Denise Dresser
Always on the lookout, anxious, suspicious of our own shadow. Invaded by the legitimate fear of walking on the street after dark, taking money out of an ATM, hopping into a cab, being stopped by a corrupt policeman, receiving the call of a kidnapper saying that he has taken your child, losing a son, burying a daughter.
My home has become a place where too many people die, gunned down by a drug-trafficker, or assaulted by a robber, or shot by an ill-trained law enforcement officer or kidnapped and strangled by a member of a criminal gang, as was the case with the teenage children of prominent businessmen Alejandro Martí and Nelson Vargas.
At the helm of an increasingly active and visible army, President Felipe Calderón has declared a bold war against drug-trafficking and the organized crime networks it has spawned.
In a country where over 6,000 people have died over the last year in drug-related violence, insecurity is top-of-mind for most Mexicans. Given the increasingly lawless conditions of the country he inherited, Calderón had little choice but to act, and he is to be commended for doing so.
As I reflect on my troubled country, the lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song come to mind: "We are far, far away from home. Our home is far, far away from us." And that's how it feels to live in Mexico during these turbulent times: far from democratic normalcy; far from the rule of law; far from home and close to everything that imperils it.
Always on the lookout, anxious, suspicious of our own shadow. Invaded by the legitimate fear of walking on the street after dark, taking money out of an ATM, hopping into a cab, being stopped by a corrupt policeman, receiving the call of a kidnapper saying that he has taken your child, losing a son, burying a daughter.
My home has become a place where too many people die, gunned down by a drug-trafficker, or assaulted by a robber, or shot by an ill-trained law enforcement officer or kidnapped and strangled by a member of a criminal gang, as was the case with the teenage children of prominent businessmen Alejandro Martí and Nelson Vargas.
At the helm of an increasingly active and visible army, President Felipe Calderón has declared a bold war against drug-trafficking and the organized crime networks it has spawned.
In a country where over 6,000 people have died over the last year in drug-related violence, insecurity is top-of-mind for most Mexicans. Given the increasingly lawless conditions of the country he inherited, Calderón had little choice but to act, and he is to be commended for doing so.
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