FROM the FIELD

The cartoon is titled "Servicio Completo" ("Complete Service")

George "The politician in your caricature is a baby, a fat, greedy infant feeding at the public trough. That's your opinion of politicians in general?"

Dario "Exceptions exist but the behavior of most politicians is on a line between disappointing and disgusting. When running for office they swear to serve the people. when elected, they serve themselves and their cronies, treating the people like a teddy bear, a toy to be dandled while they suck the treasury dry. Their corruption is so much the norm that Mexicans are cynical about all of them."

George "But if most people assume politicians are thieves and liars, why do you draw caricatures illustrating what everybody knows? The world turns, the sun rises, politicians are corrupt. What's new?"

Dario "The point isn't whether it's new or old. The point is the people are being robbed and someone should call the police. House thieves aren't new either but when they break into your place, you call attention to it. Caricatures are one small way to call attention to what's going on: thieves masquerading as political leaders are looting the treasury."

George "Your art is one way to effect change?"

Dario "I don't have much hope for change but it's very important to be clear about what's going on and to call it by its right name."

George "Why do you believe that?"

Dario "What do you mean?"

George "Why's it important to you to draw politicians as greedy infants? You could be painting landscapes or portraits or scenes of colonial Oaxaca. Why do you want to call things by their right name? Why do you care? Where does the energy come from for that particular focus? Why do greedy politicians make you take up the pen while others shrug their shoulders and go about their business?"

Dario "In part it's because I admire the work of artists like Rius and Naranjo. They've influenced me. They believe that in a world of so much poverty and humiliation, caricaturists should be on the side of the poor and the weak. I think they're right. But my anger, my strong feelings about all that didn't develop until I went to the university. That's where I saw corruption close up for the first time and learned something about what it means to be powerless."

The university to which Dario refers is the Benito Juarez University of Oaxaca and, quite specifically, its School of Law which, in light of the way Dario describes it, might be called a School of Corruption and Moral Rot.

What upset and angered him in his five years studying there was that professors treated the students like cows to be milked and regularly demanded payment in cash or sexual favors for the right to take examinations and get decent grades. Prior to exams, a professor's secretary would pass among students and tell them exactly what to pay to get on the qualifying list for a pending examination. And the professorial demand for cash was neither secret nor subtle. You pay your cash, you can take the exam. Punto. Everyone, students, faculty and administrators, knew that money was extorted and pocketed by professors. It was also understood that sexual favors were accepted in place of cash but those transactions were arranged in a somewhat less brazen and public way.

And Dario paid his money. Wanting to take exams, wanting passing grades, wanting to graduate, wanting to become a lawyer, he learned quickly and painfully that payoffs to professors must be made. He learned that professors were purchasable and set their own prices, that payoffs were the magic key to every door, that bribes made the world go round, that money and contacts, not intelligence and knowledge, were the building blocks of his future.

Among the payoffs that stick in his craw was the time he paid the professor's agent the required money but discovered when the list of qualifying students was posted that his name was not among them. Dismayed, he went immediately to the secretary who had taken his money and asked for an explanation. She told him that by the time he had paid, the list of qualifiers had already been typed and it was too late to do anything about it. He then went directly to the professor's office and reminded him that he had attended class regularly, done all the required class work and had paid his money. The professor shrugged, told him his payment had been late, and "it's not my problem".

It was a combination designed to enrage. Dario felt soiled, cheated and powerless. Soiled by a university and professors who were making it impossible for him to graduate if he did not participate in practices he believed to be corrupt, then cheated out of that for which he had paid the required, detested bribe, and he was entirely powerless to do anything about it. There was nowhere to turn for help: no ombudsman, no counselor, no Director, no Adminstration official to whom he might appeal.

He and other aggrieved students had complained, of course. Complained time and time again. No student government election took place in Dario's years at the university without the candidates for office rallying students to their cause by demanding that payoffs stop and teachers start showing up for classes. Elections were regularly held, new student council officers were elected, and nothing, nothing changed.

A further dynamic in this educational cauldron is that all students, all faculty members and all university workers vote when elections are held to choose the Rector of the University and the Directors of the various colleges. Teachers who run for such offices require troops for their campaigns and therefore lure students and non-students alike to the cause with promises of grades, money, and jobs. But these troops are chosen not only or even primarily from among students able and willing to pass out leaflets, organize rallies, promote the vote and such. There is also the deliberate recruitment of non-students, "porros", young thugs prepared to beat up students in the enemy camp, disrupt the opposition's meetings, start fights, occupy and, as necessry, sack university buildings.

In such ways does the School of Law, an institution committed to higher education, complete its edifying task. Students are force-fed the really important lessons: payoffs in cash, sex, and assorted favors are the keys to success, the lubricants that keep the system running, the "without which" nothing moves. They also learn, of course, the usefulness of high-sounding, traditional words like "merits of the case", "rule of law", "justice" and "democracy" but by the time they leave school they all know the real deal is the "deal".

A new generation of lawyers is in such ways prepared to take up the historic challenge of their profession to insure justice in the land. They are prepared to buy judges, pay off politicians, and deceive clients as necessary because that's the way the university works, that's the way the world works and, like it or not, that's the only game in town.

Little surprise then to read in The News of Mexico city on April 9, 2002 that Param Cumaraswarmy, a "United Nations human rights expert", had reported to the UN Human Rights Commission that in the Mexican judicial system, "impunity and corruption appear to have continued unabated," citing estimates he received suggesting that 50%-70% of all judges in the Mexican system are corrupt.

George "If you were drawing a caricature of the professors, would you use the image you used for politicians, a huge baby?"

Dario "I could, the behavior's pretty much the same. They both claim to be serving the community, the one with good government, the other by educating the young, but what they're really doing is robbing people. I could use a wolf, a rat or a shark and everyone would know what I mean and agree with me, but those images are pretty common. I like the monstrous baby because politicians and professors want people to think they're true public servants, innocent as newborns when what they're really doing is going for gold, power and prestige by any means necessary."

In the spring of 2002, Dario had finished all his course requirements and to become a lawyer had only to write and defend a thesis, work that might require another year to complete. A new Director had been chosen to lead the law school into better days and Dario had heard good things about him. He was somewhat hopeful that the new man would change things and he wished him well. At the same time, less encouraging news reached him from university corridors: if he did not want to spend a year writing a thesis and studying for final exams, he could buy a law degree for about 500 US dollars and begin practicing within the month.