NARCO-TRAFFIC IN THE LIGHT OF CULTURAL SEMIOTICS AND COMPLEXITY THEORY
$avtor = ""; if(empty($myrow2["author"])) { $avtor=""; } else { $avtor="автор: "; } ?>Julieta Haidar
National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico
Eduardo Chávez Herrera
University of Warwick, UK
Abstract
In this paper we approach a complex issue related to the so-called concept of narcoculture. Several works have addressed this matter and not only accept this cultural production, but also stress both their symbolic and aesthetic perspectives. Yet, all these works still neglect an ethical viewpoint. In order to rethink the concept of narcoculture from different angles, we appeal to Juri Lotman’s proposals. On the one hand, we point the contradictions within the semiosphere. On the other hand, by means of linking Lotman’s approach with the standpoint of complexity thinking and transdisciplinarity, we will discuss such topics as narcotraffic and narcoculture from a deeper analysis that incorporates reflections from the standpoint of chaotic and unpredictable processes. During the last decades narcoculture has inspired several everyday life features such as music, fashion, architecture, or traffickers’ social status –embodied as heroes and cherished as saviors in the legendary narcocorridos. The concept narcoculture has gone far beyond, developing the so-called narco-literature, and even worshipping the narco-saint Jesús Malverde. In this paper we address the following questions: How can we approach these cultural issues from the point of view of complexity theory and transdiciplinarity? Is it possible to envisage them as cultural units? Are they cultural deviances in the sense of cultural barbarism (Lotman, 2011)?
Introduction
During the last few years, a profound debate on drug trafficking and its consequences has been generated in Mexico, as well as in many other Latin American countries. Despite the fact that drug trafficking is a complex phenomenon that entails the coexistence of several types of semiosis (ostensive, mythological, fear-based, among others), this is not the best place to describe them. This work seeks to address and to analyze the reproduction and use of the term narcoculture in terms of the opposition between culture and non-culture. In this analysis we will refer to diverse authors, but we’ll be focussed mainly on Juri Lotman’s proposals, along with some theoretical contributions supplied by complexity theory and transdisciplinarity.
We depart from a matter that has to do with the widespread use of the term narcoculture. Due to the overuse of this term, a fascination with narco-traffickers has developed, wherein criminals are transmogrified into virtuous heroes, a fact that conceals the darkest side and the barbaric practices of these narco-traffickers. By delving into the deep structure of drug trafficking we can observe that narco-traffickers may only perform an anticultural role bonded to barbarism, rather than to culture. In this regard, we examine and analyze the generation of this concept, whose circulation is reproduced without critical consideration (excepting from a few authors). This fact illustrates the deep degree of alienation experienced by the subjects immersed in this broken world.
1. Narcoculture as a dimension in the midst of anticulture and non-culture
The Colombian cultural elite, in the context of governmental drug wars, coined the termnarcoculture in the 1990s; the very first time it was mentioned in a text was in 1995, by Gustavo Álvarez Gardeázabal—a writer and former mayor of the Tula municipality, in Cauca Valley. In this text the author, instead of providing a description of the term, praises the lifestyles of those drug dealers who grew rich trafficking drugs. His position is flimsy and anti-analytical. In addition, he compares drug trafficking with a revolutionary process, similar to those employed during the French or Russian revolutions (Gardeazábal 1995:5). This is the prevailing sentiment concerningnarcoculture in most of the works reviewed for this paper.
In order to rethink the narcoculture concept from different angles, firstly we ought to consider its simultaneous condition as a possible cultural model and as a possible non-cultural one. In this way, the principle of contradiction (Morin 1997), granted by the complexity theory, is introduced. To acknowledge the existence of an alleged drug-trafficking culture as a possible cultural model wouldn’t mean to consider it as a valid model for other cultures. It would rather imply the identification of a new set of tendencies in which certain mesmerized sectors of the Mexican society have identified themselves with drug trafficking from the dark side of barbarism.
To draw a parallel between the narcoculture term and the semiotic concept of non-culturewould imply to putting forward the alleged existence of a domain outside the Mexican culture. Non-culture here is opposed to a concrete culture and is defined by its code(s) (in this very particular case the set of signs, texts and codes known as Mexican culture.
