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Kerr and Rothstein

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from: Sarah Kerr

Tribal or Feudal?

Posted Monday, March 8, 1999, at 1:19 PM ET

Hmmm, "tribal" ... "blood rule" ... Can I answer your assertion with a "yes and no"? What I mean is that some of the conflicts you discuss do seem explicable only in terms of a primal, presocial impulse to violence. But surely some aspects are also modern--i.e., embedded in policy decisions that sounded rational at the time but had irrational, warping effects? This is my gut instinct speaking, I admit. Slap my hands with a ruler: I don't know enough about many of these situations to carry on a well-grounded dialogue. You ask about Mexico, and here I do know something, and it does tend to challenge the idea that "policy is less crucial than power." By far the worst massacre of recent years in Mexico--45 people in Acteal, Chiapas--was committed by the government. This is the same government that Clinton just visited and celebrated and gave the green light for "certification," meaning he decided to pretend that Mexico had made progress in the fight against drugs. Make me laugh. Everyone knows this is a joke. It's not that I'm against recertifying Mexico--it's that the whole annual certification process is a farce starring puppets, with an ending known in advance. Republicans huff and puff about Mexico's noncompliance, with ugly racist undertones, and Democrats smile and praise and lie. It makes the Monica Lewinsky scandal look sane, substantive, and crucial to the people's interest. The fact is that the Mexican government can do almost anything it wants without getting decertified, because cool, rational NAFTA performs better if we don't rock the boat. Meanwhile, Mexico is enduring a horrendous crime wave, spurred in large part by the collapse of the economy in 1994, spurred in large part by Mexico's rush to comply with the rational-sounding to-do lists of the IMF. I wonder if you came across a newsbrief I read last week that has haunted me like few stories in recent memory. Did you know, Ed, that well over 100 women and possibly as many as 192 have been murdered in the past few years in Ciudad Juarez, the town just a short walk across a bridge from El Paso? Many of them were teenagers. Most of these girls worked in that supremely rational outpost of the global economy, the maquiladora. Perhaps I agree with you after all that we're in the midst of a disturbing trend toward violence and indifference to violence--but where you say "tribal," I'd substitute "feudal." These girls are serfs. I want to know what happened to them, and I'm ashamed of us Americans, lords of the manor (or at least whatchyoucallits, that middle tier between lord and serf), for caring as little as we do.

I guess I'm in a soapbox kind of mood today. Do you mind? If not, I'd like to agitate on a lighter topic this afternoon. Shakespeare in Love must be stopped! Gwyneth Paltrow is pretentious and Joseph Fiennes has less charisma than the left Achilles' tendon of his brother Ralph. I'm sick of hearing how great this movie is. I wonder if you agree.

All best,

Sarah

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415
from: Sarah Kerr

Tribal or Feudal?

Posted Monday, March 8, 1999, at 1:19 PM ET
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Sarah Kerr is a regular contributor to Slate. Edward Rothstein is cultural critic at large for the New York Times. He writes the paper's "Connections" column on alternate Mondays (technology-related columns archived here) and is the author of Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics.
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