What’s in my bookshelf?

It’s been a couple of months since I finished reading “Murder City Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields” by Charles Bowden and I just realized it’s injust to not write a review to a truly amazing book.

Unfortunately the general public does not know that Mexico is on its way of become a full fledge Narco state. According to United Nation’s advisor and expert in international organized, Dr Edgardo Buscaglia, “the state’s institution and Mexico’s civil society is in as criminal organizations are undermining the legitimacy of the Mexican state and getting legiticay approval and acceptance by society.”
In reality is that Mexico is in a verge a civil war, caused by the failed US drug prohibition policy and many other key decisions made by the governments surrounding it.

The book Murder City is primarily focused in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua and it’s surrounding border cities.

The book consists of three different protagonists; Miss Sinaloa, Emilio Gutierrez, and El Sicario. In short Miss Sinaloa is a pageant queen who goes to a private party in Ciudad Juarez and she gets raped by the police and goes insane, which eventually she in ends up in a mental asylum on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. The second protagonist is Emilio Gutierrez. He is a journalist who published stories about the crimes that the Mexican army was committing to local residents. Eventually until receiving death threats warnings from elements of the Mexican army. The author Charles Bowden mostly describes on how the United States doesn’t want to face facts and admit that Mexico is not a country that respects human rights. What impacted on me the most on Emilio’s Gutierrez story is how currently the United States hypocritically critizes other nations for human rights abuses and when a person like Emilio Gutierrez asks for alysum, the US see’s and treats him like a criminal. The third and final protaganist on this book is “El Sicario”, which in English translates to “The Hitmen”. El Sicario’s story in my opinion is what makes this entire book a classic. Charles Bowden interviewed El Sicario, and painted his before, during and after life, after working for a drug cartel and organized crime for over 20 years.

This book is definitely the best non-fiction piece of literature that I’ve read in my life thus far. Although I don’t fully agree with all of Charles Bowden views, specially his views about illegal immigration. He deffinetly portrayed and informed on other things about Ciudad Juarez and Mexico to that matter, which I wouldn’t really thought or think about. The most notable being the affect of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This is the primary reason why he added the “Global’s economy’s Killing Field’s” subtitle to the book. Essentially what NAFTA has done in Ciudad Juarez is to, attract hundreds of thousands of peasants from southern Mexico to essentially work on American slave factories. Of These factories almost 100% turnover in a city of poverty where it’s social society is faced with the inability of being able to take care of their young, and create a culture where theres 500 – 900 street gangs. Thus creating Ciudad Juarez the most dangerous and voilent city of the world. Where it’s violence exceeds of those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Charles Bowden and Emilio Gutierrez on the “Narco State” National Geographic documentary.