Breathe
By Sandra Romandía
The children of journalist Jesús Gutiérrez did not expect to receive such a visceral lesson in justice and protection that night in San Luis del Río Colorado. One of them was returning from work, barely crossing the threshold of his home when the "guardians of order" arrived, who, armed and ready, subdued him and his siblings. The reason? A suspicious vehicle. Perhaps the "suspicion" was that a normal car was driving down a street where patrols abound, or, who knows, maybe they were in too much of a hurry to close the gate. The most insignificant detail can unleash a storm in a country where, it seems, the presumption of guilt is the only certainty.
One thing is clear: if there had been no cameras, the case would have remained in the dark. Blessed are those cameras. Thanks to them, we citizens have that one last resort that, like a modern oracle, decides whether we deserve a modicum of justice. Perhaps, if Kafka were alive, he would see in these recordings the proof of his eternal struggle against a machinery that, so omnipresent, seems unquestionable.
And is this an isolated case? As recently as 2021, a group of pipeline operators in Mexico City experienced their own version of this state tragicomedy. The official narrative labeled them as extortionists, but the video showed simple workers being turned into scapegoats in a grotesque set-up, as I documented in Emeequis in a report published with Santiago Alamilla. The reason? An alleged threat to other pipe operators. However, in the footage a diametrically opposite scene was revealed. In the country of the mirage of justice, being an honest worker assures nothing; it is the camera that decides who will be hero and who will be villain.
The parade of abuses is not short. In April 2024, Jesus Cruz, a worker in Tehuacan, Puebla, was brutalized by municipal police officers. His crime: being in the wrong place. The officers beat him, arbitrarily arrested him and, of course, took his belongings. His only defense? The store's cameras, which captured how the uniformed officers came in with blows, imposing their own version of the law, while Jesus, stunned and with his face covered with bruises, cried out for a reason that never came.
These episodes evoke what Plato envisioned in "The Republic" about justice. In its eagerness to establish perfect order, the State seems to forget that justice is something more than control and force. Today, our safeguard is neither the law nor the justice system; it is the incessant surveillance of electronic devices, those cameras that, by the grace of technology, offer us an opportunity to validate our existence in the eyes of authority. We are, for the system, shadows, fleeting flashes that make sense only when there is a lens to record it.
Meanwhile, the reform that places the National Guard under the Secretariat of National Defense moves forward with relentless firmness. In just two weeks of the new government, 15 civilians have met their deaths at the hands of the military. The number of "presumed aggressors" killed is the highest in a decade, as if the country is moving towards a state where justice is merely a mirage and order is a blank screen to be adjusted as appropriate.
The Mexican citizen, in this era of digital paranoia and unpunished abuse, has no other shield than that of a security camera. Unprotected and vulnerable, their only guarantee is that, perhaps, their next misfortune will be recorded so that, at least, their children, wives or parents will have the right to publicly lament it. Meanwhile, the State, with its façade of defender, reinforces its ranks, arms its troops and continues to miss its target. In an ideal world, the authorities would be at the service of the people; in Mexico, it is the people who must rely on technology to survive.
In the end, the great paradox: our lives depend on the cameras, those inert devices that, ironically, exhibit the decomposition of the system that should protect us. Let there be no doubt: in this country, more than citizens, we are mere actors in the great reality show of state justice.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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