El Mencho: The Calm After the Storm - with Alexandra Rauscher

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio talks to journalist Alexandra Rauscher about the days and weeks after the killing of Nemesio Oseguera. 

Transcript

Jon Bonfiglio 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome back to Latin America Correspondent, where today we are in um in Mexico in the centre of Mexico, and we're sort of going to go back over a story, the story of the last couple of weeks, and just sort of pick up some of the strands, the loose strands there. The story, of course, is the killing of El Mencho by Mexican security forces and everything that that entailed in the country, both the event itself, but then the pushback from the Jalisco New Generation cartel and what that means for Mexico as a whole, in particular leading up to the World Cup. But what's been really clear, and um we've mentioned a few times is how obviously, understandably to some extent, the news is driven by news, by by events, by by actions, um, but then the news tends to move on, and there's a lot of aspects of the story, really, gaps between the story and how it relates to Mexico and Mexican people and cultural society more broadly, which I think are important. Um, and it's been something which I've been talking to journalist Alexander Rauscher about for the next for the last um week or so. So we thought we'd just pick up the conversation and just share some thoughts about again these gaps, the interstices between the different events that that have been um taking place. Um Alex, maybe we can go back to the event itself. When you first heard about it, on what was a Sunday, what, about ten days ago, something like that? What were your initial thoughts and and reactions to the news?

Alexandra Rauscher 1:39

Hi Jon, happy to be here. Yeah, so of course there was a major piece of news that reached us that that Sunday, and my initial feeling was tension because it was very unclear what that major event would cause in the country. But then at the same time, I also received some immediate reactions from the local community, people asking, checking in, um, seeing how things were going. Um, so you can see that there was the immediate need from people around me, around the local community, to start a conversation about what's going on what's going on and to hear other people's thoughts about the developments.

Jon Bonfiglio 2:22

Yeah, and I I think that was almost one of the first points to make, I think, is that right across the country, of course, this took place in Jalisco in the west of the country, a lot of the unrest did spread out much further afield in pockets. But but actually, the first thing to say is, and of course, in an international media context, it was unignorable, but as regards Mexican society, it was clearly a huge event that wherever it is that people were, they took notice of and they to some extent changed their behavior as a result of. Would that be fair to say?

Alexandra Rauscher 2:56

Yeah, that's fair to say. So nobody really knew what was gonna happen as a consequence of the event. So people like took a step back, decided to maybe stay in their houses, cancel the activities they had initially planned for that Sunday afternoon. Because um yeah, it was not foreseeable um what what was gonna spread from the event. Um and what was immediately noticeable was also the the care people were taking uh for each other. So they were like, stay safe, let us know when you get home, make sure that um you don't risk anything. Um yeah, that was the immediate reaction I perceived being in a local Mexican village.

Jon Bonfiglio 3:41

And also worth saying that for these people, again for people in Mexico, of course, the this particular really high-profile killing was huge news, highly unexpected news for reasons that we've we've discussed before. But the feelings and the relationship with this whole parallel infrastructure that is um hyper-powerful transnational criminal organizations that exist across almost every facet of the country is not new. So the event didn't to some extent, how do I put this? I think internationally it was a really big news event. To some extent, locally, it was less of a big news event. The killing was a big news event, but actually the relationship that people have with these parallel structures and how they manage them going about their day-to-day business was is a long established series of behaviors.

Alexandra Rauscher 4:45

Yeah. So what was very interesting for me to experience myself is how fear was dealt with because there was definitely fear being spread on social media. You could see images, videos where you couldn't really be sure in the first hours if they were real or not. But then at the same time, there was a very, very strong sense of community to be felt locally that was also counteracting this fear because you felt you were not in this alone, but you were in this as part of a community and as a country that is also in some ways unfortunately used to being exposed to this kind of um situation and structural um issue. Um so there is a kind of safety network that can be felt in this moment, um, and that also makes sure you that you're embedded in a context where you feel you can resist that fear spreading.

