Thursday 13 October 2011
Death Crosses the Rio Grande
We have a serious problem with mass immigration in England. The United States, I know, has similar difficulties, with migration across the Rio Grande now at alarming levels.
Naturally enough, this kind of thing produces a backlash, especially in times of economic difficulties, a time when there are too many people chasing too few jobs. This is certainly the case in England. There is also, I have to say, an additional fear: namely, that we are allowing in too many people with traditions inimical to our way of life. Right across Europe there are concerns over the growth of Islamic fundamentalism.
That’s not something that affects the States, at least not to the same degree. But there is another alien tradition, I recently discovered, serving to deepen anxieties about immigration, going beyond concerns over mere numbers. It’s not just people who are coming in: Death is there also, riding on their backs – “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”
It’s not some nebulous concept I have in mind, not some apocalyptic revelation; no it’s Santa Muerte – Saint Death -, the patron saint of Mexico’s drugs cartels. Illegal immigration may very well fuel xenophobia but, let’s be frank, death cults have a tendency to fuel it even more.
Santa Muerte is fairly typical of the religious syncretism found right across Latin America, combining Catholic with pagan traditions. The trouble is that this gruesome spectre, with its toothy grin and scythe, has the loyalty of a particularly vicious tribe of devotees, the pushers of a new kind of murderous Juggernaut.
The fear is real enough: that Mexico’s vicious drugs war is pouring over the border, not in part but in whole, a war that in a mere five year period has been responsible for some 35,000 fatalities. This is bad enough but the death cult gives the whole thing an even more alarming gloss. Santa Muerte is following the main narcotic routes throughout the US, from Arizona to New York. She was there in a tunnel discovered a few weeks ago, a tunnel some six hundred feet long running right under the border, looked over by a shrine to the saint.
People have every reason to feel worried by this phenomenon, a sign of a deeper malaise. By their very nature gangs are territorial and fissiparous, drug gangs more than most, but the Santa Muerte cult provides them with a perverse cultic and iconic focus, a possible basis for cooperation and unity. Writing of this in the Daily Telegraph Tim Stanley said;
The goal of these groups is to undermine democracy and govern autonomous secret societies through family, blood and religion. It’s a global trend. The Lord’s Resistance Army that slaughtered and raped its way across Uganda from 1987 to 2007 was led by a man who claimed to channel the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the culprit behind this apocalyptic criminality was the death of Communism, which deprived thugs and thieves of a secular ideology to justify their actions. Organisations like FARC and the Real IRA converted overnight to pushing drugs. But in Mexico, family and religion filled the vacuum left by the failure of socialism.
The assumption in Europe, particularly in the pages of the hyper-liberal Guardian, is that American fears over Hispanic immigration has been brought on by racism, nothing more, and that the country is on the threshold of a new Jim Crow era, a time when racial apartheid was law. But the truth, for once, really is pure and simple: mass immigration, coupled with the importation of malign foreign cults, represents a serious threat to American civic and political culture.
As the country faces a threat from without it also faces a new threat from within, brought on by a loss of confidence and direction, shown in the wave of populist, anti-business hysteria sweeping across the land, a canker spreading outwards from New York, given encouragement even so far as the Obama House. It’s worth reflecting on this, as we here in England also face a threat from an informal alliance between jihadists and anarchists. Santa Muerte, it would seem, has a long reach
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If this continues much longer, America may have to conquer large swaths of Mexico to reduce the border size.
ReplyDeleteI had a long response to this and it would not go through.
ReplyDeleteLatin America seems a natural home for cults of death. Aztecs, Maya, Roman Catholic Spaniards . . . all followers of bloody sacrificial cults with apocalyptic obsessions. Is it the climate that drives them crazy?
ReplyDeleteBut we have our very own Gringo crazies, too . . . right here in the North. There's a good chance the two extremes cancel one another out.
Excellent article--as usual!
ReplyDeleteDeath engenders fear; fear engenders violence.
Solution?: How do you feel about legalizing drugs?
