Drug Cartels Do Not Exist

Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians corporations and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border revealed the character of a deeply depraved leader state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed.<br> <br> Yet the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books films and TV series we consume. In truth works like <i>Sicario</i> <i>The Queen of the South</i> and <i>Narcos</i> hide Mexico's political realities. Alongside these examples Zavala discusses Charles Bowden <i>2666</i> by Roberto Bolaño and other important Latin American writers as examples of those who do capture the realities of the drug war.<br> <br> Translated into English by William Savinar <i>Drug Cartels Do Not Exist</i> will be useful for journalists political scientists philosophers and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers-physical and mental-created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.