Floods? What Floods?

For the past week, I've been seeing a lot on the national news in Mexico about the terrible floods in some of the coastal areas, where more than 650,000 people in six states have suffered damages, many of them losing their homes and everything they own.  When I mentioned this news to a friend back home in the U.S., she expressed surprised because she hadn't heard anything about it.  This surprised me because my friend keeps up with world news, and she usually pays special attention to what's happening in Mexico when she knows I'm here.   There certainly hasn't been any shortage of news coverage about drug violence in Mexico in recent weeks, so I wondered why the news of the floods, which impacts so many more people, isn't making it into the mainstream media north of the border.

I happened to be in Mexico with Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, and I remember seeing hours of news coverage on Mexican tv.  Reporters from the major television stations in Mexico provided live coverage of the events as they unfolded in Louisiana, and the Mexican government sent federal troops as volunteers to help the flood victims there.  President Fox, who was Mexico's president at the time, sent a letter of condolence to President Bush and the American people.  Fox told the Mexicans, "Mexico and the United States are neighboring countries and friends that must support each other in times of crisis."  In addition to soldiers, Mexico sent truckloads of purified water, canned goods, medical supplies, baby diapers, teams of doctors, all terrain and amphibious vehicles, airplanes, radios and communication equipment.  The Mexican navy sent a ship to help evacuate people from the disaster zone, and members of the Mexican congress pledged one day's salary to aid the hurricane victims. Mexicans followed the news day by day and were truly horrified and saddened by what they were seeing on t.v.  Despite differences of language, nationality, ethnicity and so on, Mexicans were struck by the human suffering they saw in New Orleans and they felt compelled to help.

The floods in Mexico right now are very serious, and the Mexican armed forces are working to evacuate people from danger zones and bring overflowing rivers under control.  Citizens of these regions are working together to help neighbors and provide temporary shelter for those who have no place to live.  From the interviews and images I've seen on tv, it's clear most of the people impacted by the floods are, like most of the victims of Katrina, poor people who struggle to get by, even when times are good.  When disaster hits, they have little or no possibilities of recovery without a lot of help.  This made me wonder what the U.S. is doing to help Mexico with this problem.  I found a document from the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance that talked about giving Mexico $100,000 in July 2010 when Hurricane Alex hit the northern state of Tamaulipas.    They talked about plans to send a military advisor to Mexico, "to monitor humanitarian conditions."   Is that it?  Hmmm.... seems so.  If something else is being done to help out, it's not being broadcast very openly to the American people.

The internet is full of news about U.S. aid to Pakistan, where terrible floods are also claiming lives and driving people out of their homes.  True, the scope of that disaster is huge, and Mexico's floods may not seem so grave in comparison. But in terms of lives lost, damage done, and possessions lost, the current situation in Mexico is not that different from what we saw with Katrina.  Katrina made headlines all over the world.  So, why are the floods in Mexico treated by the foreign press as something that's not very newsworthy?  In the U.S., I see no signs of the human empathy and concern that Mexicans expressed toward us when disaster struck New Orleans back in 2005.  There's no great outpouring of aid, or even recognition that entire communities in Mexico are under water   Of course, Pakistan is important to the U.S. because it could easily become a stronghold for terrorists if the U.S. doesn't work hard to keep up good relations with that country.   We have to be concerned about what happens there.  But, what about Mexico?  Mexico and the U.S. share a border that's almost 2,000 miles long.  We're trading partners and political allies, we share as history and a future, because like it or not, Mexico and the U.S. have many common concerns.   When disaster struck in New Orleans in 2005, Mexicans expressed interest in the well-being of thousands of U.S. citizens who were harmed by the floods.  So, why is the U.S. media ignoring news about the Mexican floods now?  Where's the human connection between people who reach out across borders?   Is sympathy a one way street?

When I first thought about writing about the floods here, I hesitated, because I figured that the U.S. sees enough bad news about Mexico.  But this is a different kind of bad news.  The people who've lost their homes here aren't involved in drug trafficking, they aren't criminals, they haven't done anything to "deserve" the bad luck they're facing now.  They're just ordinary people going through life in a normal way, people without a lot of resources, who work hard and want to raise their children in a healthy and safe environment, like everyone else.  They have the misfortune of living in low lying communities where rivers overflow, dams can't hold because they're beyond capacity, and the soil can't absorb any more water because it's over-saturated.  It's not anyone's fault that this disaster is happening in Mexico right now.  If anything, we'd have to blame Mother Nature and human beings who've contributed to global warming and damaged the environment beyond repair. It's called global warming for a reason:  it's not the fishermen and farmers who live in rural areas of Oaxaca and Chiapas who've damaged the atmosphere.  The root of the problem can be as far away as Los Angeles or Shanghai, where pollution has created holes in the ozone layer and, now, Mexican villages are under water.

 Here in Cuernavaca, we don't have any serious problems related to the rain.  I might complain that I got wet when I went to the street fair in Tepoztlan on Sunday, or that yesterday when I went for a walk, it started to rain before I got back to my house.  My feet got wet, and my clothes were damp, but I wasn't in any danger of being washed away. The floods are happening to people I don't know in places I don't normally visit.  What do they have to do with me?  Why should I care?   Do we have an obligation to follow the news about people who are strangers to us?  Maybe not, but in Mexico, the news doesn't stop at city, state or even national borders.  When people in any part of the world are facing serious problems, it's a newsworthy topic.   There's a sense of being connected to a larger world.  When floods hit the U.S., Pakistan, Guatemala, or parts of Mexico, you hear about this on the news.  People here express concern, and worry what will happen to all those people who've lost their homes?  How will they survive?  Natural disasters that impact hundreds of thousands of innocent people get the attention they deserve.  People organize and send relief if they can.  People express solidarity, even if they can't help out in material ways.  This kind of news isn't as dramatic and thrilling as new of shootouts between rival drug gangs, but it's a more accurate portrayal of life in Mexico.  These are real people who are going through hard times, for no fault of their own.  Don't they deserve more attention than the goings-on of drug dealers?  Why does the U.S. media devote space to photos of shootouts between federal troops and drug lords, but not photos of Mexican soldiers rescuing children from flooded areas?  

Watching the Mexican people face hardships with dignity and determination reminds me once again that Mexicans are strong and brave people.  The stories we see in the U.S. about Mexican drug cartels, or coyotes who smuggle migrant workers across the border, don't give us a complete picture of the country and the people here.  I, for one, would like to see a more balanced presentation in the media, one expressing solidarity with the Mexican people. Now is a time for us to show some of the kindness and concern that Mexicans showed Katrina victims in 2005.