Ciudad Juarez, Mexico seemed like the victim of American media hype from the minute I crossed over the US border from El Paso, Texas on Saturday morning. Yes, there were the run-down stores, the empty or closed restaurants and soldiers patrolling the streets, armed with heavy weaponry. But after reading the statistics many outlets claim about the city -- from the total number of murders to the amount of people who have lost their jobs recently -- it was not as bad as I expected it to be.
Unfortunately, because of something I witnessed as I finished a day of field research and exploration, it's now clear to me that the debacle unraveling only feet from our border may actually be worse than what the shock jocks and big media are selling at home.
I'm a sports diplomat. You're a what? Basically, I think -- well, I know -- that sports can more directly and positively aid in settling wars, erasing hate, diminishing violence and rescuing youth than other tried and failed methods can. I chose the Mexican border town as my newest project after tackling Northern Ireland and other places of conflict and strife. And I was in Juarez trying to figure out the programming of my nonprofit organization, Full Court Peace, to help the city's vulnerable youth.
Let me start at the end, with me crossing the border back into El Paso on Saturday around 4:30pm.
I found it a novelty to put my quarter into a slot, pass through a rusty turnstile and then walk over the Santa Fe Bridge back into US territory. I was walking slowly just feet from the border, a quiet time to reflect on my day, when I came across a crowd of men, women and children who were stopped and looking over the bridge's edge; the crowd was three rows deep and eerily silent.
I looked over their heads and I immediately lost my bearings, utterly confused by what I was looking at. There was a white SUV on the street below the bridge with a body in the front passenger side. It was slouched over, leaning on the car's door; its head, face and hair were soaked in dark red blood. There was more blood on the street underneath the car. The car's windows were riddled with holes and spider-webbed, broken glass.
I found out hours later that the victim was apparently an American member of the US Consulate in Juarez. Moments before my arrival, another body had been pulled from the car: reportedly, another American and the spouse of the victim I was looking at. Reports say their child, a one-year-old, had been left unharmed in the car's backseat.
I don't wish the mental image I have upon anyone else's mind.
It's not only the dead bodies that tell of a long and deep story about a problem gaining fuel and seeing little opposition along the Mexican border. More revealing is the large group of onlookers with whom I stood. Some of them commented and smirked, all of them allowed children to bear witness, and one guy turned, nudged his friend and said to me "Welcome to Juarez!" in Spanish, eliciting laughs from the crowd.
I had spent the previous eight hours meeting with various community leaders, including people from nonprofit organizations, churches, community centers and several basketball programs, both male and female. All of them expressed their willingness to pour out their resources, time and energy to put together a program for children of all different financial backgrounds. They liked the idea of using basketball as the hook to bring children together to facilities we would refurbish, where they could feel safe, where they could be a part of something and learn the fundamentals of a healthy lifestyle.
But considering the dramatic amount of violence and murders in Juarez, what I didn't get from them or from the happy children's faces that I watched as they play basketball was a matching sense of urgency for programs like Full Court Peace. I didn't see the kind of desperation for a citywide effort to stop the mayhem that I had hoped for.
I spent two years living in Belfast, Northern Ireland, using basketball to unite rivaling Catholic and Protestant teenagers. The community leaders there, in a place that has for the most part moved beyond its violent past, nevertheless approached their mission with zeal and diligence. They knew the timeliness of their work, and they were proactive in their efforts.
Don't get me wrong, the Juarez people who I met want to get something positive going and they are motivated and ready to help. But to me, the relaxed crowd of people said it all: simply put, there's nothing out of the ordinary about killings in broad daylight. People seem to consider the violence like they do the weather; an unstoppable force over which they don't -- and never will have -- any control.
Statements from both the American and Mexican governments say they are ready to fight this epidemic of violence together. I hope that means an effort to save the next generation from being desensitized to any loss of life or crime. I hope it means teaching leadership, respect and love for thy neighbor. Seems to me, the game of basketball could really help out.
michaelevans@fullcourtpeace.org | www.fullcourtpeace.org
Twitter: @sportsdiplomat, @fullcourtpeace
Follow Michael Evans on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@sportsdiplomat
Michael Evans: Juarez and the Action We Should Take
The violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico is not the result of unintelligent US or Mexican policy. It's the result of a lack of opportunity for what were once vulnerable Mexican youth.
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That, Ben is reality. A completely sealed off border is not.
It's going to get much worse.
Coming on the heels of his fiasco in Tel Aviv, this mission would give Joe an opportunit
No need to educate the poor, when their adult jobs are going to be either killing people or locking them up.
The drug war that has spawned all the violence around the Mexican border is a symptom of a sick society.
People gravitate toward cannabis and opiates because they are deficient in the receptor sites for the molecules these substances possess. Both substances are effective anti-depre
But the way things are set up, you are supposed to use inferior synthetic products which are more harmful, and less effective than their natural counterpar
For utilizing your native wisdom of the body, and seeking out the plants in your environmen
anymore. There is absolutely no law in that town. The soldiers are just pawns. The Narcos. control
everything
A long history of corruption and control by a tiny number of the very rich along with the collaspe of industry that has been moved to China as well as the tigher border contols for those seeking work in the USA has devestated the lives of many millions of Mexicans so growing numbers have turned to the drug trade for income to survive. What we are seeing in border areas of Mexico is not unlike the Crack epidemic in the USA in the late 1980's-ear
Surely the situation couldn’t get worse. Teenagers can get Marijuana so easily they trade joints for beer at concerts. If you want to score more than likely your teenager can hook you up.
We owe so much money the dollar is slipping from the “Tin Foil” standard to the “Ball of String.” Consider the revenues legalized drugs would bring to the government
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” George Santayana.
You remember we have tried this before, Prohibitio
Now in this instance were we to legalize just marijuana we can cut off 60--70% of their source of income...
So why not cut off this source of income, do we want to beat these guys these monsters our war on drugs has created...
Our government has taken a harmless weed that anyone can grow for free nearly themselves
It is not just America's fault it also tells us something of the nature of many many Mexicans..
Do we want to beat them crush them or continue the War on Drugs...it
Meanwhile we cannot protect young girls from being kidnapped raped and murdered because our law enforcemen
It is a completely injudiciou
Diplomacy sure sounds fancy, but how about some blunt honesty when it comes to cause and effect instead? Take away the incentive to engage in criminalit
No one understood the power of sport to bring people together better than the ancient Greeks. Every four years, the fighting between city states would come to a virtual halt to celebrate the Olympic games. The only event that comes close these days in the World Cup (soccer/fo
It's nearly a hundred years since the Harrison Narcotics Act, more than seventy years since the Marijuana Tax Act and about forty years since Nixon declared "war" on "drugs." At this LATE DATE, can we really waste time modifying tactics (i.e, rearrangin
Only when someone gets their brains blown out right in FRONT of you does the truth begin to hit home, is that it?
Forget reports of fifteen to twenty murders every single DAY in a city the size of Peoria, those are just statistics
You must be the single most naive "sports ambassador
The drug cartels are upping the anty by killing US government employees in order to get President Calderon to back off - that's all there is to it.