Antonio Navalón
We live in an era in which the deluge of changes has provoked a flood and disruption of everything we thought we knew and understood. When a century from now, what has happened during this era is analyzed, it will surely come to the conviction of how having missed so many opportunities and ideal moments, one and all of us managed to create a civilization full of resentment apparently hidden, but continuously present in every one of the events. A society tired of the facts, without illusion to build and clinging to belief in impossible dreams. And the truth is that, after giving the systems so many opportunities to rebuild the path, the systems – which were the guarantors of stability and social peace – failed. States failed, financial structures failed, and the gaps in social equality have only widened.
The 4T experiment is very important for those who live in Mexico. Above all, because the time has come to abandon the unsubstantiated words or the parameters of the rationality of the era we knew. Looking at the world today, you will realize that anything can happen. I recently had to make a trip to Turkey, and in this experience, I was able to witness and see some common elements that unite the development of the Mexican Fourth Transformation with a social and structural revolution that has been successful and that only ten years ago it seemed that it would have been impossible to happen.
The President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has managed to succeed in the transformation he devised for his country mainly because he has managed to filter and give an outlet to the social hatred and the failure of the distribution model in his country, basing it not on slogans such as “the poor first” or economic theories, but by making use of the spiritual rearmament of his country, having understood very well that what Mustafa Kemal Atatürk started a century ago was dead. The revolution of the Young Turks, above all things, proposed after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, was an absolutely civilian regime based on the separation of powers and fleeing from any possibility of religious temptation. That lasted more or less a century, and that new Turkish experience was the one that allowed, together with Erdogan’s intuition and ability, to offer his people – through the Islamization of their society – the argument that revenge, change, personality, and nationalism would come precisely from the conversion of doing things from the bottom up.
Ten years ago Turkey was the poor and embarrassing brother of those trying to enter Europe. A decade ago, Erdogan had an accumulated social powder keg and very few proposals that basically invented a new nationalism among his compatriots. All the change Erdogan has managed to make in Turkey was done without feeling constrained by what geostrategic maps or political situations indicated. Faced with a discouraging global panorama and seeing that the distribution and social equity systems had failed in so many countries – as in Mexico, for example – the Turkish leader had a complicated task ahead of him. On the one hand, he had to manage to drain all the resentment and social discontent; on the other, he had to make the most of his country’s geostrategic position. In this aspect, Mexico and Turkey are similar; both have had to play a privileged role at times, but at other times, even an uncomfortable or haunted part due to their geographical position. Mexico is a neighbor of the United States, and Turkey is a crucial piece of the desires of Europe and the Western world.
That old aspirant to be European is the only one that has managed to create a system – in which, although it has not yet solved an economic model that serves to show complete success – it has managed to be the masterpiece of nothing more and nothing less, the relations that go from Russia to Iran. But not only that, Turkey has now managed to establish itself as a significant player on the chessboard by vetoing the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, and Erdogan has undoubtedly been able to post a positive return for his country. The Turks have also become the natural and prominent location for Syrian refugee camps. Furthermore, with the whole context of the Ukraine-Russia war crisis, they have created an exit and distribution mechanism for grain from the Ukrainian camps. The latter is worth noting since, if it has the expected results, it could even prevent the famine of the following terrible winter.
Looking at today’s maps and thinking about all that could not be done, I inevitably reflect on all that has been done. The transformation effected by Erdogan in his country is noteworthy, but there are other situations that – without going so far – need attention, for example, what is happening in Nicaragua and Latin America as a whole. What is happening in Latin America confirms the argument that Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said about the Nicaraguan dictator, Tacho Somoza, “Somoza is a son of a whore, but he is our son of a whore”. In uttering these words, one lived in an era when everything that happened in America – North or South – had to be accountable to the Americans. Everything that was done or not done had to be by what was marked and dictated by the policy of the Big Stick.
Is it possible that the 4T will triumph today, taking advantage of the tremendous geostrategic crisis in America and taking advantage of the new role of the Chinese in the world? It is possible. The problem is that, just as Erdogan has been able to carry out a purge of the State that has affected more than forty thousand people, it must be understood that revolutions are never a half-hearted initiative. Either one takes risks and goes all out, or it is better not even to try to carry them out. In that sense, the Turkish leader had the blessing that meant the failed coup d’état that took place in 2016 against him. On that fact, Erdogan waged the biggest purge carried out in his country since the Armenian genocide during the Ottoman Empire.
I am not suggesting that for the Fourth Transformation to succeed, it is necessary to carry out a purge like the one carried out in Turkey, but I am saying that all the approaches that have brought us this far have ceased to work.
Next November will be a crucial month for two men. On the one hand, President Joe Biden will be attentive to the challenge of the mid-term elections in a few months. On the other hand, President Xi Jinping will have to return to his Congress and reiterate that – since Mao Zedong – he will be the first Chinese leader to die in office. This naturally increases tensions, although it may also usher in a period of pacification and other opportunities.
It is necessary to know how to distinguish between what is the limit of words and what is the action of the government. And just as there has been a transformation of all kinds, such as the Turkish transformation, in Mexico, this can be successfully carried out if, in addition to hatred, resentment, and the fact that every day there is an exercise to explain why they do not know how to govern and why everything that is happening is the fault of the past, they would make the adjustments so that in the end this would be something good and beneficial for the Mexican people.
