Narcocorridos Try To Make Violence Into A “Culture”

[Editor’s Note: Wuicho Vargas is a writer who lives in McAllen, Texas.]

I’m from Guadalupe Nuevo León, and currently we are experiencing a massive, red wave of pure, exquisite, and very tiring violence.  Cabezas, cuerpos, balaceras, mantas — you name it we have it. And that is one of the numerous reasons I stay away from mainstream news and some other not-so-conventional informational sources, such as El Blog Del Narco.

The reason why I don’t like to see that brutal reality is that it creates a great amount of depressing, deteriorating melancholy in me.  Recently, due to circumstance, I was listening to a narcocorridos, driving on the expressway 83 near the U.S.-Mexico border, thinking that life here had come to resemble an Alfred Hitchcock show.

Lovers of narcocorridos call it “culture,” but it seems a bit strange to idolize people who use only violence to reinforce their “culture.”  Let me summarize some of the topics in the narcocorridos:

1. About the capo’s ascension from a humble “campesino” to the almighty “boss”
2. About transporting drugs
3. About killing enemies
4. About respect from other cartels
5. About killing, again, because it seems that it is never enough
6. About plazas (places of distribution of drugs and the places that they control)
7. About ridiculing the other cartels
8. About taking care of the “capo”
9. About partying and in case bad things happen, “we are always packing”
10. About fighting the “guachos” military

I just can’t believe that one side of the table is complaining about the excessive violence while the other side is idolizing it with type of music.  It is hard for me to understand this. When will enough be enough?  There are movies, music, even a style of dress, how much of a “culture” is this, and who are the ones really benefiting from it?

Por mi parte, no le encuentro nada de productivo a esta “cultura” fatalista…