As such, we would be faced with the presence of an alien environment populated by non-cultural barbarians, narco-traffickers, and would face the following questions: Who are the narco-traffickers? What environment do they inhabit? What is such a thing called “narcoculture?”
During the past decade the Mexican writer Carlos Monsiváis has raised the question of the alleged existence of the narco-traffickers, versus the invention of same by cinema actors (Monsiváis 2004). Their existence is authentic, and it has influenced the mass media and resulted in stereotypes of drug traffickers as rich, enthralling superheroes.
Following Lotman’s proposals on cultural barbarism (Lotman 2011), we see how the conception of the barbarian narco-trafficker is generated within Mexican culture by means of a process called “duplicación reflejada” [reflected duplication] (Lotman 2011: 256). In such a way, what we entitle the anticulture of drug trafficking is produced. We prefer this term instead of the widely use term narcoculture, which must be conceived as a deflected image of Mexican culture that turns out to be not solely a semiotic artifact, but an outcome of barbarity. The “explosion” (Lotman 2009) of drug trafficking in the Mexican semiosphere arrived at the periphery and then moved towards the center, establishing itself as a historical process that followed the decline of Colombian drug trafficking during the 1980s and 1990s. It reached its highest point thanks to both transnational cooperation strategies for trafficking cocaine, as well as to neoliberal reforms introduced by the former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and to the approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. To the extent that organized crime has engaged in numerous layers of the Mexican society, it too took up a position in several cultural areas by way of altered cultural activity.
We can solely conceive of narcoculture as a possible cultural unity insofar as it’s located as a part of anticulture, which is constructed isomorphically to culture (Lotman and Uspenski 1979), with deviations caused by the mechanism of reflected duplication—this contains deep ethical involvement since both death and terror have been introduced organically in their practices. Death here is conceptualized as a necessary means of ruling, as a way of transferring and controlling the enormous amount of illegal capital originated by money laundering.
When the barbarian-narco-traffickers pass through culture, they gradually experience a process of “semiotización” [semiotization] (Lotman 2011: 257) and eventually they acquire a particular destructive role in culture: “cuanto más complicado es el sistema de reglas socioculturales, el bárbaro se considerará más peligroso, destructivo, o, por el contrario, tanto más salvador o anhelado, atribuyéndole características de fuerza diabólica” [As the system of sociocultural rules becomes more complicated, the barbarian is considered more and more dangerous, destructive, or, on the contrary, that much more of a saviour or a desired one, as characteristics of diabolical or eschatological force are attributed to him]. The barbarian-narco-traffickers burst into the receptive culture in an explosive way, and begin to recreate certain values and practices, resulting in appropriations and confiscations of what others have produced. Narcoculture, then, is proclaimed to be a “parasitic, dependent” cultural model (Eco 1994:123), unable to acknowledge itself and unable to generate self-descriptions too (Lotman 1998). This model is neither qualified to elaborate a metadescription of what it has diverted from, nor does it offer a self-sustaining model. Therefore, it’s not possible to recognize narcoculture as a “contracultural model” (Eco 1994:115). In order to attain this status, narcoculture would have to set itself up as an active, transforming source of critique and the narco-traffickers would have to be able to acknowledge themselves as narco-traffickers.
2. Narco-traffickers: semiotic-discursive subjects of barbarism and other subjectivities
Having defined the status of narcoculture, we now turn to the question of narco-traffickers’ characteristics, as subjects, with the aim of creating some semiotic boundaries of personality. Hence and in the first place we find organized crime, the most diabolic barbarian, whose primary agents are drug cartels –within which collective and individual subjects rise as drug lords. Despite the fluctuation that has taken place, we can identify seven main cartels: Los Zetas, Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, La Familia Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, Juarez Cartel and Los Caballeros Templarios.Secondly, we must consider those entities that are devoted to describing or to representing different mediated practices related to drug trafficking. Such entities include journalists, writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, TV producers and actors. Thirdly, we must also consider other subjects who maintain relationships, either direct or indirect, with criminal organizations: singers, music bands, architects, or peasants, workers and civil servants—in political, police or military sectors. Finally, we must mention the common people—compelled spectators, who crudely experience the havoc wreaked by the drug wars.
