Antonio Navalón
It is striking that in the history of Mexico – even before the Conquest – it is the impossible dream that almost always explains how events unfolded and, above all, why we constantly set out and analyze what remains after failure. If one looks objectively at the movement that culminated in the Mexican Revolution, one realizes that it was the realization of an impossible dream bathed in blood. An event with a fundamental driving force was the trigger of wanting and betting on the impossible and the always tragic conclusion of failure and betrayal. But it was also a sign that those who allowed themselves to dream and lived in their own way, keeping in line, was in itself another path to failure.
The Summits today are in crisis. I often wonder what is really the right thing to do; sometimes, I think there has been a transmutation of the good and the bad in history. In the case of China, the bad now is not the Gang of Four – created by Mao Zedong’s wife and the intellectuals who triggered the Cultural Revolution – but the bad are the traces of what Deng Xiaoping did. The only thing that can really save a regime that has done everything to remain communist is precisely the knowledge and awareness that economic crises are not the same for the communist world as they are for the capitalist world.
To do away with the economy is as if it were the passport to the success of the communist model, which is why, when one sees what is happening in the world, one wonders whether it is President López Obrador who is wrong or whether it is the rest of us who are wrong. Let me explain: until now, in any country in the world – except in Mexico – we were used to the fact that the battle to conquer power was first to win the elections to achieve it. Once in power, anything was done to avoid losing it. Here – as today’s march showed – you never end up in power. What is more, this impossible dream, which will end up proving to be right – but also to fail – means that, instead of consolidating progress, we jeopardize it because we do not care if we can change the course of history for the benefit of Mexican society.
When one looks at the current situation in the world, the question that keeps coming up is: am I wrong, or is it President López Obrador who is wrong? Whoever seeks and wants to see the political behavior of the creator of the 4T as something logically correct from an economic or functional point of view is making a grave mistake. López Obrador only cares about politics. We are a people who have a long tradition of swallowing problems and allowing anyone in power – whether he is called Moctezuma or Andrés Manuel López Obrador – to do his particular crazy thing without objection. The Mexican leader had all the hope and – more importantly – the desire to consolidate the great social pact in Mexico. And he intended to do so amid a global system in which everyone was asking him to be consistent with what he had been declaring for thirty years of campaigning and to truly purify the country.
No one has thought about or questioned where are the much-criticized and accused corrupt people who sought to build the Texcoco airport and why they are not in jail. With the cancellation of the Texcoco airport – a fact already forgotten by many – not only were billions of dollars lost for nothing but also the possibility of being at the forefront and giving a great show of development to the world was let go.
President López Obrador has all the power. I have my doubts that he has all the control. And unlike him, not many people have such good intentions, even if he is wrong in his aim. So now, when we enter the war of numbers, when we see who are more and who can really impose on half the country – or a significant proportional part – the electoral result, we will have a situation in which, in the end, we will have to find common ground. A common ground that will be harder and harder to find as each day goes by.
In the year of the Summits, we have made political life a situation in which, first, we surprised the North, who had the mission to end the era of injustice and consolidate the neo-liberal world. Since they knew they could not count on Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua, Mexico, the Mexico that pilots red America, was not the tool to achieve this either. Instead, we opted to change the scenario and presented Joe Biden and our northern neighbor with the gift of our absence at their Summit of the Americas. Now it was our turn to hold the Pacific Summit; the Pacific is undoubtedly the ocean of the 21st century. We must not forget that neither India nor China has interests in, nor do their ships sail in, the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea.
Mexico again surprises the world. We refused our right to organize the event and moved the entire organization to the city of Lima to defend a President in trouble. Pedro Castillo is in trouble because the right-wing and neo-liberals in his country – the same argument used by other leaders in the region – are evil and only seek the destruction of the people. Therefore, the Pacific Summit will be held in Peru, and we will not go anywhere but where our brothers in trouble require it.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador is neither Fidel Castro nor Hugo Chávez; he is an absolute cultivator of the charm of impossible legends. He is Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s redeemed spirit, who prefers 10% efficiency and 90% loyalty in public service. For him, what matters is the value of the symbol.
Today, the people marched again. One march after another. The first was on 13 November. Today’s was his response. Demonstrations and demonstrations that do nothing more than continue to divide an already fragmented country. A new march took place in the same places and the same streets where at some point, Agustín de Iturbide; Antonio López de Santa Anna; Francisco Madero; Francisco Villa; Emiliano Zapata; among others, were euphorically and enthusiastically welcomed. The streets of Mexico City have always been ready to enthusiastically welcome, albeit for a short time, characters and groups ranging from Hernán Cortés to those who seek to defend the National Electoral Institute (INE) or those who – by dint of millions walking the streets – seek to protect the conquests perpetrated by the 4T.
One day, historians will write the balance sheet of this era. For the moment, poets and singers have all the elements to compose beautiful ballads, beautiful poems, and beautiful songs. Politics is poetry, and poetry, like faith, is the people’s hope.
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