Musings on a border tragedy

Hey folks, I´m still alive, for those of you who may have wondered due to my prolonged disappearance from the face of Blogger. Here´s a note that I just published on Facebook and decided to share with
y´all, since you haven´t all jumped on the Facebook bandwagon.

I should probably mention that if you are easily upset by graphic descriptions or images, you might want to avoid reading the articles that I´ve linked in the note, and especially the slideshows that accompany those articles.

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Anyone who´s made a point of keeping up on the news in Mexico recently knows that Ciudad Juárez is probably not the best place to honeymoon--or to touch with a 10-foot pole, for that matter. I don´t need to document here the floods of violence characteristic of the city since 2008 due too rivaling drug cartels--you probably already know how to do that using Google. It´s worth noting, though, that according to various news outlets I´ve read, Juárez is considered among the most dangerous places in the world, perhaps the most dangerous. With a population of 1.3 million or so, this city has seen around 1400 murders in 2008 and more in 2009. As the article just linked mentions, this piece of data is even more shocking when you realize that Afghanistan, with a population of 29 million, has seen "2,412 civilian deaths and 520 coalition military deaths for the entire country" in 2009. The murders tend to be drug-related, but innocent and uninvolved civilians are dying too. What makes the stakes so high for the battling cartels is the huge drug demand in both the U.S. and Canada--and it´s worth noting that the cartels largely receive their money and arms from their northern neighbor.

This whole situation of greed, violence, addiction and fear produced in Ciudad Juárez have fascinated (and deeply disturbed) me because of the vast injustice and flawed systems it showcases, the deplorable state of the human condition to which it testifies, and the fact that it is happening on my country´s border (Juárez is opposite El Paso, Texas). The immediate motivation for reinvestigating this, though, is a paper I have due on Tuesday (and one of the many things constituting the mountain of assignments and exams to climb before I can reach the end of the semester here). I´m analyzing a part of the posthumously published novel 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. The novel´s a fictional take on a real series of crimes committed against women in Ciudad Juárez in the ´90s. The line of my analysis is basically the idea that the crime chronicle presented in this book is a testimony to the search for justice to investigative journalism as part of that search. And in order to be all relevant and such, I plan to talk about what´s currently going on in Juárez in my paper.

It´s hard because it kind of bothers me to sit here writing a largely useless literary analysis that almost belittles the horror of what´s actually happening. I write about Bolaño and his ingenious testimony to the power of journalism, with the specific case of Juárez--meanwhile, innocent (and perhaps not-so-innocent) people are being gunned down in that city, most likely literally as I write.

The news that the major networks bring us is often a lot of bad news and garbage; I have no problem agreeing with that line of argumentation. However, as a truth-seeker, and especially as a Christian, I want to be open to dealing with the realities of the world, even the ones that it would be more comfortable to not know.

I have a million questions. How is it possible for the gross injustice to be made right? Who´s going to do it? What is the Christian community In Juárez and surrounding towns doing to help alleviate the suffering felt by the families of the deceased and to point the hopeless to the living hope that is in Jesus? Is it worth learning about this reality if I can´t directly do anything (or don´t directly do anything) to change it? Have I even once prayed for the city of Ciudad Juárez and for the suffering felt there?

While I don´t really have any answers myself, I believe that this suffering is not going unnoticed--despite the fact that virtually none of the assassins are ever brought to justice in the short term. What I do know is that I serve a God of justice (interesting linguistic note: in Spanish, the word for "righteousness" is simply justicia, or "justice." Gary Haugen does a wonderful job presenting this truth in his highly recommendable book Good News About Injustice; but then again, it´s not surprising that he can speak powerfully about justice, since it´s something he´s dedicated his life to seeking out and making a reality. And as someone who also believes that God uses His people to seek justice, I want to be willing to take part in that battle. Right now, I can´t do anything in a physical sense to fight the injustice
that´s terrorizing Ciudad Juárez. But I can pray to the God of justice for this city and be ready to do my part in being the answer to my own prayer... in whatever way and wherever in the world that may be.

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For a fascinating article documenting the interview of a Ciudad Juárez hitman apparently turned Christian, check out this link.