On the Matter of Neighbors

Mexico is our neighbor. Right next door. Not far away. Just 'over there.'

We cannot afford to ignore our neighbors if we want to live in a peaceful world. (We cannot afford to start wars and facilitate sectarian violence, either, but that's another story.)

And it is especially impolite and downright irrational of us to employ our neighbor's citizens, while insisting that they have no right to take our jobs away from us.

The clamouring to put up a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is not the worst form of ignoring our neighbors, though. We are saying 'We don't want you and we're putting up a wall so we don't have to look at you.' We're also saying, in effect, 'we don't care what happens in your country...just stay out of ours.'

We don't seem to understand that political and social dislocations in Mexico are very real threats to peace here in the U.S. Our failure to attempt to understand Mexico's problems is arrogance at its worst. And our failure to pressue the Mexican administration to deal with them in ways that are reasonable and rational and respectful of the rights of its citizens is dangerous.

More meaningful media coverage of the events that are taking place in Mexico would be helpful. Here's a link to an article of interest that addresses what has been happening in Oaxaca.