Do not drink the water

! DO NOT DRINK THE WATER!
Ricardo Valenzuela

Mario Vargas Llosa in one of his excellent works carries out an analysis of the content of the word; "pendejo," so popular throughout Latin America. From Mexico to Ecuador, says the writer, the meaning is fool, silly, but mysteriously crossing the Peruvian border becomes the opposite. In Peru a pendejo is the classic rogue who, using his pendejes, achieves success and is admired for that; for being a sympathetic rogue. And to define the Mexican pendejo, in Peru the word "cojudo" is used.

Some years ago when I had the opportunity to enjoy that great Mexican movie; The Law of Herod. The scene that most struck me was when the governor analyzed the alternatives to replace the murdered mayor of a small town in his state. His assistant covers him with the reading of résumés of faithful members of the party, which the governor immediately rejects until, the assistant takes one of the files and with an "this one no," he decides to pass it without presenting it to him. The annoying boss asks him; why not? The subaltern responds; "Because this is very pendejo." The governor without hiding his enthusiasm then says: "That is the one to send."

In the USA, one of the most popular expressions is that which springs up as a spring when someone expresses his intention to visit our country: “Do not drink the water” For years I always thought that it was about preventing the American tourists of the abnormal danger to their health that represents the ingestion of our precious liquid which, among the multitude of diseases that it provokes, perhaps the most famous is that which Carter made fashionable: “The revenge of Moctezuma”. However, I believe that I had never remained in darkness for so long, because recently I have come to know its true meaning, and in all sincerity I now affirm understanding it.

The advice that arises when potential tourists prepare to enter our country, is not to prevent such an infinity of serious diseases. The real warning is against a contagion much more serious and danger than even the revenge of all the Aztecs. It is an alarm against the danger of acquiring that fatal syndrome of the "Perfect Latin American Idiot." That deadly virus, among other things, manifests itself with symptoms of an advanced mental delay that produces illogical behaviors acquired by ethical dullness, mental laziness and civil opportunism. Then it reveals an abdication of the faculty of thinking, of collating words with facts, of questioning the rhetoric that serves as a thought, and more seriously, inoculates the other merciless virus, that of destruction.

This disease, which is not unique to Mexico, is described with that elegant style of Vargas Llosa in the narration of an anecdote happened in his country. At the end of the 40s, a distinguished jurist governed Peru: Dr. Jose Luis Bustamante y Rivero. He wrote his own speeches in a Castilian, deep and elegant Spanish, was a man of exaggerated honesty and had the bad habit of respecting the Constitution and laws, which he cited, every time he opened his mouth, to explain what he was doing or It had to be done. The opposition called it "cojurídico." That is, a fool who believed the laws are important and had to be fulfilled. The nickname immediately became popular with the entire population, both adopting it as the popular sport and mocking the integrity of its leader.

Yesterday, as I was devouring the news with a group of my American friends, at the moment they reported the failure of the bill for the fiscal reform, a view of the congress took place in which our anointed representatives full of euphoria and "pendejés" appear.  "Celebrating the banter they had just committed. It's when one of my friends turns his gaze to me and, with force, says: “Do not drink the water”. His message was profound and annoying. But I cannot cover the sun with my finger, our population has been infected by that syndrome of idiocy for longer years, maybe centuries. That idiocy that all our politicians have demonstrated and now ends is this, the serious state of siege that reaffirms the country, kidnapping the future of all Mexicans.

A ghost travels the world affirmed Marx in his Manifesto when he referred to communism, but never imagined the fierceness of his warning. Another ghost now travels Mexico, the ghost of idiocy to cling to what the rest of the world abandons. The ghost of that water that others do not have to drink for fear of contracting the virus that has prostrated us. That contagious water more intoxicating than the bacanora of my home state and springs from the veins opened by demagogues like Galeano, to brutalize the sentinel of the present, but not responsible for the future. Water that flows in torrents of wounds inflicted to us carrying lethal weapons, the weapons of the pendejés.

In another part of his story, Vargas Llosa tells how a candidate won an election when he was accused of trafficking and fraud. The citizens voted for him, only because he was "a great pendejo." The miseries of Mexico will not cease until we compose the semantics of our values. When we degrade the admired pendejos and the tricks that today preside over the destinies of our country. Because they are not the nice, the audacious and the very audacious practical who act as if they were beyond good and evil, those who work the greatness of nations, but those boring characters who know their limits, and are so unimaginative and reckless, who always live within the law.

Finally I understand that the gringos do not love or bathe with the Mexican water, it is not only dangerous, it is lethal especially for the brain. I understand their compulsive fear of our immigrants; they do not want to get infected. What happens to us and our semantics also happens with our country and its institutions. The ideas, the beliefs, the systems that we have even imported, after tasting the water, experience magical substitutions of meaning. Our thunderous failures are largely due to our propensity to denaturalize what we do and say, to corrupt ideas and transform the contents of the institutions that regulate our social life, always anointed with pendejadas.

The congress has just inflicted a serious injury to the country and very few can see the real consequences. If some day Mexico finds the exit of the dark tunnel of its misfortunes, it will be because we give the reins to the cojuridícos, when we have taken them away from the pendejos. But with the addiction that we have to the pendejés, I would not bet on the future. So, do not drink the water.