Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Through the Secretary of Security, Omar Garcia Harfush, the federal government has opened the debate on the definition of terrorism. He stated that the car bombs that exploded recently in Guanajuato, in front of public security offices, were not acts of terrorism but rather an expression of feuds between criminal groups. And he offered his definition of terrorism: acts related to religion or ideological positions.
The definition offered by Garcia Harfush is very limited and, to tell the truth, seems to evade the issue. Since the public has not been informed whether any manifesto of intent accompanied the car bomb attack, it is impossible to arrive at a strong statement that would rule out or accept the version of terrorism in this case. What was the motive for an act traditionally used by terrorist groups to arouse fear in the population and call attention to the weakness of the authorities? According to the authorities, the criminals placed two car bombs in front of State offices without defining a precise target. Very strange.
There is a large amount of literature on how to define terrorism, and it is not limited to religious or ideological issues, as García Harfush claims. Social terror is an instrument that, in the modern world, is used by extra-state actors and also by states to achieve their objectives. These objectives can be religious, ideological, economic, or political and also refer to the exercise of power by the State.
In today’s Mexico, where do the beheading of the Mayor of Chilpancingo and, very decisively, the placing of his severed head in public view to create a certain impression fit in the definition of terrorism, or are they simple “struggles between groups”? With a self-serving and deliberately narrow definition of terrorism, the government apparently wants to avoid the impact of…a terrorist act.
Terrorism is just that: a deliberate act that seeks to create terror and instill fear among the population and, with it, achieve a specific objective. Are the thousands of Chiapas residents fleeing their homes in the face of the advance of criminal groups organized as armies and the absolute absence of the State living in a situation of terror? And what about the people of Zacatecas who abandon their towns to escape the forced recruitment of their young men by the cartels to swell their ranks? Or the people hanging from the bridges in San Luis Potosi? And the kidnappings in Michoacan of avocado and lemon growers to pay extortion fees? The count is long because it would be necessary to mention the whole country to do justice to the terrifying dangers we citizens face every day.
The point is that those who instill terror have specific objectives. And they are not only criminal groups. It is also a State. In his book The Prince, Machiavelli lays out a basic rule for rulers: “It is safer to be feared than to be loved”. For a ruler to be feared, he must perform the necessary and pertinent acts to achieve that fear of the people so that he does not become worried.
Instilling fear in the people can be a specific objective of a government. Right-wing military dictatorships ruled with rifles in their hands. Left-wing governments also govern with guns: Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Today, Bolivia fights bloody battles to define who owns the firearm: Lucho or Evo.
How can we define the way Morena won the qualified majority in the Senate? Was it state terrorism or justifiable gangster methods? Morena and its method of government will also stand in the judgment of history. The overrepresentation, the pressure on judges, the “supremacy” of one branch of government over another—all this will have a historical reading: Is Morena also instilling a reign of terror in Mexico to consolidate its political power, following Machiavelli’s advice?
Finally, we must agree that Mexico has extra-state groups that operate with terrorist methods, such as the cartels, and there is State terror, as we witnessed by the method of the “takeover” of Congress by Morena and, consequently, the imposition of new laws that modify the essence of the constitutional Republic that we have had to date.
Mexico has already entered the era of terrorism and must accept this fact and decide how to deal with its new reality.
@rpascoep
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