Antonio Navalón
When reading the book “The Conquest of Mexico” by Hugh Thomas, one can realize and understand several things. I do not know if the premonitions of the gods or the divine announcements made to the Mexica empire and the Aztecs foresaw the coming of a blond-haired, blue-eyed God who would change their lives. But what I know is that the structure of the government that Hernán Cortés claimed to serve had many similarities with the composition of the power structure of the Mexica empire. It was evident that identification had to be produced beyond the facts sooner or later – above the gods, the gold, the feathers, the fears, and the conquered and the conquerors.
The Spanish empire was a brutal empire based many times on the weakness of its protagonists, who served with an almost dog-like submission to a God who would not have any inconvenience in cutting off their heads because its maximum figure was twice God. He was their King, and he was the one who had a direct connection with the God of the heavens and was also capable of deciding what was right and wrong. In the case of the empire embodied by Moctezuma when Cortés arrived, the game was more or less the same. It was a coalition of gods, a coalition of weaknesses, hatreds, and an overlapping of personal projects sacrificed for terror and the need to have a very strong chief incarnated under the figure of the Tlatoani.
Psychiatrists and psychologists have never agreed on how long the seed of hatred lingers in the hearts of men. Furthermore, William Shakespeare – who in many things equals the texts of the book of books, the Bible, and who in other things was ahead of all Sigmund Freud, Gustav Jung, and the interpreters of the human condition – wrote a famous speech called “Julius Caesar’s funeral”. A lesson describing the behavior pattern of the men of power would remain in the collective memory and the people’s subconscious.
For the purposes of this article, there is a phrase that I would like to highlight: “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” In that speech, the English playwright expounded – among other lines – what supposedly would have been the words of Mark Antony during Julius Caesar’s funeral. Could this be the nourishment of the hatred of the people? Will, all the brutalities committed be transmitted from generation to generation? Behind the request expressed in the letter that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent to the King of Spain was the murderous and insane barbarism of Pedro de Alvarado and his actions during the Noche Triste? We will never know. What we will know is that today, remembering the best and the worst of the Mexican people but leaning towards the worst, that is, towards what has been stolen from us, has shown that – as it is demonstrated in every electoral election – in Mexico there is a capital of hatred accumulated throughout its history. A capital of hate that has endured in Mexican society is the factor that truly explains the electoral results that, without going any further, were harvested in the elections held in six states of the Mexican Republic last Sunday, June 5th.
“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bone” William Shakespeare
The clearest thing about the past elections is a statement and a resounding fact: the only winner on June 5th was Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. To date, MORENA has not existed, and I have serious doubts that at any point, the President will allow it to live beyond acting as a party official. I do not believe that he will allow it to have protagonists or to imply that – strictly and without politicking – there are people capable of thinking independently. MORENA is only an instrument. It is not a social organization, nor is it destined to propose, resolve and govern the Mexican people based on an ideology. The ideology is called Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and it revolves around his morning thoughts and the speeches delivered in his mañaneras. The driving force of the ruling party is Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The ultimate owner of MORENA is the one who today holds the position of President of the United Mexican States, and he is the one in whom the success obtained last June 5th truly lies.
At this point, it is time to demolish the analysis of logic. It is time to stop asking what else they must do to the Mexican people so they do not vote for what they have continued to elect. Since in that analysis, we simplify and want to see a tragedy that is nested and living in the heart of Mexicans for a long time,, circumscribed simply to one or three six-year terms. It is a structural problem, a problem – as can be seen – of unfinished stories that can only be solved by presenting the bill for everything they owe us for what they have been stealing from us over the years.
There are no parties. The greatest tragedy and the only political analysis is not that of logic. No indication shows where the capacity to put an end to the suffering of the Mexican people lies, not only because “love is paid with love”, but because, unfortunately, there is also a Spanish saying that goes: “Sarna con gusto, no pica” (itching with pleasure, does not sting).
Mexico, some Mexico, the Mexico that goes out to vote and that repeatedly repeats its preferences, is doing many good things for those who had nothing. Events are happening in our country that were not happening before, and the Mexican people are not capable of realizing that the only promise and political offer that exists is the one that revolves around the statement that you are poor and you will be poor forever and ever. In the meantime, there is no need to waste any more time. The political scientists, the commentaries that revolve around the situation of the country and the politicking, are all wrong. The discourse of the method of this political situation has to do with the country’s history and with a question that, once answered, we can return to political logic. This question is, how long does the hatred nestled in the hearts of men last?
“…Mexican people are not capable of realizing that the only promise and political offer that exists is the one that revolves around the statement that you are poor and you will be poor forever and ever.
They came to power as the Republic of love, but little by little – in the face of the tensions of love, abuses, and retrospective images that come and go as in an old movie where the past is confused with the present – they force us to decide that more than integrating, what we have to do is to collect. Rather than forgiving, what we have to do is to punish. And within that logic, what is the importance of answering where the funds of the trusts went? What does it matter to know where the medicines are? Why try to decipher why Mexicans are dying for lack of attention or funds? Really, ask yourself, for a country that is the demographic hope of North America, is it legitimate that the only thing it can offer its people is endless poverty?
…is it legitimate that the only thing it can offer its people is endless poverty?
I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody does. But I do have one certainty. This method of meeting in gatherings and in restaurants where five forks are placed to discuss the reality of what moves those who eat tacos on street corners and those who then vote and who do not feel that the country is going badly, but instead that the country is going well, has led us to a defeat that cannot only be proven by numerology. It is a defeat and a lack of understanding about who is moving the people and in what direction.
So what’s next? As I have said before, I doubt that the President will allow MORENA to be born and thrive. MORENA’s biggest problem is that the more power it has, its lack of ability to govern is more evident. It is tough to do politics when all the budget and money are in one hand and when you only have crumbs to fulfill your plans or whatever they let you do. Moreover, given that there is no deadline that is not met and no date that does not come, it cannot be forgotten that 2024 is just around the corner. And now, with the one-man game of a one-man regime, we face the ultimate leap into the void.
MORENA’s biggest problem is that the more power it has, its lack of ability to govern is more evident.
As if it were a selection in North Korea, in Mexico, we ask the candidates – those pointed out by the President himself – to be willing to commit harakiri when his interpretation of history demands it. We ask them to be candidates, but only a little. And that during the candidacy, they never forget that all that they are, all they have, and all they believe is theirs, in reality, only belongs to them insofar as the Tlatoani López Obrador wants it.
