Hector Murguia, mayor of Juarez, Mexico, has condemned the new video game, “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2,” because of its setting in Juarez. Murguia thinks the game promotes violence and instills values which are “upside down.” The game “attempts to divide the good will of the residents of American and Mexican cities,” he said.
Memo to the mayor: there isn’t that much good will between El Paso and Juarez. Americans, in particular Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants, don’t want any part of what Juarez is, except for keeping up family ties with relatives on the other side of the river. Murguia can sniff all he wants, but he presides over a remarkably inept, uncaring local government, riddled like Swiss cheese with corruption and violence. Once a decent destination for thousands of day-tripping American tourists and the occasional overnighter, Juarez is descended into a killing field where incorruptible cops, judges, attorneys and public servants are targeted by criminal groups or corrupted cops, judges, attorneys and public servants. Corrupted public officials attend BBQs on the ranches of local traffickers; they tip off cartel members of impending federal police raids; they extort businesses; they build themselves fancy homes in the few safe neighborhoods of the city, a la Aldrich Ames and well above what their incomes allow.
Figure on about five murders a week in Juarez, and that’s conservative. If the Juarez Cartel didn’t have the place well-locked down, imagine Nuevo Laredo times a thousand.
Hell, most Mexicans you see in El Paso are day-tripping tourists doing shopping, not illegal migrants heading to fields and factories. That’s because it’s cheaper to buy Mexican products in El Paso, not to mention luxuries like diapers, toiletries and appliances from China. Smart Chihuahuans put their money in Wells Fargo, and buy second homes here — for safety, security and the fact that they can smuggle their kids into good (by Mexican standards) education and health care system.
Tinted glass on the mayor’s company car must block his view of the “for lease” signs seen on office buildings all over town; of the numbers of native Indians selling chewing gum and bracelets at red lights; of the potholes; of the decaying infrastructure; of the lack of building code enforcement; of the drunkenness and random gunfire; of the slavery of Central American women in prostitution and factory work; of the corrupt public transport and taxicab industry; of the bodies discovered — nearly daily — in neighborhoods, victims of targeted assassinations and usually new (and often teenaged) members of drug gangs “given up” deliberately by traffickers in deals with local law enforcement. He doesn’t see the drowning victims in the Rio Grande; doesn’t look at the anti-gringo xenophobia that pervades border towns; and doesn’t worry about terrorists crossing the Southwest Border (or of the Government of Mexico’s stated intent to stop it) because they’re moving out of his turf.
They sell a T-shirt or two there. One says, “Souvenir of Juarez” and is a picture of an AK-47. The other is an international symbol-like graphic of a body being stuff into the trunk of a car underneath the word, “Juarez.” Now that’s entrepreneurship by somebody, but Hector ain’t complaining about that.
I can see a mod to the game already: a dam in Juarez is in danger of bursting and endangering thousands and thousands of residents who were allowed to build below it. The danger comes from a terrorist bomb. Or a 500-year flood. Take your pick, although the latter really happened last year.
UPDATE: Luis Carrasco of the El Paso Times takes the right approach to Hizonner and video games.
