PERSPECTIVE ON MEXICO : Salinas’ Fatal Flaw: His Yanqui Vision : It remains inexplicable that he and his technocrats did not see their country as it was rather than as they wished it to be --’American’.

Half a century ago, Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz made the sardonic observation about “poor Mexico, so far away from God, so near to the United States.” It was a prophetic description of the essence of Mexico’s historical dilemma which remains valid even today as Mexicans reflect upon the tumultuous events that have convulsed their nation.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. During his presidency, Carlos Salinas de Gortari had assured his countrymen that his wide-ranging reforms and Mexico’s membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement would guarantee all Mexicans an unparalleled future.

For most Mexicans, Salinas’ promises have turned into nightmares, with NAFTA the main villain. But the underlying causes for Mexico’s present problems probably can be more accurately traced to a perception of Mexico’s future held by the new political elite that came to power in 1988 with Salinas, a perception that, in an ironic historical switch, saw the U.S. as the measure of what they wanted Mexico to become.

Salinas was the first Mexican president to turn his back on the shibboleths of the Mexican Revolution, which saw the U.S. as inimical to Mexican interests. He not only had no deep-seated distrust (or animosity) toward the gringos to the north; he actually admired the American way of doing things and calculated success by American standards and American achievements. This attitude, paradoxically, would play an important role in the chaos that would eventually engulf his country.

In a strange way, Carlos Salinas regarded his own country with the detachment an American might have. Having studied in the U.S.-- he has a doctorate in economics from Harvard --Salinas adopted a highly businesslike and rational approach to economic development, an approach that downplayed his own country’s traditions, especially its authoritarian nature, paternalism and lack of grass-roots democracy and local initiative.

Salinas and the technocrats also operated from another delusionary premise: They saw economic development essentially in abstract terms, as if statistics had a universal validity and life of their own, applicable to any situation, any country, regardless of historical or unique internal factors. Coming from highly privileged backgrounds, they failed to truly grasp the complex realities underlying poverty in developing countries like their own; they underestimated the human dimension. This fatal misconception was to have disastrous consequences.

The Salinas team was convinced that it could bring Mexico into the so-called First World simply by breaking down protectionist trade barriers and reforming archaic, nonproductive agricultural practices. (The attempt to end the traditional ejido family farm system in favor of more productive large holdings helped spark the Indian uprising in Chiapas.)

Salinas’ self-confidence was contagious --dangerously so. Even normally sober- minded foreign bankers and investors disregarded the warning signs from Mexico’s debt forfeiture of a few years earlier and joined the parade to Salinas’ new promised land.

However, Salinas failed to grasp that the American economic success was not merely the end result of more efficient planning and technology, but also was based on cultural values that differed markedly from those of Mexico. Equally important, the U.S. system did not have to function in an authoritarian environment where corruption was rampant at all levels and the rule of law ignored.

The moment Salinas began precipitously dismantling the Mexican infrastructure, its deficiencies became glaringly apparent. There, lying under the glittering veneer of the much-touted new Mexico of impressive skyscrapers, was, like buried Aztec ruins, the other Mexico, the Mexico that the ever-optimistic technocrats had disregarded, just as the oligarchy had long been accustomed to doing. This was the nation of illiterate indigenous people living as their forebears had in hopeless poverty. Worse, there were 40 million of them. The planners inexplicably ignored the fact that a nation with close to half of its population in this situation, a nation where only half of its children go beyond elementary school, simply was incapable of catapulting itself overnight into the First World.

Mexico’s accession to NAFTA only exacerbated an already deteriorating situation. The disastrous events that followed were not surprising.

Much of the responsibility rests with Mexico’s ostensibly brightest minds, who, in their desire to be accepted as equals by those they so admired, ignored the reality of their own country and its limitations.

So, what does the future hold for Mexico?

The first thing is that Mexico, for better or worse, has crossed its Rubicon. Because of NAFTA, as well as everything else that has happened, there is no going back to the Mexico of the past. Carlos Salinas opened up the expectations of his countrymen to the point where they no longer accept the authoritarian system that ruled them for 67 years. The economic chaos and corruption scandals have discredited both the ruling political elite and the oligarchy. Henceforth, those who claim to govern will increasingly be held accountable for their actions-- a first for Mexico.

Because of NAFTA, too, it no longer is possible to sweep under the carpet the country’s glaring socioeconomic problems and inequities, including the violation of human rights, particularly of indigenous people. The rule of law is beginning to take root; corruption and other abuses will come under closer public scrutiny.

Most important, there is now a prospect for authentic political pluralism in Mexico, even the possibility of the opposition winning the presidency in the foreseeable future.

Thus, despite all the recent traumas, a new Mexico is slowly and painfully being forged. No one can predict how it will turn out, but one thing is certain: It will be a Mexico that finally lives in the present, not the past.