drug cartels do not exist: narcotrafficking in US and mexican culture. (w. oswaldo zavala, tr. william savinar)

Zavala’s book is fascinating for two main reasons. The first lies in the title, as the author analyses the way in which the concept of the “cartel” has been propagated and manipulated as a mediatic narrative device to mislead. Zavala’s thesis is that the cartels, as they have been termed, are in fact disposable front organisations which are placed in the limelight in order that we don’t look at who’s really controlling the global narcotics trade. The more that they are glamourised and fetishised, the more effective this strategy is in masking the true players. There is an impeccable logic to this, even if Zavala’s investigation into who is really controlling the trade, and why, is somewhat cursory. He notes that in many cases, the violence of the cartel wars serves as a useful pretext for the seizure of land which is rich in mineral or mining rights by the forces of neoliberalsm, displacing whole communities in the process. The narcos act like a forest fire, stripping the land for subsequent appropriation.

The second fascinating aspect of the book is the way in which it then traces the role that literature and culture play in this process. Referencing Mexican and other writers, including Bolaño’s 2666, Zavala interrogates the mythic construction of the cartel narrative, noting how many writers, even when seeking to construct a critical analysis of the concept, only serve to reinforce it. There are others he quotes who situate the narco-narrative within a framework which is more in line with his theory that the cartel is no more than a convenient construction. Much of the book is dedicated to Zavala’s analysis of the role culture plays in the construction of a mythic paradigm that plays into the hands of forces who seek to use this paradigm to conceal their own actions. It’s a great thesis, which ties in with Shelley’s unacknowledged legislators, and shows a level of understanding of the power of story in socio-political discourse that is rarely acknowledged.

(It would be interesting to do a similar analysis, for example of the way in which culture, both high and low, has played into the myth of British exceptionalism, whose effects have been so harmful in recent decades.)