Today, Mexican women are expected to show what it would be like to have a world without women. A day without women has been declared for today in México. Women have been asked to participate by staying off the streets, not going to work and not buying anything during the day. The national strike is supposed to punish the Mexican economy to cast a light on violence against women.
Like his counterpart, Donald Trump, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has been preparing for today by blaming the news media and his predecessors. Although the problem of femicides has existed for several years, under both the PRI and PAN parties, AMLO was supposed to fix the problems facing México.
The Mexican electorate fed up with the PRI and the PAN cast their votes in the hopes that AMLO would be the president everyone dreamed about.
The problem for México has not been about inept or corrupt governments but rather it is a complex problem balancing the fundamental Mexican mindset of diverging political ideologies derived from the Mexican Revolution in competition with the realities of a global economy dependent on geopolitical pressures that is hamstringing México.
In short, México is stuck between an ideology of equality for all by the distribution of wealth with the cultural experience born from corruption as a necessity for living.
Thus no government can solve the problems in México without first solving the belief that corruption must exist to survive. Corruption is part of the Mexican psyche, yet it is seldom acknowledged. All Mexicans learn to be corrupt, but most do not understand it. Buying copied movies at the local tianguis or tapping into the neighbor’s electrical or cable wires is often seen as beating the system rather than being acknowledged as corruption.
Whether it is the PRI, the PAN or Morena, the underlining problem of corruption within Mexicans interferes with the ability to fix what troubles facing México.
Unfortunately, in addition to the corrupt psyche there are also the geopolitical necessities that keep the Mexican government from realizing their goals.
It is a balancing act that all Mexican governments must face to keep the country sovereign.
What AMLO is facing today with the women’s protest is the reality that it doesn’t matter the party that governments, the problems persist because pressures beyond the control of AMLO or his predecessors.
AMLO promised to solve the problem of violence in México by ending government corruption, ending the war on drugs, forcing the Mexican military back into their barracks and professionalizing the security forces of México by creating a national police force.
Rather than diminishing the violence it has increased across México.
The reasons are complex but understood.
Like his predecessors, AMLO had good intentions but reality soon overtook them.
AMLO believed that the narcos would go back to fighting among themselves once the military stopped engaging them. AMLO believed that the national police would bring back order to chaos. Neither happened.
Instead violence is rising because the narcos are free now that the military is back in their barracks. Meanwhile the national police rather than tackling violence across the country are preoccupied with intercepting immigrants intent on reaching the United States.
The national police is doing the work for Donald Trump to keep the economy stable. AMLO has reluctantly reordered the military to reengage the narcos, but at the cost of lost opportunities and lost ground previously held by the Mexican military.
As a result, the Mexican people are still dealing with violence and insecurity.
AMLO has resisted the idea that he is to blame and, instead blames, the news media and his predecessors for his troubles.
Today, the Mexican women are supposed to make their displeasure known. Will they?
We will know by the end of the day.
Will it make a difference?
Likely not because to resolve the problems in México we must first accept that we, the Mexicans, must accept that buying copies of movies or paying bribes to get out of a ticket is wrong. We need to change our culture first and then demand that our government deliver on its promises to us.
