Juarez: The Failed State?

The cover line of the current issue of Newsweek reads "How to Fix the World," and so I opened the magazine with hope. Desperate hope, of course, for aren't we all in need of true, good stories—proof that we have what it takes, somehow, to right our planetary wrongs, to be trustworthy caretakers of Country Earth.

But the first article I fell upon blared at me with this headline: "Bloodshed on the Border: Life in Juarez, where drug violence has created the equivalent of a failed state on our doorstep." The border between El Paso and Juarez is the most menacing spot along America's southern underbelly, I read. Juarez looks a lot like a failed state, with no government entity capable of imposing order and a profusion of powerful organizations that kill and plunder at will. Later: The absence of authority has opened the way for hordes of criminal gangs—some of them offshoots of the cartels; others, bands of opportunistic street thugs—to carve out specific rackets, like kidnapping, human trafficking, and car theft. Another burgeoning activity is extortion.

The more I read, the sadder, more desperate I became. For this is Juarez of which Arian Campo-Flores and Monica Campbell write—the country where, just three years ago, I along with my husband, son, and about two dozen others, had the week we will never forget. A week living among the gracious people of Juarez. A week helping to build a community bathroom on the high, white sand plateau of a squatter's village called Anapra. A week where we felt as if our actions, our doing, our seeing, meant something.

Yes, at the time, Juarez had its share of problems—a history riddled with the unaccountable, unforgivable murder of women, an economy that was afflicted with drug trade. But every country, every city, has its underworld of menace, and in Juarez, we didn't just discover an entire community of gorgeous children and caring parents and construction workers who waved happily at us from their trucks or from rooftops. We discovered group after group of American citizens who were building houses, or providing care, or teaching children. Americans who had found an undeniable, irreplaceable happiness in Juarez.

There were thousands of us finding meaning in Juarez. And an uncountable number of Juarez citizens yielding goodness to us.

In The Heart is Not a Size, due out next winter, I write about this place that I came to love. I allude to the children I met and photographed, to the power of working in the hot sun on behalf of others. I refuse to believe that all is now lost in Juarez. I will pray that Juarez is webbed into the emerging plan to "fix" this world in which we live.