3. Appropriations from the anticulture of drug trafficking
By means of “appropriations” (Eco 1994; Lotman 2011), the anticulture of drug trafficking has given rise to manifold mediatized depictions. These appropriations not only describe the diverse drug fabrication processes, but the distribution, consumption and control of drugs, as well as the development of networks for money laundering and the subsequent connections with political and economical power structures. These last contribute to the rise of political corruption in Mexico. The anticulture of drug trafficking, as a cultural parasite, would cover a more or less homogenous set of semiotic products: 1) Music as narcocorridos; 2) TV shows and videogames; 3) Soap operas and movies; 4) Narcoliterature; 5) Cults.
Let’s take a short look at these seized artifacts:
3.1. Narcocorridos
Narcocorridos are anthems celebrating drug traffickers’ lives, describing their lifestyles and relaying some anecdotes. They were one of the first of these appropriations to become popular, especially with the advent of Chalino Sánchez, who was murdered after a concert in his home state of Sinaloa in 1992. Other important singers and groups include Los Tigres del Norte, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, or Valentín Elizalde (also assassinated following a concert). Thanks to YouTube and other digital mass media repositories, many narcocorridos have associated music videos, where the violence associated with drug trafficking is exalted, through hyperbolic depictions of the drug traffickers’ lifestyles: Money-squandering is praised, as well as criminality and the exhibition of drugs, jewelry, voluptuous women, sports cars and gold-plated guns. A more recent example is found in the subgenre known as the Movimiento Alterado (El Komander, Los Buitres, or Los Buchones de Culiacán).
Figure 1. Chalino Sánchez's record
Figure 2. El Movimiento Alterado poster-tour
3.2. TV shows and video games
There are many depictions in the U.S. mainstream media (TV and cinema) of the wars on drugs in Mexico—which wars were launched by the American and Mexican governments (Mercille 2014). According to Mercille, both TV shows and videogames can be divided in two camps, “hawks” and “doves”. Neither of these discusses U.S. involvement in the drug trade in any depth, and the Mexican cartels are featured in both as the main actors. Usually, Mexico is represented as a lawless country where chaos reigns and foreign intervention is justified. Violence and the display of guns are central topics, and the solutions to the drug-trafficking problems always entail the presence of the army or the police. On the one hand, the “hawks” reproduce a more militaristic argument and strongly favor tough enforcement of antidrug policies. Examples of this type include the TV showsBreaking Bad (2008-2013) and CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) Miami (2002-2012). The “doves” on the other hand adopt a softer line, and even sometimes mention that the drug consumption in the United States is part of the problem and needs to be addressed by American authorities. An example of this type is found in Weeds (2005-2012), a satirical TV show that focusses on some aspects of the drugs wars, as well as the distribution of drugs among cartels on both sides of the border.
3.3. Soap operas and movies
The genre of narco-soap operas became popular in Colombia thanks to the Cartel de los Sapos (2008-2012). However, in Mexico this genre has become more popular since the publication of the novel La reina del Sur, written by the Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte. These soap operas pretend to be based on real life characters and plots, but they also feature their own qualities: the exhibition and display of luxurious sports cars, diamonds, yachts or lavish abodes in Miami, as well as the reenactment of dangerous circumstances that often conclude in homicides or collateral murders. These stories replace melodrama and emotional emphasis with the construction of characters that aspire to become real-life models, that is to say, someone a viewer might wish to resemble or admire (Monsiváis 2004).
When it comes to narcocinema, however, the situation is different. During the last 40 years a very active low-budget movie industry has been producing films about bad cops, corrupt politicians, prostitutes and, of course, drug traffickers. This industry is called “videohome”—so called because the movies go straight to video and are addressed to the Mexicans living inside the United States. The movies’ plots are often based on stories from local newspapers. A few decades ago, these movies could have been classified as Westerns, or action movies, but from the 1980s on they shifted to having plots about drug trafficking. Despite that some of the stories portray myths about the all-mighty drug cartels from northwest Mexico, many videohome productions also tell the stories—real, or not—of cultural outsiders who make their way out of poverty thanks to drug trafficking. Once they succeed they come back and do good things for their hometowns: building schools, churches, hospitals, and creating jobs.