I am frustrated beyond measure with blogger! So I will post a short version, The key to the present American southwest is Texas as Poland was the catalyst for WW2. American expansionism known as 'Manifest Destiny' was an aim to create a nation across the continent from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans. This continent has a long and complex history involving indigenous peoples, Vikings, Spain, France, England, Texas, The Confederate states of America, Mexico and Russia. I mention the present State of Texas because Texas revolted from Mexico and was an independent republic for a time before deciding to become part of the United States. A small unresolved border dispute between Mexico and Texas was the Excuse for the American invasion of Mexico and Mexico was coerced to sell approx. half their country the present American southwest to the U.S. The border was redrawn and many former Mexicans and Indigenous people found themselves citizens of the U.S. causing a culture clash that endures to different degrees to this day. Many Hispanics and indigenous people are very progressive and well integrated into American society while others cling to old traditions and view the U.S. as an occupier of their homeland. This is the same all over the world Dominant cultures and subjugated peoples some situations work out better than others but growing pains along the way.
ReplyDeletePart 2 - Shorter comments seem to post better, at least YT has a 'character counter'. The current U.S. border situation is one of supply and demand, drugs and people are a commodity. There would be no drug trade if Americans did not consume the products and the 'hypocrisy' of the Illegal Alien situation is that there are U.S. laws prohibiting employers from hiring undocumented workers that are seldom enforced because of the low cost labor that fuels the U.S. economy. The majority of illegal aliens on the southern border are Mexicans but not exclusively, they come from all over the world. The illegals generally do service work in kitchens, housekeeping, landscaping, construction, agriculture etc. they seldom take skilled jobs from Americans and most are just looking for a better life but some are criminals. The U.S. states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California border Mexico withe the most trouble being in Arizona and then possibly California. southern New Mexico is desert as is west Texas, Most of the Texas/Mexico border is a river, The Rio-Grande to the U.S. and Rio-Bravo to Mexico. The worst drug violence is on the Texas Mexico border but is pretty much kept on the Mexican side. I live approx 150 miles from the Mexican border and the Drug issues are very low profile, mostly just passing through heading north. There are political agendas still in progress of creating a trade union with Canada the U.S. and Mexico and creating a trade corridor (Uber Highway) which is met with much local opposition. There also are the amnesty issues for illegals with political ramifications where an imported population will be beholding to the powers that enable them, somewhat complex.
ReplyDeleteThe Banking/financial issue is another matter and should be a separate issue. This has been long in the making and is coming to light, at the Heart of us finance is the Federal reserve system THIS IS NOT A FEDERAL AGENCY but a privatized institution. This system needs to be audited and abolished. The American monetary system is controlled by share holders of this system ( Not publicly traded ) international bankers primarily Zionists and with the AIPAC lobby has much influence on American foreign policy. This goes back to the Rothschilds of England ant the Rockefellers of America. The American taxpayers are enslaved of this system.
ReplyDeleteJeremy, that's one way of compounding the problem, importing Mexico wholesale!
ReplyDeleteCalvin, it's the people caught in the middle of mutual craziness who have the most to fear. You are quite right about death cults. Montesquieu would doubtless have had a view on the impact of the climate. :-)
ReplyDeletePsachno, that's something I've argued for in the past, subject to controls. Prohibition was a disastrous policy; the so-called War on Drugs even more so.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, that's the way to do it, in chunks. Thank you for that interesting perspective, especially important considering your location. The question here is, given the intensity of the problem, and the porousness of the border, how much longer can the violence be kept to the Mexican side?
ReplyDeleteInternational bankers are international bankers. Zionists are nationalists!
If they cause serious problems in Texas we will kill them, it is that simple. Most of the Banksters are Rich Jews, this is a fact. As for cults they come and go out of fashion which is not really an issue here. the worst cults are the Abrahamic religions.
ReplyDelete@ Jeremy: The Confederacy had contemplated on annexing mexico and creating a nation all the way to Guatemala, but this was just a dream as the war with the North ended the CSA.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that anytime there has been a lot of emmigration anywhere a lot of death and disease and social unrest follows.
ReplyDeleteAlso, most of the weapons and ammunition that are used by the Mexican drug gangs are sold to them by Americans for cash or traded for drugs.
ReplyDeleteHey, Anthony, I know a few rich bankers who are not!
ReplyDeleteDan, yes that's true.
ReplyDeleteYes, A few.
ReplyDelete