Then, when we got through the customs line, a disgruntled looking customs agent whose disgusted-looking face showed that she had already decided that you did it wrong even before she saw your card looked at us and grunted, “Where’s your declaration card?”
“We don’t have one,” explained my wife. “The people on the airline didn’t know what we should fill out since we’re Mexican citizens returning home.”
The agent grabbed a card of the pile, slapped it down in front of my wife and said; “Look. It’s all perfectly well explained right here” … hesitation … “more or less.”
My wife looked at the section that the agent had pointed to. There was no explanation, but only a statement that the form was for tourists temporarily visiting Mexico. “But this explains what tourists need to do. We’re not tourists.”
“But they’re tourists,” she said, meaning me and my sons.
“No. They’re Mexican citizens.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just fill out the form.”
I just looked at my wife, smiled and said, “Welcome home!”
My wife, who had been dying to get back to Mexico after only a few weeks of visiting Canada and be back with the warm, loving people of her homeland, suddenly felt a yearning for Canada’s well-ordered offices, straight rows of identical-looking homes and friendly politeness that (to her) seemed unreal and impossible.
We never did get proper instructions how to fill out the custom’s claim form, and I’m not even sure if we filled out the right form. In the end, some guy who couldn’t have care less just stamped it and threw it on the pile without even looking at it. I can guarantee you that if we had filled out the same form on the airplane, the same disgruntled woman would have yelled at us for filling out that form and made us fill out a different one. We’ve been there.
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This story I told here is only a mild case of Mexican bureaucracy. If you have to deal with the government or office-based services in Mexico, it only gets worse.
What ever happened to this side of Mexico? How could a country of such warm, caring and friendly people have such a messed up system of government and public services that make even the worst of Canadian bureaucracy look heavenly?
I’ve recently developed a theory about why. It’s summed up in two words; Institutionalized Revolution.
100 years ago was still the very early stages of the Mexican Revolution; within a very short time, the dictator who had ruled the country for 30 years had been deposed, and the decades that followed were defined bloody in-fighting between the former allies who had originally risen up together against the tyrant in the name of freedom. In the end, a group of revolutionaries called the Constitutionalists (who favoured the reinstatement of Mexico’s 1864 constitution, defined by values of a democratic republic) eventually managed to kill off or buy out the great general heroes of the war like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa – the latter was first bought out, and then in the late 20’s killed off when he tried to re-enter politics.
All was good and well; the tyrant had bee overthrown, and the extremists had been supressed. The road was cleared for a moderate, centrist, democratic republic. In theory it sounds good.
I don’t know enough about Mexico’s 20th century political history to say where things really went wrong. But they did. The newly found constitutional democracy turned into a one-party oligarchy. The party, formed by the victors of the revolution, was adequately named the Party of the Revolution. As the time went on, and it became apparent that the name no longer to reflected the institutionalized nature of the single monopolized ruling party, they added one word to bring the name up to date; the Party of the Institutionalized Revolution.
As much as this name may be only an error in realistically updating the name of the party, it only too well reflects what has become the reality of Mexico’s offices and services. Let’s break down the two parts of the idea:
Revolution – A revolution by its nature is disordered chaos. A few radical revolutionaries have valued the ongoing chaos of perpetual revolution as something necessary and good in itself. However, in most cases, proponents of revolution tolerate its chaos only in the hope of bringing a better order afterwards – an order better in some way than the one that existed before. In any case, the revolution itself is still chaos. It’s important that while the revolution in Mexico ended, the ruling party retained the name. The act of revolution was lost, but, I would say, the chaotic mess it involves was retained.
Institutionalized – Revolutions may be chaotic, but they are also passionate and driven forward by those who believe deeply in some cause, and are willing to risk all to promote that cause. So what happens when you remove the passion, the action and the cause from a revolution? You replace it with the cold, mechanical bureaucracy of an institution. All this is the normal cycle of things, but what I think happened Mexico is that the all the worst parts of bureaucracy were set up, while the disorder and chaos of the revolution were retained (without the cause that originally made them worthwhile.)
Mexican offices have all the frustrating bureaucracy of the most rigid institutions; yet, they are plagued by inefficiency and chaotic disorganization.
Now for the record, I’m not saying that the PRI (the Spanish acronym for that party, which has now been out of power on the federal level for twelve years) is any worse or better than the rest of them; I’m only saying that it’s name very adequately reflects everything that’s wrong with Mexican bureaucracy.
Next time you’re in a Mexican office, wondering how on earth a country that is not only very beautiful, full of history, art and culture, but also one of the world’s largest economies could be such a bureaucratic mess, just think, “institutionalized revolution.” It will all make sense.
(And please, if you’re not Mexican, take a moment to consider the pain of those who’ve had to put up with this their entire life.)
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