Tag Archives: patriotism

492. We Are All The Wall

Or how to stop the wars about walls and rather focus on taking responsibility for the source of the problems that cause them to exist.

A few people have sent me information and documents as well as asked for my personal perspective on what’s my perspective as a Mexican – living in Mexico – on Trump’s executive order to ‘Build the wall’ that he promised to all of his supporters during his electoral campaign, therefore I’ll share some of my points of view here.

First of all, I’ve shared in previous blogs about my decision to not bash other people in positions of power such as presidents (Read Let’s Make Us Focus .On .Our .Lives. Again!) and I’ve lived up to that point with both my country’s president – and actually have had a few words with people that constantly bash him and make of his bashing a form of national sport – as well as with the new ‘human piñata’ for Mexicans, which is Donald Trump where now Mexicans have interestingly enough gathered around in this 4-day old renewed sense of Nationalism that started emerging in people’s phones and social media participation based on now having something/someone to fight and stand united against and that is the perception of Trump’s wall as a discredit to Mexicans, a bashing of Mexicans – which Mexicans have taken personally now reacting in this sudden ‘solidarity’ which I would have very much liked to see during the first week of this year in course where we were all more divided and against each other than ever, with all the lootings, protests against government and by the government… but now it’s as if Trump’s Wall has become a reason for Mexicans to unite, though for only all the nice-sounding reasons, but still failing to acknowledge the responsibility to look back at the collective mess we’ve created as our country, which is predictable considering that us as human beings like to focus on all the nice things but always react to and resist to look at ‘all the bad’ stuff, the ugly and very real aspect of our truth and reality – individually and collectively as the world system.

What do I mean with this?

As a disclaimer and allocating myself in what I’m about to share. Throughout this process I’ve learned to identify myself as a human being in this world, not as a ‘Mexican’ which means I have throughout my life walked a process to dissociate myself from the constructs, beliefs, main views or cultural associations of what a Mexican is supposed to be like. This is not to set myself apart, but this is exactly the same self-deconstruction that I would do living anywhere else in the world, where I’ve come to understand all notions of nationality and its ramifications like patriotism or nationalism which I equate in the same way as racism, religious ideologies or political inclinations that create a division between people. All of these ‘labels’ stand for and as separation between human beings, therefore the identification of myself as one single ‘nation’ to me would be a disservice to the principles I am standing for/as which are that of oneness and equality, who we really are as life beyond our characters, our personalities, our cultural (mental) biases and the rest of the opinions that we’ve transformed into religious-political factions that we’ve turned into ways to separate and conquer us.

I share this bit so that I leave it clear that by now it should not be expected that I will take any ‘side’ with anyone here –  otherwise I would be recreating the problems that we all precisely should be focus on stopping in this world: the continuous ‘siding with’ groups/nations/identities that invariably create friction and conflict among each other, where we lose track of how we are ALL collectively creating all the problems in the world that we are at the same time constantly fighting and complaining to resolve – yes, paradoxical in nature, but we haven’t yet realized how we are creating the very world we live in based on each word in the nature of fighting and spite that we’ve accepted as part of who we are in our lives.

So, what I see from the creation of the wall is nothing else but a way to contain a consequence that interestingly enough, most of Mexicans currently united in a sentiment of ‘renewed nationalism’ have failed to have the common sense to admit and look at, to rather question HOW we’ve come to this point where someone has to create a wall, a physical border to prevent more people from going illegally to the US and WHY it is that so many millions have decided to leave Mexico in order to have a better lifestyle than here. This has been an all-timer question that I’ve heard many people blame since the nineties to the NAFTA, but immigration has been going on way before that which is quite obvious in the sense that people would see it as a very easy thing to do to have the same kind of jobs they would have here in Mexico yet getting paid a whole lot more for it if opting for the American Dream, which is also a misnomer because there’s millions of stories of suffering and abuse as well, and I won’t go into that because there’s thousands of articles and documentaries on this situation as well. Therefore it’s not like it’s all rosy and nice in there, even more so there’s several accounts of many succumbing to or resorting to become criminals to make a living, which is also not acceptable. I’ve personally met several people lately that have come back since it wasn’t such a great deal for them anymore to be living in the US and are instead having decent jobs here, which I find cool since they went there and lived ‘their dreams’ only to realize the kind of values that opting for the ‘life of the riches’ lead you to – which in any case is a life lesson and interesting process for many of us humans that tend to only look at money as the whole drive of one’s existence.

Now, I don’t blame people from following such aspiration to have more money than they would in Mexico, but it is certain that in all of those millions that have left the country, the workforce that could have instead stayed here to build a prosperous country in various forms/ways have gone to take menial jobs to ‘the other side’ as we call it here. So, what happened is that only money came back here to Mexico, but most males in little towns in this country would leave to the US, leaving huge gaps in communities across the country as a result of this, creating a ‘norm’ for many youngsters to only be waiting to be old enough to be able to go to ‘the other side’ and make a lot more money than here, which means: we failed as a society to create an economy that gives opportunity to everyone to have a dignified living.

