Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

"Mexico's fascistic," a Chilean refugee once remarked, "but it'sa country where fascism has been softened by corruption." There's alot of truth in that comment. The country often seems fascisticbecause the president is omnipotent; the fact that he can't be reelectedprevents him from becoming a tyrant, but during the sixyears of his term, he can do pretty much what he likes. A few yearsago, for example, President Luis Echeverria, an enlightened andbenevolent man (who occasionally sent me bottles of French wine),decided to order a series of reprisals the day after Franco executed ananarchist and four Basque separatists in Spain. Without having toconsult anyone, Echevarria simply broke off all commercial relationswith Spain, stopped the postal service and airline traffic between thetwo countries, and deported certain "undesirables" of Spanish origin.In fact, the only thing he didn't do was to send a Mexican squadronto bomb Madrid.The consequences of this enormous power, or "democratic dictatorship,"are alleviated, however, when we add a certain amountof corruption to the system. The mordida, or bribe, is often the keyto Mexican life. It's carried on at all levels and in all places; everyoneknows about it and accepts it, since everyone is either a victim ora beneficiary. Without this corruption, of course, the Mexicanconstitution, which on paper is one of the most enlightened in theworld, would make the country the exemplary democracy in LatinAmerica.Finally, Mexico has one of the highest rates of population growthin the world. There's no disputing the fact that poverty is widespreadand very visible; since the country's natural resources are so unevenlydistributed, millions have fled the countryside and poured into thecities, creating the sprawling and chaotic ctudades perdtdas on theoutskirts of all the big urban centers. No one knows how manypeople live in these teeming "suburbs," although some say the sprawloutside Mexico City is the most densely populated area in the world.Whatever the case, its growth is vertiginous (close to a thousandpeasants arrive every day), and predictions claim that there'll be thirty