Schettino and the Minion Conspiracy
Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
At first glance, comparing Mexicans to Minions seems like an absurd notion. Minions are small, yellow characters who cluster around a boss, organize in groups, obey enthusiastically, and seem to feel safer when someone tells them what to do. Mexico, of course, is a complex, diverse, and contradictory society that cannot be reduced to a caricature. Yet, the comparison raises an interesting question: why do so many human societies need intermediaries, bosses, communities, and safety nets to feel secure?
That is where the resemblance begins. For centuries, a large part of Mexican society has learned to solve problems through personal relationships. When institutions fail to function adequately, what matters is who knows whom, who can intervene, who has access to the government, who controls an organization, or who can protect a community. The local strongman (*cacique*), the priest, the union leader, the politician, the boss, the relative who emigrated to the United States, and even—in some regions—criminal groups, can all fill different roles driven by the same need: achieving security in the face of uncertainty.
Like the Minion, the Mexican might seek out a boss. But that is where the comparison ends, because the Mexican is also capable of rebelling against that boss.
This is perhaps the most important characteristic of our history. Mexico is not merely an obedient, corporatist society; it is also a deeply rebellious one. The War of Independence, the Reform, the Revolution, peasant movements, community struggles, and contemporary protests all demonstrate a persistent resistance to arbitrary power. Mexicans may accept authority when it provides security, but they can also rise up when that authority becomes abusive.
That is why Mexican liberalism has a much deeper history than we sometimes assume. Benito Juárez and the liberals did not triumph because all Mexicans had suddenly turned into liberal philosophers. They triumphed because liberal language offered many groups a tool to combat privileges, special exemptions, and arbitrary power. A peasant could defend his community while simultaneously using the Constitution to challenge the power of a large landowner. A person could be deeply religious and, at the same time, champion legal equality. Liberalism never needed to completely erase communal identities to gain followers.
That is why Mexico cannot be understood simply as a society divided between modern liberals and traditional Mexicans. In reality, many people combine both aspects. They may defend private property, desire economic freedom, and vote democratically, yet also rely on family, community, local leaders, or personal networks for security. They can be liberals while understanding the central role of clientelism within the triad of business elites, the clergy, and local political bosses (*caciques*).
Minions need a boss because they seem to know no other form of organization. Mexicans, however, are aware of another possibility: conspiracy. That is the crucial difference. The Mexican liberal tradition aspires to a state where a person does not need a protector to be safe, because the law alone should suffice. Its fundamental promise is not to turn everyone into isolated individuals, but to prevent anyone from exercising arbitrary power over them.
Mexico’s great historical problem has been that this promise has never been fully realized. When the State fails to provide security, justice, and opportunity, community ties, corporatism, clientelism, migration, and—in some territories—criminal coercion re-emerge.
Perhaps, then, Mexicans resemble minions in that both seek to belong to something that offers security. Yet they differ in a decisive way: for two centuries, Mexicans have been trying to figure out how to live together without arbitrary, unjust, and indifferent bosses. Mexico’s history could well be defined as the story of that very attempt.