Jon Bonfiglio 5:45

I think that's a really good point. And actually, if you think about or if we think about the different images that we saw, and and actually just to go back a step as well, clearly, again, a massive disconnect between what you see online and what you experience in a real world context. But that by this stage we take that as a given. But if you if we think about all of the images that we saw of the smoke and say the burning the barricades, the burning vehicles, some burning buildings, I think one of the things that's really stark about those is nowhere in those videos did we see people running. The only place, in fact, that we saw people running was the panic at Guadalajara Airport, where there was an assumption that some shooting had taken place which hadn't taken place. But actually, um, across all other imagery which was sort of prevalent and ubiquitous, people around these acts of violence were actually really calm, collected, controlled. Um, many times you saw people just calmly walking past the burning vehicles, and again, because this isn't a a new situation. And and and I think oftentimes as well there's this perception that there's the citizenry and that there's organized crime, but it's way more complicated than that. And in a lot of areas um it's it's not even a grey area, there's huge amounts of overlap between what is the military, what is organized crime, what is the standard citizenry. And so you can't really draw boundaries or barricades between between those. Of course, where we are now, Alex in the centre of the country, doesn't really have doesn't um have uh a presence of organized uh crime. It's one of the more limited pockets these days, which doesn't have that the existence of those of those groups. So it's so it's different here, but it's it's definitely not as straightforward as an us and them situation.

Alexandra Rauscher 7:32

Definitely not, and it's also not as black and white as we see sometimes in the news, the cartels versus the government, because there's also millions of people that build a community locally but also online. And they sent a very strong message that days, which was Los Buenos Somos Más. Uh we the good ones are the majority. And I think that is a very simple but very powerful message to send these days because that's something that's often forgotten and is very important to highlight in days where you feel like you can't really be sure of what's gonna happen next.

Jon Bonfiglio 8:08

Yeah, and we're now in this calm after the storm, which by no stretch of the imagination means that the situation has ended or resolved itself or eased. There is a very clearly a restructuring of uh situations and contexts as we as we speak, and it is a story which is going to continue. Whichever way it develops, it's gonna continue through. Broadly speaking, Alex, um obviously you are from uh you were born in Germany, you're German, you're European, so uh what took place would have also been quite um I guess kind of quite a stark incident which made you question various things about your presence in in Mexico and your work and the stuff that you uh and what you're engaged in in doing here. How has it left you feeling on on the whole? Is it something which has made you rethink your your time in Mexico, question it, or has it has it sort of reinforced your choice to be here for an extended period of time?

Alexandra Rauscher 9:20

Mm-hmm. It's a very good question. So, first of all, it was interesting to see the the reactions from my um German community at home because they had seen the images of a country being set on fire. So what I definitely felt was like their worries spreading onto me. Um but then at the same time that was in stark contrast to what I experienced locally, first of all, because we were not directly affected, so there was already a difference between what was being reported in parts of the media, which as I said showed a country on fire basically, and and locally, um despite some incidents that happened in the region, we we stayed in quite a calm situation. Um and then it was a really special experience for me to see the community here locally pulling together in a very powerful way. That wasn't just very small moments. For example, I passed by the local fruit store. Um, the owner asked me if I was fine, if I knew anyone in the region affected. Someone I had only known for a couple of days gave me a ride home, even though the walk was only a couple of minutes. People were checking in via WhatsApp, confirming about roadblocks, if they were in areas surrounding us as a town. So that was a really um intense but also very good experience for me to have because before I had seen a lot of reporting around Mexico when I was still back in Germany, and being in the place locally showed me a different side of it because um yeah, the local the local situation was in parts in stark contrast to what was channeled to Europe and Germany.

Jon Bonfiglio 11:04

Yeah, and it's always way more complex than than the news media um have space to sort of give it time for. There's generally a sort of a binary entry point into how you present a story, and there's um there's little space for for the vagaries. Um Alex, thank you so much for your uh for your time, uh for your considered thoughts. It's uh much appreciated and look forward to talking to you again soon.

Alexandra Rauscher 11:28

Thank you, John.