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Oscar Woo-Calvachi is the co-representative of MCC’s Mexico country program (the following does not necessarily represent the position of MCC).
From the Western revolutions in Syria (or Libya) and the creation of itinerant states of terror by some intelligence agency, we have become distant witness of the completion of the great and western mission of administrating both natural resources and the lives itself of others, along with wisely governing the world. In the development of such a mission, sacrifices are necessary. The sacrifice of innocents, those faces of the most vulnerable, along with women and children seems like a small price that must be paid. The essence of the system, the mission itself, demands sacrifices.
A child, lying on the beach, appears to be nothing before the great western mission. Seeing the image of Aylan generates sadness and grief. And in, the final analysis, that sadness has no price, or better yet, doesn’t cost anything. It is this same sadness that has historically found banal consolation in the music, prayer, texts, and theology have almost always reminded us of the necessary and sacred value of salvation through sacrifice, through blood sacrifice. Abraham himself appeared ready to sacrifice a child to the demands of the system in his time. The sacrificed blood of an innocent was needed to save humanity; the blood of a few millions appears to be nothing in light of the civilised, western, chosen peace that the mission desires for the world.
Latin America is not free from this western mission and its impacts. Since the conquest, there has almost never been freedom and perhaps there never will be. When a state or an initiative arises that cannot be contained within the western mission, something is wrong and creative measures of force must be taken to normalize the situation. When, for example, a rebel ex-president in a Caribbean country in Latin America was asked by a CNN reporter, if he would support an autonomous regime (sovereign and distinct from the western mission) in Syria, his response was basically to say that Syria is a sovereign country, as is Libya, as is Venezuela, as is the United States. We have to support the sovereignty of people, but that does not mean we have to agree. But, how are should such differences be resolved? Through bombardments or destabilisation? A strange coincidence: shortly afterwards, this same ex-president would die of a curious cancer.
Latin America especially has been an implementation site for the western mission. And while at certain times the great mission in Latin America has manifested a sincere sensitivity, as they say, in a mixture of authoritarianism and condescension, in the final hour, the mission has been marked by pragmatic calculation. In this sense, the great mission has had different facets (doctrines), times, places and denominations, from Monroeism, passing to Nixonism and Carterism, arriving at Reganism or to Bushism and Obamaism. Of course, what is coming is Trumpism.
Likewise, and with a degree of specificity, perhaps some forms of implementation of the great mission will be remembered with names such as Plan Condor and Plan Colombia. Or perhaps one called Puebla Panama and another, Merida. Or perhaps as a Free Trade Agreement, among those less well know, but perhaps more telling or at least inspiring, such as Santa Fe. And there are other implementation strategies that come from the allies of the great mission, among other, the Washington Consensus and its resurrection in Seoul, and its children, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Today, there is no time or capacity to continue to dig.
Returning to the western mission and its implementation and impacts in Latin America, it is no less important, and perhaps even more worrisome, to think of the neighbour that lies north of the country of the eagle. This country has always been seen as the good neighbour, but for many in the world, that is only a myth. Cleverly and subtly, the controlling powers have changed in this beautiful country under the shadow of its neighbour and of some on the other side of the pond. Little by little, it is building its own empire and feeding the great western mission’s matrix for the world.
At the end, everything appears to be definite. The great mission appears to have taken its final step. As in the ending of a classic movie, the light dims little by little in a tunnel towards the middle of the curtain. But at this moment, in both Syria and in Latin America, and in contrast to the classic movies, the point of light in the curtain does not disappear. Syrian women resist being the shadow to the prototype of man and Arab culture (in general), created and recreated by the west as the axis of evil. The women, united in the Women’s Network of Syria, do not cease in their labour to achieve that their voice is taken into account in the construction of a peaceful democracy for the Syrian people. For their part, in Latin America, and in the concrete case of Mexico, the community of La Montaña in Guerrero, express in another way their indignation and resistance before the apocalyptic mining industry. The framework for this new expression of resistance will be the International Mining Convention, held in the Imperial World of Acapulco. At the same time, fathers, mother, young people, churches and in general large sectors of Mexican and international civil society, based on the sacrifice of the 43 from Ayotzinapa, have risen up in resistance and in hope. This is hope that arises from the depths of dignity, a hope that refuses to believe that the only option in life for everyone is the option imposed but the great mission: that for those who wish to reach its peace and progress, sacrifice is required, the sacrifice of the world’s poorest.
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