The deep tragedy 2023/10/31 | Excelsior

The scenes will remain in memory. “I have faith in finding my family,” says an elderly woman. Other people have already lost it. The bodies appear buried in rubble or in the sea. A quarter of a million homes affected. Otis It exposed the profound tragedy that Mexico is experiencing: we are governed by contempt, inhumanity, and farce.

Otis It was, and continues to be, a multiple test. The first, that the deadly surprise could have been mitigated with prevention. It is true, the meteor grew dizzyingly. But, even so, the accounts don't work out. From the United States the notices to the authorities about the seriousness of Otis They arrived twenty-one hours early. Pamela Cerdeira conducted an excellent and painful interview with the director of the Hurricane Center, Michael Brennan. There was time to begin the eviction, to alert the population, to activate the DN-III plan, for the municipal, state and federal governments to coordinate something. Roads and airports were open. Zero actions, someone must be responsible.

And if responsibility is the second test, what can we say about the presidential silence in his long conferences, those that could have been used to warn. The vanity and contempt is such, as it was with the pandemic, that they thought of remaining silent as their best strategy. For him, Mexico is just that: power. They don't give a damn about life. There was plenty of time to talk about his international qualification. On the one hand the tragedy, the destroyed families, on the other a pathological ego: that people talk about me and only me.

Another test, honesty. In the daily safety meeting, apparently, they did not learn about the destructive force. A day later, they did not even know that the land route was interrupted and so, armed with courage, they took the vehicles and, coincidentally, were stranded a few meters from where the press was. Either they really are unprecedentedly inept, or perhaps, there is a new “Battalion of Deception” headed by the aide-de-camp general who extends his hand to the Supreme Court in the absurd journey, instead of appearing in the tragedy. They have dishonesty in their bones. Of course they knew about the road, it was already public. Of course they could have tried something else, but they wanted to continue with the sketch. The almighty arrives at night and oh surprise! It dawns for his morning. How did he get back? Helicopter slapping is engraved on the list of national offenses. They think that Mexicans are imbeciles.

In October 1997, Ernesto Zedillothe “cold technocrat”, had to face Pauline, another highly destructive phenomenon. He was traveling to Germany, he decided to return. She flew directly to Acapulco. He asked several members of his cabinet to appear there to start making decisions. Zedillo He settled there for several weeks. He formed a group of public servants to coordinate aid and reconstruction in Guerrero and Oaxaca. She kept coming back for months. He was not looking for votes, he did have the emotion of service.

And the worst test arrives: showing the contents of that viscera to which Goethe called romantic and to which we have assigned the function of measuring goodness or meanness: the heart. Thus, while Xochitl Galvez sends a message of unity, brotherhood, empathy and proposes concrete actions, the head of state recalls, once again, his list of hatreds, the specific ones against Enrique and Leon Krauze, who produced painful material about a town very close to Acapulco. There is an anti-Semitic tone in his words: they like money. And then, again, the infinite cant of his abstract hatred: the conservatives, the petty ones, the abusive media, the conspiracy against him. Lounging in his office, with enormous disdain, he forgets that it was about talking about the destruction of Otisof suffering, but he wants to talk… about it.

We are governed by contempt, inhumanity, and farce.

That tragedy explains many others.