Jorge Castañeda’s recent book Mañana Forever? devotes the bulk of a chapter to the issue of trust – specifically, to Mexicans’ lack of said virtue, usually when Americans are involved, but more broadly towards each other. They are simply (if I can generalize wildly and irresponsibly here) not a trusting people – with the possible exception of Moctezuma, and look where that got him.
I thought of this a few days ago, when my local paper carried a banner headline declaring Querétaro’s governor, José Calzada, the “most trusted” governor in the nation. This was based on the “2011 National Survey” carried out by the firm Gabinete de Comunicación Estratégica, in which respondents were asked the following question: If the governor of your state were your neighbor, and you were going to be away for a few days, would you trust him with the keys to your house?
Forty-seven percent of queretanos said yes, more than any other state in Mexico.
Let’s think about this. If the governor were your neighbor. In other words, if the governor lived next door to you, and you knew each other – maybe not particularly well, but well enough that you’d be comfortable talking to him about the fact you’re leaving town for a bit…maybe even raise the issue of the house keys. In fact, let’s assume you’ve decided to give him the keys – put aside the trust question for a minute, you’re handing them over whether you want to or not. Now the governor has your keys. You know he has your keys. He knows you know he has your keys; if something happens to your house… he did it! You both know this.
Under those circumstances, Mexicans were asked if they’d hand their governor the keys, and in the most-trusting state in the country, 53 percent of the electorate would not. “Yeah, he’s my neighbor and we’re friendly, and if anything happened to my house I’d know immediately who to blame – plus, he’s a public figure and has a lot to lose if it were to get out that he’d robbed somebody’s house - but, y’know… there’s just something about the guy. Doesn’t feel right to me. I’ll pass, thanks.”
I lived in New York during all eleven years of George Pataki’s term. I never once voted for him, thought he was a terrible governor, and I laughed out loud every time he pondered a presidential run. But it would honestly never occur to me that it would be a bad idea to leave my house keys with him. Of course I would – he’s governor of New York, for God’s sake!
And Calzada, remember, was the most trusted. (Indeed, he felt compelled to issue a public statement of gratitude for the honor.) There were five states where fewer than a quarter of the respondents said they’d give the guv the keys. Only 19 percent of Morelos Governor Marco Adame’s constituents trust him not to steal their flat-screen off their wall. How does a guy like that even get elected? I kinda wish there had been a follow-up question: If you didn’t give him the keys, would you be afraid that your governor might break-and-enter your home anyway?
Before moving to Mexico, I’d come across a second-hand book called Surviving Mexico: The Insider’s Guide to Safe Travel, written by an American criminal who’d spent years living here as a fugitive. It actually contained a surprising amount of helpful practical information. (Americans are trusting enough to take travel advice from an admitted con man, amigos, and are rewarded for doing so.) But the subtext of the book was “Mexicans: they’ll screw ya if ya let ‘em.” Among a thousand other rip-off and scams, he went on at length about the gas cap on your car, and how all gas station attendants make a habit of stealing them – then, when you get to the next gas station, they’ll tell you your gas cap’s been stolen, and offer to sell you one, since they have a huge supply of stolen gas caps. It’s quaint to think of now, but coming to Mexico five years ago (before the drug craziness started), the thing I was most consumed about was my gas cap. Unable to buy a car with a locked gas tank door, I got the next best thing, which was a gas cap attached by an unbreakable wire. Still, I spent the first six months or so watching every fill-up through my side mirror, waiting to catch the gas-cap thief in the act.
Not only do they not steal gas caps here, service stations go out of their way to make sure you know you’re not being ripped off. There’s a great show made of the fact that the pump is reset to zero before they start pumping gas. The first time I had my oil changed, I was surprised to be handed a big bag of garbage before paying – the empty oil cans and my old air filter, offered as proof that they really did do what I was paying them to do. This is where that lack-of-trust thing boomerangs a bit, because people who don’t trust anyone else have to assume that in return, no one trusts them. Most don’t care, but when they do, it’s kind of sweet, albeit exasperating. Last week I was buying light bulbs in bulk (for some odd reason they all burn out within days, sometimes hours, of each other). The clerk insisted on taking each individual blub out of its box and trying it out while I watched, putting it back in the box and moving on to the next one. After about 20 bulbs I said, “I’m actually in a bit of a hurry,” (there were still 16 to go), but what I really wanted to say was “Okay, I trust you!” and then hand her the keys to my house. It’s not like she was the governor of Morelos or anything.