Today people across globe are closely watching a country. The notion about that country revolves around a tag of Corruption, Nepotism and Lawlessness. It faced decades of political turmoil and sometimes complete paralysis of normal life. Being a young country, with 50% population below the age of 30 and bordering a large economy, there were significant migrations for greener pastures. Though the population grew moderately and the middle class was emerging as power house, country forecast was bleak due to radical syndication and rampant corruption. It is Mexico I am talking about. 

All the negative images of Mexico were true till some years back. It was facing problems from poverty, drug cartels, political instability, syndication, strikes – you name it. Then a revolution happened with a paradigm shift on people’s mindset. It was a silent revolution without any tag of any of the “Isms”. One day Mexicans decided that they have had enough. They realized that either they have to move on or they will be moved aside and their future cannot be defined by handicaps like Corruption and Political instability. They woke up to change the Image of Mexico. 

And look at the result. Financial Times reported on 19th September 2012 that Mexican exports surpassed the combined export of the rest of the Latin America. Chrysler uses their Mexico base to supply to the Chinese market. Chinese market – you have heard it right!!!

How this has happened? It is the power of collective wisdom. When society decides to change together – the result can be awesome. Suddenly people do not want to be held hostage by radicalism. It’s a Mexican Wave – a Tsunami which gripped the country. Political parties were forced to act to avoid extinction. Waking up from the political coma, Mexico’s three major political parties decided to work together and signed a “Pact for Mexico”.  

Mexico still has huge governance problems to fix; nobody claims otherwise. Even then, the change was profound and clear. As American Journalist Dorothy Day said - “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us”. In that way, Mexico went in the right path. Acknowledging a problem is half the cure.  

In recent times Mexico signed 44 free trade agreements; more than any country in the world. It is more than double than China and four times than Brazil at the same period; shocking but true. With the greatly increasing number of graduating engineers and skilled laborers in recent times, slowly they are gaining manufacturing market share back from Asia and attracting increasing global investment.  By the way, my sources say that in SAARC region, number of Engineering and Medical students in USA from Nepal is more than that of Pakistan and Bangladesh put together despite of Nepal’s population being only a fraction of them. So patient is alive and kicking; Indeed.  

But – we are discussing Mexico. What happened there? One trend became clear. Now, an average Mexican citizen can judge performances on real time. They can inform the authority about violations or infrastructure failure and government mends things. How quickly things are being fixed are also being tracked online. This gives them power. This power sets pressure points to force changes. Thus, Mexico liberalized commerce, fixed accountability and democratized Media. Basically, they democratized the democracy itself. Democracy in Mexico is not restricted to only a handful of people. Authorities and Government became accountable and answerable to all. 

As per World Bank, in 2 years by end of 2011, Per Capita GDP of Mexico increased from US$7852 to US$10047 while India moved from US$1127 to US$1489 and China from US$3749 to US$5445. It means a Country with 116Mill population & 1.1% growth rate increased their per capita exposure to goods by 28% in 2 years. As per latest figure - Mexican inflation is around 4% and unemployment rate 5%. 1.758 Trillion US$ Mexican GDP (based on PPP) gets a whopping 23% contribution from Industry!! Do we need more argument in favor of the power of people and the might of collective Wisdom?

Is this a revolution? Revolution came from Latin word “Revolutio”, which means “a turnaround”. Revolution is a fundamental change in structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. It does not mean shutting down things or politicizing events or organizing strikes. Revolution means positive changes for the betterment of all member of the society. Revolution occurs when fellow citizens become accountable and behave responsibly. It is a turnaround which has to start with each Individual through small action. Even a handful of people can start this momentous change. As Margaret Mead said - “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”