A caravan of symbols

Three years ago I wrote about some uses of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of “symbolic capital”. The general premise is that when movements and organizations are structurally weak, they must take the struggle to the terrain of intangible resources, appealing to a superior, symbolic ethical order, such as that of social justice.

Stephen Lerner, one of American trade unionism’s brightest tactical minds and a close friend, 30 years ago began the large-scale application of this model through the Justice for Janitors campaign. As the cleaning workers of Los Angeles’ large skyscrapers had few structural resources — due to their economic vulnerability, union apathy, the existence of laws restricting the right to strike and their status as undocumented immigrants — to negotiate better working conditions before their bosses, they took the battle to the symbolic terrain. They appealed to the notion of the inherent dignity of every worker, defended their right to achieve the “American dream,” and left en masse from the darkness of the offices to take to the streets of the city. His allies in academia and the press published a series of his reports on exploitation. Then community organizations, progressive churches and public figures echoed the struggle. The campaign was a resounding success and was replicated in other cities.

About ten years ago, the Justice for Janitors model arrived in Mexico and failed for several reasons. The included the facts that in Mexico almost half of the population works in the informal economy, and low wages and zero benefits are the norm. So it was no surprise that no one was shocked by the situation of these cleaning and maintenance employees and of the fact that almost no social organization stood up for their demands of better working conditions. In Mexico, the ethical framework necessary for symbolic capital to operate, at least in the labor field, simply did not exist.

The migrant caravan that marches on Mexico’s southern border is a case study on the opportunities and limitations of symbolic capital. Although, due to the spontaneous nature of the caravan, it is almost certain that there is no central tactical coordination, there is no doubt that the migrants, most of them Hondurans, have assumed that by dramatically visualizing the situation of extreme poverty and overflowing violence that they live under in their communities increases their chances of achieving some kind of relief through the legal refugee status in Mexico or the United States.

The exodus of migrants is a way of staging the current humanitarian catastrophe, the product of decades of bad economic and security policies in Central America, and where the governments of the region and both Republican and Democratic administrations of the United States share equal responsibilities. But the caravan is also a powerful denunciation of the violence and corruption of the Mexican immigration authorities, as well as the human carnage of organized crime against migrants. The Central American drama looks us all straight in the eyes, and yet, there has never been so many incentives to turn and look the other way.

In the first place, because the average Mexican for years has been observing the flows of refugees from the Middle East to Europe, from Venezuela to its neighboring countries, and from several communities in their own country to the United States. Mass migration is, then, part of the present scenario. Secondly, overexposure to horrifying cases, such as the kidnapping and massacre of 72 Central American migrants in Tamaulipas, must have contributed to a certain moral numbness in national public opinion, which does not react to violence with the outrage it should.

But if the symbolism of the migrant caravan can fall on deaf ears in Mexico and in a generalized indifference that allows incoming and outgoing governments to respond solely with police measures, in the United States the danger is that the caravan ends up creating a symbolic framework exactly the opposite of what was intended: the xenophobic paranoia that has shifted from the margins of society to the center of American public life.

This situation must be explained in black and white. The migrant caravan is a gift from heaven for Donald Trump. In the middle of an electoral process in which Republicans can lose the majority in the House of Representatives it has become evident that the only way to mobilize their base is through the politics of hate. So there is nothing better to stir the flames of racism and nativism of the Trumpian hosts than a daily dose, through the junkie syringe of Fox News, of images of the caravan slowly approaching the southern border.

Evidently a father or mother that seeks to save the lives of their children by escaping with whatever they can carry and who tries to call attention to his desperate flight, does not see the need to analyze the implications of his exodus in the U.S. electoral process. What this refugee or the great majority of his companions do not know is that his natural ally, the movement in favor of the rights of immigrants in the United States, does not have the capacity to counteract the virulent and cowardly propaganda of the U.S. president. This movement, which has waged hundreds of battles in the public squares, in the legislative and government bodies and in the solitude of the migration courts, can not at this moment turn the images of the migrant exodus into symbols of solidarity and human solutions to the Central American crisis. The symbols that dominate the public arena in the United States are those of “barbarian hordes” that overflow the borders, the tattooed “mareros” of the MS-13 and other tropes that fuel the schizoid fantasies of a part of the U.S. electorate, who could well answer the call of its president at the polls.

The outrage of a part of Mexican society for the reaction of its government to Trump’s request to stop the caravan overlooks a fundamental point: even without the the president’s request, the Mexican state, either with Enrique Peña Nieto or Andrés Manuel López Obrador at its head, can not afford the symbolism of the loss of control over its borders. The incoming government will not want, in all justice, to begin its governance with an even more militarized northern border and a commercial sword on its neck. Mexican social activism should aim, then, to build a broad response of solidarity and support for migrants from civil society, and to demand from the government a dignified, humane and law-abiding treatment, as well as creative solutions that allow our Central American brothers and sisters to have a break and start rebuilding their lives in our country, which should also be theirs.

It is very possible that to translate its symbolic capital into concrete solutions for its members, the caravan must change tactics and accept that the representation of pain, by way of a long and compact march across borders, can be an insurmountable obstacle to enter the United States. Mexicans and their government will then be able to respond, allowing them to integrate into the country, no longer as an external and foreign neighbor, but as road companions.

Alberto Fernandez is a political scientist, a graduate from Mexico’s UNAM and the New School for Social Research.

(From Letras Libres. Translation to English by Progreso Weekly.)