Activist Javier Sicilia on the Fear of Not Voting in Mexico Elections Javier Sicilia - Proceso
go to original April 28, 2015

The conditions are ripe for boycotting the elections, with a voided ballot or by not going to the polls. As never before in the history of modern Mexico, the symbiosis between politics and crime, and the absence, at the same time, of a true political offer that ends insecurity, corruption, extreme poverty, crime, and impunity, have revealed not only the absence of the State, but of a true democratic foundation. All the same, some sectors of society will insist on going to the polls on June 7th.

Outside of those who will go for non-civic reasons, meaning for reasons that have destroyed the life of politics: coercion, corruption, and the patronage system (what’s defined as the “hard vote”), the true citizens who will vote will do it out of fear of the void, that is to say, because of the terror of accepting that there is nothing and that we should start over, almost from zero.

Not without good reason, too. Becoming aware of a reality that is the antithesis of the stable world that we imagined is hard. It never happens suddenly. Only little by little, despite the havoc. It is hard work for us to accept that our friend betrayed us, that the woman we love slept with someone else, that the libertarian ideas to which we once devoted ourselves were the mask of tyranny, that our beloved child will never come home.

It’s also hard to accept that our country is absolutely destroyed, realize that what we made of democracy (for the how many generations that fought and gave their lives) is a simulation, and that going to vote is nothing more than raising criminals to power who use our dreams to rob us, to sell the land and water, to allow our children to be stolen and keep us subjected to the forces of fear, impunity and horror. Very few dare to bear it. The elections aren’t good from the start, given the most superficial arguments of political thinking:

• "The PRI is going to win with the hard vote";
• "They are less evil than the others";
• "If we don’t vote, we’ll leave the power to the worst";
• "What will happen if we don’t vote?"

So everyone goes to the polls, only to discover themselves in the deepening horror a few months later.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Crystal Silkwood

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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