ZacParker.com

Corruption. You hear about it in the highest levels of Mexican Politics. You hear about the corrupt Policia Auxiliar, taking bribes or even being the perpetrators of petty, even serious crimes.. That is not where the corruption ends, its just where the stories you read in the newspaper and on the BBC stop. What they don’t tell you, is that corruption is a deeply rooted Mexican trait. While it certainly occurs on a grand and public political scale, at the very ‘top’ of Mexican society… it continues down to very bottom. To the senators and the governors and the mayors. To the public utilities. To the Post Office. To the landlords and the garbagemen.To the ambulantes lining the streets near the Zocalo. Right down to the friendly woman selling tuna y aguacate at the mercado.
I believe it stems at the lower levels, partly from poverty, and partly from politicians, and history. Poverty, because the minimum wage in Mexico City (the highest in the nation) is a mere U$D4.50 a day, and jobs are scarce at best. Everyone is out to get a peso, anyway they can. There are the few honest people. They do exist. I’ve met some, and they are beautiful people. But for the most part, the people working the streets will find any way they can to extract every centavo from your pocket, even if this means by force. The streets, peseros and the metro are all riddled with thieves, sometimes working in teams, one to distract you while the other picks your pocket. Politicians and history because, this is a nation that has grown up with corruption. Been shown that its okay. That that is just… how things work. Since the time of Cortes, even pre-Hispanic times, people have been taught to get what you need by whatever means necessary.
In the middle levels, in the local government offices, and the businesses and social services… I can only think to blame history and Politics. These are people that make a decent living. Have no distinct need to steal from others to get by, yet they do it anyhow. “You want your internet hooked up the same week you order it? Oh, that’s impossible. However…100 pesos or so might be able to change our installation schedule.” this is the type of thing that goes on at this level, as well as very little transparency in the acquistion and spending of local monies amongst government officials, which is also prevalent in the high governments.
At the top levels… it is strictly greed, and abuse of power. Presidents steal from their people. Mexican senators are the highest paid in the world. Police are more often the robbers and rapists than anyone else. The wealthy continually and habitually swindle the poor. This is a rich country, with a very thin line between the unfathomably wealthy, and the inhumanely poor. It is going to take many years, and a lot of effort on behalf of just not the government, but the whole of the Mexican people, to make any significant change in the corruption of this nation.

To Mexico: I wish you the best of luck in overcoming this cloud that has cast a shadow on your people for so many centuries. Now is the time for action.