In consequence, people develop affection for these criminals. This gives rise to one of the most critical points about the plots of these films, one of the most graspable contradictions within the anticulture of drug trafficking: the magnified fondness and devotion people have for their country’s drug traffickers, which fondness transforms criminals into cultural heroes (Lotman 1998; 2001). For example, this has happened with former outsiders coming back to their homeland as prodigal children. In such instances, and thanks to the contradictory forces of cultural dynamics, we can notice how in certain areas of culture the drug traffickers keep their “barbaric” statuses, but in some others they are treated as heroes. Examples of this type of cinema are movies such as:Operación: Marihuana (1985), Sinaloa, Tierra de hombres (1994), La Hummer negra (2005), or La Banda del Carro Rojo (1978).
Figure 3. Operación Marihuana poster Figure 4. La Hummer Negra poster
3.4. Narcoliterature
Regardless of the fact that intellectuals haven’t agreed upon an operative definition of the term narcoliterature, there are some researchers such as Sophie Esch (2014), who have proposed to put the terminological discussion aside and focus on current literary production. It’s not really clear who started to use this term, but Esch suggests that “the original father of narcoliterature” wasÉlmer Mendoza, a Sinaloan writer who was already chronicling drug trafficking in his novels in the 1990s. It would be difficult to describe the distinctive traits of a genre that is still developing, nevertheless Esch suggests the possibility of outlining two trends within narcoliterature. On the one hand, fictional literature portrays drug traffickers’ stories with arguments simiolar to those depicted in videohome productions. Literary journalism, on the other hand, refers to real narratives that describe the rise of the greatest drug lords and the manifold ways they enlarged their cartels and were well connected in political and governmental circles. During the rule of Mexico’s former president Felipe Calderón there were three main bestsellers: Los señores del narco, by Anabel Hernández (2010), La reina del Pacífico, by Julio Scherer García (2008) and El México narco, byRafael Rodríguez Castañeda.
3.5. Cults
“Los símbolos producen irritación,” Lotman says [“Symbols produce annoyance”] (1979:54). Many people have despised associating any symbolic meaning with the figure of the narco-saintJesus Malverde. Still, this scorn is opposed to the deep devotion many people profess to have towards him. Many versions exist of the stories of the origin, death and subsequent anointment ofJesús Juárez Mazo, saint of the downtrodden and the patron saint of drug traffickers. Due to lack of space it’s impossible to list these versions here. In brief, we will say that Malverde was a bandit, a local Robin Hood type who stole gold coins from the rich hacienda owners living in Culiacán. Malverde’s death on 3 May 1909 is surrounded by semiotic mystery, habitual in mythological consciousness. Malverde’s protection continued beyond death and his image was transformed into a cult object. He is considered a sign of holiness for many sinaloenses. Over the years the cult of Malverde started to develop traits that are hallmarks of symbolic behavior: gathering and organizing its environs up to condense memory (Lotman 2001). By “protecting” handicapped individuals, thugs, drug addicts, prostitutes and evildoers, Malverde managed to unleash such fervor that even the drug-lords vindicate him as a part of their barbaric anti-world, deifying him and funding a shrine to him in Sinaloa. This chapel was built on Malverde’s purported final resting place and the history of its construction is also sodden with esoteric signs. The Catholic Church, however, hasn’t sanctioned the worship of Malverde. Already a symbolic memory-carrier, Malverde crossed the borders and settled into the so-called drug corridor: from Cali in Colombia, passing over Culiacán and Tijuana in Mexico, up to the south of the United States, in Phoenix, Arizona and Los Angeles, California.
Figure 5. Jesus Malverde. The narcosaint.
