The distance of neighbours

摘要

Brutalist and squat, the American embassy in Mexico City has always had a forbidding air. As the fighting in Iraq raged, the ring of steel fences protecting it were pushed so far forward that they encroached on Avenida Reforma, one of the capital's main streets. That physical gap symbolises the political and emotional gulf that has opened up between Mexico and its main trading partner. Each day protests, and sometimes near-riots, took place outside the embassy, fuelled by a diet of gory, anti-American coverage of the Iraqi war in the Mexican media.