Herzog. Born in 1965, he studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and has an MA in political science from Columbia University. He is currently a professor in the School of Government of Monterrery Tech . He is a columnist for Reforma and host of "Between Three" on TV Azteca. @jshm00
…We talk daily about the weakness of the Mexican State. We describe it as poor, fragile; sometimes we paint it as defenseless against its enemies. I get the impression that that image separates us from what is important. Perhaps it is a mistake to focus on the supposed weakness. I don’t say that to talk about its size but rather because I think it diverts attention from what’s crucial. The fundamental problem of the Mexican State is not so much its rickets, its impotence, but its wild, untamed character. The Mexican State may be able to impose itself, but it does not seem to be able to do so legally. By intervening in conflict, it does not display the impersonal rationality of the rules, but it often exhibits a ferocity as arbitrary as the crime.
The list of abuses is very long. The recent findings by the National Commission on Human Rights [that federal police summarily executed twenty-two supposed criminals in Tanhuato, Michoacán, in May 2015] paints a colorful picture: when provoked with crime, the Mexican State commits unforgivable excess. Instead of acting to bring suspects to trial, it proceeds to decimate the enemy. Instead of releasing a blockaded highway, it ignites the conflict with murders [reference to police action to remove a highway blockade by the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers, CNTE, in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca in which several people died in June this year]. It seems that the will of the law, the determination to apply it, does not hold much more of a solution in our country than resorting to a crude system which does not comply with the rules on which its authority depends. Even for those who hold public power, the Mexican State is an unruly beast.
It is not that the State is unable to recover the flow of avenues and highways. It is not as if it is so weak that it cannot punish those who break the law and violate the rights of others [references to protest actions by the CNTE]. It is that it does not know how to do it legally. Perhaps it cannot do so following its code. That's why State intervention, far from being that insertion of legality able to restore order, usually anticipates arbitrariness and excess. Thus State intervention stirs up the conflict, not moderate it. The State conspires against its own legitimacy. Despite what is said by those advocating applying the heavy hand, who despise the strictness of legal due process and who mock human rights as excuses for criminals, the only way the State can gain the support citizens day to day is through its commitment to the rights of all and channeling its energy through the pathways of the law.
The State is not a ‘what’; it's a ‘how’. It's not the system that imposes the law; it is a system that applies the law legally. Weber said that the State is not a brute supremacy of force. It is a permitted supremacy. Between us, there is no other legitimacy than the law. When the State strays from its statutes, when it violates the rights of others (even of those who challenge and fight the State), it loses the permission that is its essential title. No wonder the wild State has ground to a halt after its intervention. Facing criticism from the media and some public opinion, feeling international pressure or complaint from autonomous institutions, the State is frozen. Better let the transgression pass than make things worse. Knowing that its intervention will end in abuse and will cause scandal, it becomes an observer. The untamed State is willing to forfeit its boldest bets because it is unable to defend them.
Reforma only allows subscribers to access its articles online.
*Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, Mexican academic and essayist, is the son of noted economist Jesús Silva-Herzog Flores, and grandson of historian Jesús Silva Herzog. Born in 1965, he studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and has an MA in political science from Columbia University. He is currently a professor in the School of Government of Monterrery Tech . He is a columnist for Reforma and host of "Between Three" on TV Azteca. @jshm00