For President Bush and 51 other heads of state arriving here Thursday to talk about aiding the world’s poor, the people known as the regiomontanos have an up-by-the-bootstraps message waiting.
Boasting a shiny urban image and a prosperous economy based on a history of free enterprise and foreign investment, residents of Monterrey enjoy Mexico’s highest standard of living. Near the conference center where the leaders will meet, the preserved towers of Latin America’s first steel mill are now a monument to the city’s entrepreneurial spirit.
“Northern Mexico was always very rough country, so people really had to work here in order to survive,” said Roberto Cavazos, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Monterrey and a 22-year resident.
It is an industrious urban face that Mexican President Vicente Fox is anxious to present as an example of successful development to the 1,700 government officials, business leaders and journalists flocking into this 406-year-old town this week for the United Nations’ International Conference on Financing for Development.
In a country that itself is deeply rent between haves and have-nots, between prosperous north and struggling south, Fox and his advisers want to use that experience to offer themselves as a bridge between the world’s richest and poorest countries in the heated debate over who should fund global development.
Playing host to the UN conference is just the latest example of Mexico’s renewed involvement in global affairs. The government hopes to take advantage of the spotlight to leverage its position in bilateral meetings with Bush and other foreign leaders at the conference.
“We aspire to be a bridge between rich and poor, between the vanguard and the rear-guard, and to create an environment where the small countries can discuss with the big countries,” Fox said this week.
UN officials said it was Fox who chose Monterrey for the conference, instead of one of Mexico’s more picturesque or oceanside cities. While the city has its share of Mexico’s forgotten urban poor, it also can be seen as a showcase of benefits from the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
“This is making people look at Mexico and it will help counterbalance the idea that all of Mexico is [impoverished and rebellious] Chiapas or just beaches,” said Sergio Sarmiento, a prominent commentator in Mexico City.
For many decades, Mexico’s foreign policy was focused almost exclusively on its complex relations with the U.S. But behind Fox’s outspoken foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, Mexico has begun to make its voice known in wider international affairs.
It holds one of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council, from where it sponsored a recent resolution backing the formation of a Palestinian state. And Mexican officials will try to mediate this week between Argentina and the U.S. over the Bush administration’s reluctance to help solve the South American country’s disastrous financial problems.
Monterrey, once in the middle of Apache country, is Mexico’s third-largest city and home to many of the country’s largest companies. The city is surrounded by jagged mountain peaks from where the locals get their nickname. Its downtown brewery churns out some of Mexico’s best beer, and a river walk and pedestrian malls are favorites with local shoppers and many “winter Texans” who make the three-hour drive from the border.
It also has its share of McDonalds, Wal-Marts and Disney movie billboards, which have become symbolic targets for anti-globalization activists–known in Mexico as globalifobicos, who also have arrived in Monterrey to protest.
“Sometimes,” said Cavazos, “regiomontanos have more in common with the U.S. than with southern Mexico, or even central Mexico.”
