Taxi-driver conspiracy theory on swine flu outbreak
If you’ve spent any time in Mexico, especially Mexico City, then you’ll be acquainted with Mexicans’ love of conspiracy theory.
As Ken Ellingwood wrote last year, “many Mexicans feel their leaders have lied so many times about so many things over the years that it’s hard to believe them, even when they might be telling the truth.”
The H1N1 / swine flu outbreak that descended on Mexico more than a week ago has provided an abundance of flammable fuel for those partial to conspiracy theories here in Mexico City.
You don’t have time to read, and I don’t have time to write, all of the theories that I’ve heard over the last ten days. But I would like to share my favorite with you, which came out during a conversation I had with Raul Camacho, a 62-year-old taxi driver, on Tuesday last week.
I asked him why he wasn’t wearing a face mask. At the beginning of last week, face masks and plastic gloves were yet to be mandatory for taxi drivers (that happened on Thursday), but everyone had been asked by the government to cover their noses and mouths as a precaution.
Camacho said he wasn’t worried about protecting himself because he didn’t believe the risk was as high as both the federal and city governments would have us believe.
“People in power do or say whatever they like to get what they want,” he said.
Camacho then went on to explain to me that Mexico President Felipe Calderon was in fact making the whole thing up in order to give Mexicans the impression that he was taking care of them and saving them from certain and gruesome death.
Camacho referred back to Mexico’s controversial 2006 elections during which Calderon beat the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a voting process that many still claim was fraudulent, and referred to Calderon as “el espurio” (the illegitimate one). Calderon is trying to gain legitimacy with this swine flu “story”, claimed Camacho.
OK, I asked, if that’s the case, why is Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, also a member of the opposition PRD party,going along with Calderon’s flu-stopping strategy of closing schools and nonessential services?
Camacho had an answer for that.
“It’s not convenient for Ebrard to fall out with Calderon right now. There are elections coming up in July, and he doesn’t want any trouble before then.”
My ride came to an end before I could ask Camacho why the World Health Organization was also in on the plot, but no doubt he’d have had an explanation for that too.
– Deborah Bonello in Mexico City for La Plaza
Category: editorial, swine flu outbreak
It is very likely the choice of Mexico for another epidemic was a political one. The last epidemic kicked off in China with the SARS flu from a chicken farm, now we have a pig farm in Mexico. It is no coincidence that these flu viruses are being released in any country except the USA, that would make them responsible and their economy could not take the strain right now. The next outbreak maybe unleashed in Africa- who can tell what the drug companies have in mind for the future of planned epidemics in the name of profit and ratings in the polls.
A corollary to the conspiracy theory is that Mexicans-my Mexican friends at least-continuously accuse the government of lying. They lie about everything,good or bad.
Monday night the priest at our local Catholic Church in Guadalajara announced from the pulpit that two people had died of swine flu at the Hospital Civil in Guadalajara. The governor of Jalisco has been announcing every day that there have been no cases of the flu confirmed in Jalisco,let alone any deaths. But here we have an official announcement by the Catholic Church that he is lying.
Following on from Jim Miller’s comments, and as someone who lives in Jalisco, I can’t figure out why there have been no reported cases of the dreaded flu here.
It seems that any foreign tourist who goes to DF winds up with the flu, yet with all the flow of people and interchange between DF and Guadalajara, how come no-one in Jalisco has the flu?
Now that the Jalisco governor has announced 15 cases (yesterday he announced 14), my Mexican wife and her sister assume he his lying. It is very curious that there were zero cases for so long,particularly in view of the factors mentioned by Paul Roberts. Then, when the Federal government announces relaxation of measures, Jalisco suddenly pops up with 14 cases. All at one time? I don’t think so. The assumption is that they were stonewalling and refusing to announce cases until the panic was subsiding. who knows,but it makes sense.
Hello! Mexico has the right to ask for EMERGEnCY money from the United States, so Mexico has to invent an EMERgeNCy! Like, hm, well it worked for China…a FLU! Plus Mexico asks for money from the World Health Organization for having survived such a life-threatening flu. Excuse me, how many deaths from this “powerful” strain flu as compared to deaths from regular seasonal flu? So Mexico gets money from the US and from the WHO…Where to does this money go? Is it filtered down to the people who have suffered greatly as tourists stopped coming to Mexico. People like me, American wife to a Mexico husand in the state of Guanajuato. We have small business which supports us. It depends on tourism. I love promoting tourism to our town because our town (San Miguel de Allende) is peaceful and beautiful. But the economy has been murdered. EVERYTHING . hotel rentals, home rentals, weddings, spa appointments for the month of May and beyond has cancelled…For what? There was not a single case of flu in the entire state of Guanajuato as far as I could tell. yet, my kids stayed home from school and the happy workers in their orange vests in Mega Comercial Mexicana sprayed the handle of my shopping cart when I went into buy bread.
I find it laughable. But not funny