Time – The sky’s actually going to fall this year. 2010. For Mexicans, they are very near a social crisis. . A big fear now is that Mexico’s drug cartels, responsible for almost 15,000 killings in the past decade, are lending their resources and firepower to emerging guerrilla groups. Denise Maerker, a political observer, a prominent columnist for the Mexico City fear that provincial governments in places like Chiapas, where the weapons were found, are using 2010 fears as a pretext for cracking down on social activists.
Last year, during Independence Day festivities in drug-infested Michoacan state, narcos killed seven people with fragmentation-grenade blasts. Mexicans were rattled again in September when bombs went off at three Mexico City banks and another at a car dealership. No one was injured, but to many chilangos, or capital residents, the explosions seemed a warning of things to come.
Rather than being afraid of 2010, says Maerker, Mexicans are instead “just weary, especially of the economic situation.” The year 2010 might not offer the fireworks of a revolution, but, unless Mexico can escape its general malaise, the bicentennial might see a quiet but dispiriting national devolution.