Photo art by Esmeralda Ordaz
Antonio Navalón
The physical death of living organisms has different manifestations, but, in itself, death is poisonous. At some point Gabriel García Márquez said that “the only bad thing about death is that it is forever”, but an element that makes this inevitable event even more dangerous is a toxin called botulin, which is produced when the body it ceases to have life and it can also be transmitted to living bodies, having a lethal and deadly effect. This type of poisoning is known as botulism.
In politics, the most difficult thing is to know when botulism started or, worse still when this poisoning is in a politician, and actually in his body. But, in the political sphere, what is it that announces the stench of death? And I propose it because, make no mistake, politics serves to manage power and true power is granted by the ability to manage fear, dread; statistics, and the strength of the State against others. Although naturally, power is always used on behalf of others and to – theoretically – defend societies, the reality is that the people from whom they really have to defend themselves are their rulers. But these things are not explained, since they are taken for granted. The capacity for ignorance and naivety has a limit: human beings. And that limit has to be respected.
What happened on the afternoon of July 8 in Washington, D.C.? In addition to peace, harmony, understanding, and the recognition given to the great leaders, what was the stench that passed through the streets of the American capital? Abraham Lincoln was a man who was naturally not perfect. Moreover, the chronicles of the time speak of his imperfection, as well as his serious character alterations.
But there came a time when, after many circumstances, Lincoln focused all his life and energy on the goal of preserving the union at all costs. As he himself said in his Gettysburg Address, the Civil War was not to end slavery, but primarily to maintain the union of the United States of America. Another thing is that a sine qua non condition to win that war was to free the more than 1,300,000 slaves that were in the United States at that time. Well-armed slaves who, under cruel and unfair treatment by their masters, could have set out to defend the south of the country.
Last week, President López Obrador set up a guard in the same place where another dreamer such as Martin Luther King himself had a dream, the symbolic Lincoln Memorial. Both Luther King and Lincoln had a dream of which George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement are evidence that it remains unfulfilled. And the reality is that whites and blacks are not the same, among other things because deep down nobody wants that to happen. But this denial has put the United States on a path of irreversible confrontation. After visiting the Lincoln monument and placing the respective floral offerings, the Mexican president went to prostrate before the Benemérito de las Américas and – once again, as happened in the prologue of his visit to the White House – at the López Obrador’s head rumbled – I suppose – that respect for the rights of others is the guarantee of peace. Already at peace, the Mexican leader went to lock up with Donald Trump.
Trump has a fixation on Mexico. No matter how opportunistic and as much as the US president is unaware of the Trump who ran for the 2016 election, it is necessary to recognize that Mexico is a core part of his political sentiments. When I heard Trump’s statement in 2015 that our people only sent drugs, crime and rapists to the United States, I thought that American society would turn against him and crush him, since this was not only a racist comment, but also dangerous. How naive of me.
After more than thirty years living in the Republic of the North, it is difficult for me not to see a countryman of ours in every doorman, handyman, babysitter or chef that I meet. Countrymen who – putting both himself and his family at risk – Trump simply decided to classify as murderers, rapists and drug traffickers. Contrary to what I thought – and I admit that at that time I did not know anything about the country in which I was living – hatred against Mexicans was the channel of failure, violence, and the latent feeling of frustration of the citizens of which one day it was the most important country on the planet called the United States of America.
In 2016 Trump lost the popular vote, but consolidated himself as president by winning the electoral vote. Later he made the wall, one part was built with cement and aluminum, while the other part was made based on a National Guard. And in the end, Trump has been fulfilling everything he has been saying since he was campaigning. It has massacred the international order, it has destroyed the military balance, it has reduced the State Department to a simple cover, it has also offended the Defense Department and it has laughed at the intelligence services. The US president has even threatened to forgive his colleagues and partners for commercial atrocities such as the sexual atrocities they have committed. Well, that same Trump is the one who, less than a week ago, welcomed the president of the fourth transformation to the Oval Office.
What was the best thing that happened on the tour last Wednesday? That except for the necessary interpretation that we have to make about the courage that President López Obrador had, to remind his US counterpart that Mexico was not a colony, for a period of twenty-four hours there was no direct offense against Mexicans . Apart from the aforementioned and the fact that Mexicans would never feel like part of a colony, that day the relations and the dialogues were cordial and even with a bat in the hand of each president.
After that trip, what can happen? Something very simple: the logic of that trip and the excessive amount of love spilled dictate that Trump win the elections next November. Moreover, it is a request for an indirect vote towards our countrymen, since, if Trump did not win the election, Joe Biden would include us – along with the unions – as members of the list of his favorite enemies. In addition, if he wins, the hypothetical President Biden would have a certainty that Trump himself has taught him, which is that the people of Mexico like to be tortured.
What could go wrong? If Trump wins, nothing. In case this happens, what will the incumbent president of the United States give us? I hope it is not the electrification of the wall. Was it necessary to make that visit by the Mexican president? Definitely. But let’s be clear, two don’t fight if one doesn’t want to. And it is that the true demonstration of power and force is the granting of forgiveness.
Understanding the trip made by President López Obrador in political terms is a mistake. Understand it in social matters, it is too. Understanding it in economic terms is essential since avocados and all the products that are marketed between both countries are elements that cannot be omitted. But, beyond the commercial, it is necessary to understand the visit in deeper terms and under an immutable truth. Not in religious conditions, but eternal. With President López Obrador as the main architect of what happened, on July 8, Mexico forgave the United States of Donald Trump.