4. Narco-propaganda: the diffusion of contradictory meanings as fascination and terror
So far we have delved into the manifold spheres that have seized drug trafficking and turned it into a parasitical cultural model. Nevertheless, the presence of the drug traffickers has not been explicit. So, the question would be: What does organized crime create? Howard Campbell (2014) coined the term narcopropaganda in order to describe a set of multifarious, primitive discourses that have serious consequences for public order in Mexico. Its main message concerns sanctioning organized crime and its criminal practices. By featuring an anonymous collective addresser, narcopropaganda expands its terrifying effect through psychological and terrorist strategies such as intimidation, dehumanization and domination. The author puts forward a “semantic typology of barbarism,” organized into four main types of narcopropaganda plus narcocorridos.
4.1. Spectacles
Spectacles involve the public display of tortured, maimed and desecrated bodies or human limbs. Specific amputations carry particular concrete meanings. For instance, the cutting off of fingers or the tongue implies that the dead person was a snitch (dedo, i.e. finger); cutting off hands signifies that the person stole money or a load of drugs. The presentation of dead bodies stands for a type of execution: a) enteipados (i.e. tape) are bodies that have been wrapped in duct tape in order to suffocate the victims or prevent them from calling for help; b) descuartizados are bodies that have been quartered; c) encajuelados are bodied stored in the trunks of cars; d) entambados are bodies crammed in metal or plastic barrels; alternatively they might have been sprinkled with acid to dissolve them; e) encobijados are bodies wrapped in blankets (to either stop blood seepage or for ease of transport).
Campbell mentions some other forms of spectacle designed to intimidate that imply ostension: showing up at public events heavily armed in convoys of Hummers and other sports cars, attending public cockfights, horse races, weddings, quinceañera celebrations, as well as provocative appearances at restaurants and plazas.
Figure 6. Encajuelados
Figure 7. Encobijados
4.2. Narcomessages
4.2.1. Narco-banners and billboards: the banners are displayed on highway overpasses and bridges in Mexican cities. The billboards are placed in urban areas. They are directed at concrete agents (the Mexican president, rival cartels, among others) and function as a notification or warning.
Figure 8. Narco-banner on the left side of the highway overpass
4.2.2. Cardboard or poster board sign: left on or near dead bodies, working as admonition and written on with spray paint, markers, or blood.
Figure 9. Poster published on the site blogdelnarco.com
4.2.3 Narco-pinta is graffiti sprayed or hand-painted onto a wall, the side of a house, or a commercial building. Typically, narco-pintas feature vulgar epithets and death threats.
4.3. Videos and cyber-postings
Organized crime has discovered cyberspace and has been using it to intimidate its opponents in several ways. Drug traffickers use narco-videos as a way of announcing themselves as a new power. There is a huge amount of videos showing interrogations, tortures or assassinations of prisoners captured by traffickers or corrupted cops. Quite often, signs of torture or beatings are evident on the victims’ bodies, providing self-incriminating answers about their drug-trafficking activities (thefts, murders, or betrayals). The most significant website devoted to Mexican drug-trafficking news, activities and videos is blogdelnarco.com—a medium created by Mexican journalists and used to chronicle the activities of organized crime in an anonymous way. Besides these videos, it’s possible to find up-to-date pictures, links to other sites, general news of and about narco-traffickers and even real-time chat.
Figure 10. Claudia Ochoa Félix's posts on a social network
4.4. Control and censorship of the mass media and information
Recently, members of organized crime have forced certain television and radio stations to broadcast and local newspapers to publish their own versions of events such as massacres, governmental corruption, assassinations, etc. Questioning or disobeying these versions entails an expensive penalty: death. Most of the Mexican small, local newspapers no longer report on killings associated with drug trafficking. Controlling the creation and diffusion of semiotic-discoursive production (images, ideas, discourses) is one of the most critical dimensions of narcopropaganda.
Thus, by means of narcopropaganda we can recognize one of the most contradictory and frail tensions in the semiosphere of drug trafficking. The anticulture of drug trafficking feigns reality through the massive use of degenerated signs, deviated semiotic productions that aspire to depict distorted lifestyles and to conceal the deep structure of this semiosphere by using hasty mechanisms of presumptuousness. Manifold terrifying techniques are found within its core: intimidation, dehumanization and exclusion.
