El día cuando la frontera fue tragada

This past weekend I went to a “Oaxacan Mole Festival”, which was organized by a very radical and awesome workers rights (specifically women’s rights) organization, La Mujer Obrera, (www.lamujerobrera.com). Beyond the amazingly delicious food (you should all eat mole, all of you) and beautiful music, it was an impressive scene of people and moreover, it was the perfect example of just how mexican El Paso really is. Glen (the professor I am working with this semester) and I wandered and observed (because that’s really what you are doing when you are in a crowd and you think too much like me), and then with a cup of horchata and a quesadilla in hand, we entered into a very interesting discussion about the state of the world as of today (or rather, as of Saturday, because today some crazy events occurred, i.e Fidel Castro)

Our conversation began with another friend who works in the area, and it centered on the violence in the middle east and it’s degree of severity, and then jumped to our feelings of helplessness as people who do “care” about the state of the world. But following this semi-emotional and semi-academic reaction, Glen dropped the phrase “systemic collapse”.

This phrase has always seemed like a buzz word to me, and in some ways a cop out which implies that the events of today’s world are special and unique and are bringing us to something which is ultimately fatal. This may very well be true, but during this conversation this friend and I questioned the implication, asking “But, what came ‘before’ systemic collapse” and “so, what’s comes ‘after’, what does ‘reconstruction’ look like?”.

Glen of course, did not provide the answers to these questions exactly, but I think he re-defined the definition of systemic collapse for me some. So, I suppose I am taking it upon myself to share this vision with all of you who are reading this.

This “systemic collapse” thing is just the all-encompassing (like the universe…the whole thing) structure in which we are all placed. Glen argues that processes like globalization have been inaccurately given this all-encompassing stature, implying that other global processes like global warming and over-population are results of globalization. Glen faults this analysis, making the picture bigger and suggesting this vision: If the world is just a bunch of overlapping ven diagrams(those circle things from 5th grade math), then “Systemic collapse” would be the box outside of all of those circles.

This is not a complicated vision, really a rather simple one. But, it also removes the sole causality and dependence between global processes, and directs it towards a grander cause and ultimately a grander assumption about what this whole “existence” this is all about - and glen would say that if things don't start changing now we are going to self-destruct within , oh, about the next twenty years (now Glen would be rather unsatisfied with that definition but it is what he argues and implies)

Now, for the past week in Cd. Juarez/El Paso which is a desert, it has been raining, pouring and raining more. Today, the limit was reached and finally highways were closed, three of the four bridges were shut down, houses were flooded, blockbusters collapsed, mud slid, and the Rio Grande (Big river) began to crest above the 20 ft. embankment. (*an ironic sidenote, people who cross illegally are often called ‘wetbacks’ o “mojados” and I overhead people in a coffee shop in El paso saying “pues, hoy todos somos mojados, no” “well, today we’re all wetbacks”)

While this rain may allow for humor as the border swells and both sides suffer the consequences, there was a huge blindness within the news coverage on both sides. People in El Paso didn’t know what was going on in Cd. Juarez, as people here in Cd. Juarez didn’t know what was going on in El Paso. I had gone to El paso, early this morning, and promptly almost been stranded on some side streets that were flooded with a few feet of water. But, my co-worker and I waited out the worst, and safely made our way to a meeting. Deciding that we may as well try to go home to Juárez, we crossed the only open bridge by foot seeing the top of the river lap up against the fence as crowds of people stood nearby, watching in horror as something which is usually ironically small and dry present itself as something to be reckoned with. In some ways I wish the Rio Grande was like this always, as it would be more satisfying or cathartic to cross it. But, as it was, we were able to hop on a Ruta (school bus public transportation) and then walk the 6 blocks to my house, only passing through one block of stinky flood- water.

I suppose that this entire day of trekking around in an environment of chaos, where people weren’t going to work, or were sent home, and houses flooded and there was just utter paralysis, I kept thinking to myself “But see…roads collapse, systems collapse, but us people-people, we can still get where we need to get cause somehow we just keep going.”

I was teasing Glen this afternoon, suggesting that today would be the perfect kind of day to go out and convert people to his theory of “systemic collapse” because it feels like this entire region is falling apart – he chuckled and agreed, while someone suggested a soap box.

Changes are inevitable, and looking back at history (which is a phrase used too often) there are catastrophes and there are tragedies and too often too many people die. But, it strikes me that we will never escape systems which will need to change. There is no solution to Systemic collapse. There is no easy answer to what you do in a desert when it rains 15 inches in five days – except to just wait it out.(I did get some movies in case I have to stay home tomorrow.)

I could probably continue blabbing about this, but I guess the point is that right now I can't base my understanding of the worlds systems solely on the concept of a fated “systemic collapse” because that’s too easy – of course the world will look radically different in fifty years but who am I to assume that I can know today what we will all need then?

For tonight, I am thankful that I’m home safely, I’m about to take a hot shower, and that the only water I hear right now are the steady drips from three places on my ceiling into pans and buckets. I kind of like the clinking actually. (although I do think they need to fix the drainage in both El Paso and Juárez, and my roof)

(*Annie dillard has a great book called "For the time being" which is a much more poetic way to talk about these themes of change/collapse)