Mexico has a culture that has been scarred by the drug trade, intimidation, rampant murder and brutality.
And if the people want to turn things around, a good start would be to change the names of some of the towns. Right across the border lies Matamoros, a poverty-stricken town that I visited in 2007. It is also home to the many atrocities I mentioned. The name "Matamoros" means literally: Kill the Moors. The Moors were a religious group, an Islamist sect, that the Catholic Church attempted to eradicate during the Inquisition. Can you imagine if there were a town in the US called "Kill the (fill in blank here)". That's the kind of label that promotes a violent culture. Would changing the name of a town stop the murder? Probably not. But it would be a good start.
*update*
I thought that the US would never name a town after the murder of a group of people.
Well, I was wrong. In fact, there is a town with nearly the same name and meaing in Pennsylvania. It was actually named after the town in Mexico:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matamoras,_Pennsylvania
The fact that it's in Spanish doesn't change the fact that it means: "Kill the Moors".
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