Luis Rubio
The great challenge for the future of Mexico lies in conciliating, or reconciling, a society that feels itself to be afflicted by circumstances and reasons that appear irreconcilable. The reality, perceptions, and emotions pull in opposite directions, creating a perfect breeding ground for the environment of conflict -and, potentially, violence- characterizing the country today. The question is how to emerge from that hole.
The dynamic of polarization arose from a presidential strategy. Still, its roots emanate from a long history as old as the colony itself and as recent as the promises of democracy, development, and transformation (respectively) of the most recent decades. Some governments undertook tough reforms, and others limited themselves to proffering grand transformations, but the result of several decades of failing to keep or fulfill promises was the environment that made possible the accumulation of the waves of anger and resentment at the heart of Mexican society.
Independently of the viability or feasibility of the promises that accompanied the agenda of the diverse presidential terms of past decades, the tangible fact is that the country has undergone highly profound changes, but the integral development behind the offer set forth by various administrations remains far from coming to fruition. Nonetheless, the insufficiencies that exist display two distinct and contrasting facets that are generally ignored: the Mexico that is unsatisfied by what was promised but not achieved, and that feels outraged and humiliated, whether due to historical grievances or to the perception of inequity in the results.
For some, perhaps most of the population, the promises lost their luster because they did not materialize in the manner of an idyllic life typical of campaign speeches but hardly realistic in daily life. To suppose that the life of a peasant family in the Oaxacan Sierra would improve during a presidential term without actions specifically dedicated to that region and state of affairs (something that never came to light) was absurd. Successive governments have implemented diverse strategies for development, but none has faced the political scourges that have kept an enormous portion of the population impoverished and lagging behind, especially in the country’s South and Southeast. In this region, there are no gas pipelines that could bolster industrial development nor highways that would make it possible to take to the domestic and international market the products that could constitute a prosperous and flourishing agroindustry. In a word, the rhetoric has been generous, but the required actions have been conspicuous by their absence. The historical resentments emanating from there are logical and inevitable.
But there is also another Mexico, not a small segment, which has seen improvement in its life, but where the pace of the advance has been insufficient and unsatisfactory. States such as Aguascalientes and Querétaro, to cite two of the most successful cases in terms of economic growth -having quintupled or sextupled their economies in the past decades- evidence immense frustration in that the political events have sabotaged them from allowing these economies to accelerate even faster. Citizens residing in those latitudes, and in practically all of the country’s urban zones, have a clear-cut view of the opportunities before them, but that are elusive given the ineptitude -or unwillingness- of the political leaderships -local and national- to resolve the evident wrongs and obstacles that hold back progress.
The point is very simple: there are many obvious reasons for the anger and chagrin manifested in diverse ways throughout the country that nourish and render viable a polarization strategy such as the one the current government has pursued. However, the relevant question is what or who benefits from a strategy that entertains no better result than that of concentrating the power on a sole individual without improving the lives of the citizenry, on whichever of the two sides they are found in the national schism. Heightening the conflict generates popularity and loyalty (both inevitably finite), but it does not resolve the problems that affect and harm both sides of Mexican society, the resentful and the dissatisfied.
As Mexicans approach the moment of presidential succession, those two Mexicos will increasingly appear in the arena of national discussion. One possibility, be it futile or not, would lie in forging ahead in the polarization strategy. Another, more effective and worthwhile, would be to find the means of bringing the citizenry together and heading up not only a national reconciliation process but, above all, one of attacking the factors that have made the solution to the problems afflicting the country impossible.
Whoever wins next year, the population’s expectations will not diminish, and in the age of ubiquitous information, those expectations tend to exacerbate because the entire citizenry, regardless of where it lives, knows that a better life is possible. It also knows that it is politics, or the politicians, who curb them from achieving it. As David Konzevik says, “In times of the revolution of expectations, the president has to be a master of hope”.
It would do Mexico much good if the next president were to choose peace and reconciliation over revenge.
@lrubiof
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