Federico Reyes Heroles
Poor Mexicans who, every September 15, scream for an hour to stay silent for the rest of the year.
Octavio Paz
For Vega, with the hope of seeing her grow up in a dignified country.
Dignity is one of the most accurate ethical compasses of the human being. It is a central source of human rights. Guaranteeing the newborn his right to it, with all the threats that lurk in life, is in the norms. But universal norms can do nothing when vileness dominates. Mexico lives a parade of indignity.
Vileness will never disappear; it is part of the human condition. But human beings are also given two weapons to fight it. The first is to build and take care of one’s own dignity, not to fall into lowliness, to be congruous, not to have shameful records that make us vulnerable, that allow others to use them against us to tame our principles. If this is achieved, then we are in a position to demand dignity from others. Public life, not just politics but any version of it, exposes people to their fellow citizens. If someone is undignified or acts in an undignified manner in their functions, they will be provoking the basic ethical demand: to act with respect for oneself and, in the case of politics, with respect for the function being exercised.
In recent years, but with particular brazenness since the June election, we have witnessed a shameful parade of indignities. Political parties in the role of vote merchants, passing deputies from one affiliation to another; electoral counselors and magistrates cantinfleando -recognized by the Royal Spanish Academy- in their arguments to pave the way for the new tyranny, and also the sad competition to identify potential traitors. In a remarkable speech by former President Zedillo before the International Bar Association, in which he exposes the perversion of the judicial reform, the Yale scholar, among many other arguments, refers to the fast track approval of the initiative “…the new Legislature began its session on September 1; 80% of them for the first time. Without enough time to study or discuss the reform initiative, the qualified majority of the official party approved it on September 3”. It is an initiative that destroys judicial power and is practically inapplicable.
The ridicule did not end there; then came the charade of the traitor senator, and the whole country witnessed the juggling of the popular representative. But the story goes on; hours after the muddy approval in the Senate, the local legislatures were already giving their approval in the wee hours of the morning without even pretending to have a reasonable term for its reading—a true farce resulting from the indignity that puts the Republic at the level of a vaudeville. Zedillo concludes: “The approval of this judicial reform by the party in government is a historic felony”. All the arguments aired in public opinion were of no use; the “popular representatives” granted the “gift” that their vassalage imposed on them. Where was their self-respect? Where was their enormous responsibility to modify the fundamental norm of our coexistence?
They have already done so; they acted indignantly, and the main injured party and accomplice is Sheinbaum. Of course, there is hope in the various appeals being filed, among them the flagrant violation of due legislative process. Apparently, they did not learn; they made a mockery again of the basic principles of the division of Powers, and that, by all accounts, exhibits a Mexico weakened in its institutions. Weak because the rulers in office do not have the slightest respect for themselves, nor for those they claim to represent.Thank you, dear Luis, for the reference to Paz. How right he was, an hour of shouting, rockets, “cuetes” -and bullets- to hide a perennial submission. How will we get out of this authoritarian cage? Perhaps the first thing is to recover our dignity.
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