So, it’s quite ludicrous to consider that Mexicans or Mexican Government can get offended about the creation of a wall as a way to stop a consequential outflow of decades and decades of complete negligence to create sufficient economic stability and incentives to make people stay and instead use people’s labor and dedication to rebuild communities, especially in agriculture, to create more associations that could in one way or another sort out agreements with governments in order to prevent the mass immigration to the US and also strengthening the Mexican economy that will now be probably more affected by this bilateral disagreement going on between the US and Mexico, turning it into yet another unfriendly stance that is in no way something supportive to have between neighbors, especially considering it is ‘THE’ United States of America on the north side, so, we have to own our creation: we did it to ourselves, bit by bit.

Therefore, I am not at all in disagreement nor in favor of the wall either – again, won’t take sides and refuse to do so because that is what keeps this ‘battle’ going on without solutions.

The last thing I can do here is share this perspective and suggest a few things to everyone in Mexico or outside of it that may be standing with an interesting ‘fervor’ to ‘save Mexico’ and ‘stand united with Mexico’ or ‘be offended along with Mexicans’ to rather stop the sudden nationalism and realize that we should have done this a LONG time ago in the sense of actually deciding to build this country back on its feet and become the people that can stand as individual leaders – all together – with transparency, honesty and integrity which means Everyone, as ALL citizens would have to live by and stand by these principles, as well as in self-responsibility. Because we have been masters at pointing out corruption, being OK with corruption at all levels of our societies and being the first in line to mock presidents and create jokes out of any corruption- or narco-case gone wrong – I was once there, I did that many times, but I can stand my word. I don’t indulge into that at all any longer.

Therefore I’d rather ask: how many of us are actually looking within ourselves to recognize our responsibility to the creation of all the problems faced in this country and whether we would stand also ‘In Equality’ within self-honesty and self-responsibility to own and recognize our creation, to acknowledge the fact that we’ve all built this wall by accepting and allowing our economy to be not good enough to cater for proper livelihoods in the lives of those people that were the most hardworking, noble and wise when it comes to an essential field of our economy: agriculture. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot, therefore we have to stop the tantrums and why-me/whining at a national level.

As with all things, the only solution I foresee now that this deal of the wall is done is to use it as a lesson to learn from and prevent from creating further consequences from now on. I don’t disagree that people create a sense of unity, but for god’s sake, let’s make it about ourselves, who we are as people – not about ‘Mexican beauties’ like its beaches, best weather and landscapes in the world – but about who we are as individuals, the kind of relationships that we can create in our families, with friends, at work, at our jobs. Becoming honest and integral individuals where we can again trust each other to act responsibly, to do ‘the right thing, that which is best for all’ and to not cheat and do whatever we can to bribe our way to the top.

In this it’s about applying the same as we do with our personal process: it’s about facing consequences and learning to live them the best way possible, making of the consequence a learning process where we can strengthen our strengths and weaknesses while also making sure that we go correcting our core values wherein we can once and for all be a little bit more considerate in terms of ‘following an American Dream’ and whether that was in any way sustainable as a long-time aspiration or desire for generations of humans to come. My take is: it is not. And here I clarify that it is not that I am not wanting prosperity for the people, but I am talking in the specific means in which massive amounts of people have gone to the US to get ‘rich’ or ‘lots of money’ while having to leave their families back here in Mexico, it’s not nice for them nor for the families, most of them would really want to be back here yet we all have been the ones that instead of staying in this country to make it stronger and built with an intent to revive its economy and therefore the living-quality in it, we have opted to run away from it or live off from its worst sources of income like politics or narco-business – we haven’t yet decided to create an economy that can fulfill people’s livelihoods in a best-for-all manner, hence the consequences.

It’s time to see beyond the sentiment of nationalism or ‘uniting against the enemy Trump’ because that breeds more of that which we need to STOP fueling and participating on in this world: hatred, anger, separation, blame, vengeance, racism. I refuse to be part of the millions that rejoice in a false sense of empowerment – instead I decide to remind ourselves of common sense: let’s own our consequences, let’s understand the source and origin of this ‘wall’ which is that of massive immigration that we haven’t been able to prevent by creating a solid economy at home.

So, if we really want to ‘be very Mexicans’ I’d first say, let’s stand in principles that change the nature of what we’ve all become as individuals, starting with stopping the hate, the fight, the spite towards presidents or nations ‘out there’ and instead focus on ourselves, focus on our own lives. There’s nothing to be offended about when we are ALL the creators of walls, because it represents nothing else but the manifestation of our separation as our inability to stand together to create a dignified livelihood for all inhabitants in this world – not only Mexico but everywhere else in this world.

Let’s keep this in mind when seeing the word ‘WALL’ = We ALL Are the WALL – now let’s start breaking down our own inner and outer wars and let’s rather focus on understanding our creation, looking at the origin of the problems and so focus on solutions to sort them out from their root, that’s what we should focus on in our lives right now.

Thanks for reading

 

 The Wall - Mexican Border - Trump - Mexicanism

 

 

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