5. The anticulture of drug trafficking from the point of view of complexity theory and transdisciplinarity
In order to assume an ethical position about drug trafficking and studies of this phenomenon, it’s necessary to consider the point of view of complexity theory and transdiciplinarity. Such position will allow us to grasp our subject matter, describe it firmly, and understand the complex working of these subjectivities, which are completely immersed in multiple contradictions. The subject embraces a trans-dimensionality defined by contradictions as part of his performance, despite being within a recursive, changeable continuum: horizontal, vertical and transverse processes are present in the scheme below, which explains in a nutshell the notion homo complexusby Morin (1999). From this standpoint, subjects behave in antagonistic ways simultaneously:
Homo sapiens | homo demens |
Homo faber | homo ludens |
Homo economicus | homo consumans |
Homo empiricus | homo imaginarius |
Homo prosaicus | homo poeticus |
By way of the category of the complex subject (homo complexus), it is possible to approach subjects from an epistemological stance that positions them on an unsteady stability, among contradictions and uncertainty. Yet, subjects can recognize themselves in the Other and became autonomous, transforming beings. In order to construct a complex subject it’s necessary to break up a set of dichotomies: subject/object, body/soul, spirit/matter, sentiment/reason, among others. Insofar as this rupture happens, subjects aspire to be recursive.
When it comes to drug traffickers as subjects, there is neither positive, opposite pole, nor trans-dimensionality; it is only possible to find negative traits. Thus, drug traffickers are unqualified to assume what complexity theory requires of them: to break their ties in a critical way, requesting self-observation, striving to link the scattered knowledge and managing to live in different ways through self-understanding. All these reflections remain absent for drug traffickers since they are located in total barbarism, away from any ethics.
Coming back to the hazardous subject, we have to keep in mind the significance of the unpredictable and mysterious processes, never expressed with severity before in the complex world of the third millennium. The unknown comes out from what Morin calls the principle of uncertainty, a tenet ascertaining that any action can unleash unpredictable consequences (Morin 1997). Only by regaining this idea will it be possible to abandon the idea of an organized, controlled and predictable universe. However, the universe is alive and was conceived from a loose and changing evolution that simultaneously shapes as order and disturbance, aware of cycles of stability and crisis. Drug trafficking is one of the 21st century’s most complicated phenomena since it is global and complex. As such, it entails fluctuating processes insofar as its primary agents are extremely contradictory. Despite the fact that contradiction is inherent to subjectivities, it seems that for drug traffickers, contradiction can’t be overcome due to the fact that contradiction is a condition of their very existence.
Conclusion
The semiosphere of drug trafficking/narcoculture, what we call the “anticulture of drug trafficking” in this paper, features a heterogeneity of languages and texts. Most of the studies on this phenomenon are focused on stressing the cultural production of a singular semiosphere, for instance: objects, music or lifestyles. Nevertheless, there is a generally forgotten fact: most of these products are generated by barbarism and are manifested in order to certify the status quo of terror, as well as the manifold types of death that turn humans into barbarians. Since there is no ethical consideration informing such a position, it’s not advisable to sustain the widespread and misinterpreted term narcoculture. It is necessary to address this phenomenon from the point of view of anticulture and barbarism, as well as from the standpoint of complexity theory and transdisciplinarity, as we have discussed. On the other hand, transculturality doesn’t cross over narcobarbarism since this is not supportable from an ethical point of view. Moreover, the diffusion of this barbarism is bolstered by the way that drug trafficking has been bonded to various transnational powers, such as political regimes, the media, and the military.
The fascination with organized crime is disturbing. For many marginal social groups, these criminals become heroes, and a tragic simulation of reality is produced that allows these groups to live as an illegal elite with strong ties to power. Thus, from the point of view of complexity theory and transdisciplinarity, the term narcoculture becomes unsuitable. By means of linking cultural semiotics and complexity thinking we can gain access to several perspectives on narcoculture that are unattainable from a non-critical stance, which lingers in the superfluous depictions of music, fashion, or narco-graveyards.
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