Analysis of rhetorical situation: Mexico has been increasing in violence; this increase in violence can affect Mexican-American affairs as well as the American visitors and citizens in Mexico. This paper is directed toward any person who often travels to Mexico. My purpose is to understand and address the main reasons for Mexico's recent violent activity.
Writing process: This piece of writing uses two composing strategies: real time strategy and retrospective strategy. Using real time, I reflected on what I thought were the main issues that needed to be addressed. As I wrote, I used a recursive process to come back to my original ideas and revise them in light of additional ideas I had and information I encountered in my research. I continued by using the facts and events of my resources to produce a more detailed essay. I used the retrospective strategy to consider the essay once I thought it was essentially complete, and then tried to analyze it from the viewpoint of the intended audience. Using this strategy enabled me to identify areas that needed clarification.
Strength & Weaknesses: The main weakness I encountered was the difficulty of finding specific events that reflected the increase in violence. My strength was proving Mexico is bad for vacation. I would like to receive feedback on these strengths and weaknesses, with some specific suggestions for improvement, if possible.
Statements on recycling: I may use this if I go into a foreign affairs class or international relations.
When I began considering the issue of drug violence in Mexico, I realized that I had only very vague notions of the issue. For example, periodically there are articles on news websites that discuss police corruption in some Mexican cities because of the drug trade, and reports of police officers and politicians being murdered because of the ongoing drug war. I didn’t want to approach the issue from the perspective of someone living in Mexico, because realistically I have no idea of what it would be like to live there. However, I could put myself into the mindset of someone considering taking a vacation in Mexico. Specifically, I decided that I would approach the issue as if I were thinking about going to a border town in Mexico. If I were doing this in real life, my first step would be to check travel brochures and other tourism materials to see what information was available on these towns, and see if they mentioned the drug violence.
“Make of Mexico the excuse for your next vacation and get your senses ready for an experience full of magic, color and warmth. Come and fall in love with Mexico!” That is what the travel agencies advertise on their “reduced” travel packages this month. So what am I waiting for? Let’s pack up and go on vacation! Let's plan the vacation and visit online traveling advice. When I read the advice, the first red flags appeared. MOST visits are trouble-free, but crime and kidnappings may be an issue, mainly in urban areas. When I saw that information, I began to think maybe a Mexican vacation has some drawbacks. Also, according to the travel advice, an increase in drug-related cartel violence activity has occurred and any effort from Mexican authorities to arrest drug cartel leaders ignites more violence. I chatted briefly with a friend from Texas who had recently gone to the border town of Nuevo Laredo; according to him, local Texas residents often go there in groups instead of travelling solo because it is easier to kidnap a lone visitor than someone in a group. Let me rethink my vacation. Are cheap hotel prices worth putting my life in danger? Absolutely not. So what can people do to make Mexico a destination for an amazing warm vacation once again?
After the U.S. prohibition, the illegal narcotics trade made Mexican producers and smugglers export drugs on a major scale, with extremely high revenue. In the early 1990s, when reinforcement intensified in other drug import points, powerful Colombian drug traffickers made partnerships with Mexico to smuggle drugs into the U.S. They created billion dollar organizations, called cartels. Mexico has been plagued with very powerful and dangerous drug trafficking cartels working to meet high demands of the U.S. with the incentive of very high revenue. To obtain this background information, my research consisted of articles on Mexican violence being the effect of U.S. demand for illegal drugs. One article explains the possible reasons behind the formation of these high-power cartels and their illegal foreign partnerships to traffic narcotics into the U.S. (Cole). From this article, I understood how the cartels grew so rapidly and became overpowering to Mexican authorities.
I had to ask myself at this point exactly how pervasive the violence actually is. I had seen the information about drug violence in Mexico on some travel websites, but those websites are not necessarily the most credible or accurate sources. To understand the scope of the drug violence, I decided I needed to locate information from credible sources, such as academic journals. My library search yielded many results, even when limited to peer-reviewed articles, leading me to believe that many different people have documented these problems and are also seeking ways to solve it. Reading only two of those articles was a disturbing experience. One article discussed how even in parts of Mexico that are not directly involved in the drug trade, the drug violence has moved into those states because the drug cartels are expanding their business to include other types of crime (Pan, Widner, and Enomoto). That same article stated, “This year’s [2010] drug-related homicides have passed the 11,000 mark, a 60 to 70 percent increase from 2009” (17). Another article about the politics of drug violence in Mexico noted, “Since 2006, more than six thousand people have died in the city, and more than twenty-eight thousand across the country, in relation to the violence associated with the restructuring of the cartels that control the production and distribution of illegal drugs across Mexico” (Wright 707).
After seeing how the cartels came into power and how much damage they were doing, I had to ask myself why the police seem so unable to reduce the amount of violence. Mexico is known as a relatively poor country, and tourism would bring in money to their economy. I would think trying to address the drug violence would be a major issue for police and politicians. However, the high corruption levels in the police and government greatly contribute to the crime problem, hindering Mexico's chances on achieving a stable democracy. According to Reed’ s discussion of Mexican government and judiciary corruption, Mexican officials made deals with criminals, and deliberately allowed for criminal activity to take place with a “blind eye” from police. Many times, police will fabricate evidence to incarcerate an innocent person for the crime of a powerful criminal. Police officials are paid poorly and therefore accept bribes easily.
I had been thinking that the solution to the drug violence might be more police or longer prison sentences for people convicted of drug violence. After reading more about the issues, though, that seems a simplistic solution that would be futile. I had to think about the actual source of the problem, which is the illegal drug trade that creates the violence in the first place. I thought back to how the Mexican drug trade had started when the U.S. made alcohol illegal. During that time, there was also violence in the U.S. associated with gangsters who were involved in manufacturing and distributing alcohol. Most of that violence ended when Prohibition ended. So, maybe the only workable solution to end the drug violence in Mexico is to make the drug trade less profitable. To do that would require legalizing drugs in Mexico, and possible in the U.S. as well as a way to reduce prices and make the drug business a mainstream business. After all, nobody hears about systematic violence between competing alcohol manufacturers. There are some studies being done on this idea, with Kilmer addressing the issue of whether decriminalizing marijuana in California would help decrease Mexican drug violence. While there is not yet enough data to know for sure what would happen, I think legalizing and controlling the drug trade in Mexico is a possible solution that needs further consideration.
Works Cited
Cole, T.B. Mexican Drug Violence Intertwined With US Demand for Illegal Drugs. JAMA. 2009; 302(5):482-483. doi:10.1001/jama.2009.1108. Web.
Kilmer, Beau. Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico: Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help? Santa Monica, CA: RAND International Programs and Drug Policy Research Center, 2010. Print.
Reed, S. E. (1997, Mar 17). Certifiable. The New Republic, 216, 14-18. Web. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.fiu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/212931221?accountid=10901; http://df9uh2wc8b.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88- 2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQ %3Aabiglobal&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre= article&rft.jtitle=The+New+Republic&rft.atitle=Certifiable&rft.au=Reed %2C+Susan+E&rft.aulast=Reed&rft.aufirst=Susan&rft.date=1997-03-17&rft.volume=216&rft.issue=11&rft.spage=14&rft.isbn=&rft.btitle=&rft.title=
The+New+Republic&rft.issn=00286583
Pan, Mingming, Benjamin Widner, and Carl E. Enomoto. "Spillover Effects Of Crimes In Neighboring States Of Mexico." International Journal Of Business & Social Science 3.14 (2012): 14. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 25 Dec. 2012.
Wright, M. W. (2011). Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the Mexico-U.S. Border. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 36(3), 707.
