Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
Carlos Fuentes Extraordinary Lecture.
School of Law. The National Autonomous University of Mexico.
October 10, 2023.
Abstract:
In a long struggle, as was Carlos’, many of us remain firm in our aspiration and determination to build and develop in our country a democracy that takes deep roots, endures, and grows broadly. That aspiration and that effort today encounter obstacles that can only be overcome with the concerted action of the State and society: social inequality and poverty; an economy that is subject to restrictions that prevent it from growing and distributing with equity; insecurity, violence, and the presence of criminal groups that are present throughout the nation and that attack and offend everyone. In the strictly political field, the obstacles are the disqualifications for the simple fact of disagreeing, the absence of proposals from parties and groups, the discouragement to participation, the verticalism in decisions, violations to the rules, institutional erosion, instead of invitations to dialogue, to the serene and objective analysis of ideological and programmatic proposals that would enrich public life -political, social, cultural – and show possible paths to follow according to diverse visions, offering options to the State and society, to citizens and collectives to overcome specific problems, as well as proposals to decentralize decisions and powers that would strengthen democracy at its bases, and to recover institutional strength.
The most widely felt problem throughout the country, which demands urgent attention, control, and eradication, is the growing presence of crime, insecurity, and violence. For about two decades, the Armed Forces were entrusted with the main task of solving this problem. Since then, from administration to administration, the bodies responsible for confronting and abating this calamity have been doing the same thing, showing incapacity and incompetence, thus obtaining, time and again, the same meager and unsatisfactory results. As time goes by, the problems have become more acute and complicated, affecting more extensive territories, larger populations, and increasingly diverse activities of economic, social, and even political life, as has been seen in the cases of drug traffickers’ involvement in electoral processes.
Experience shows that other paths must be sought: if the Armed Forces have not given and are not giving the expected results -understanding that this is mainly because they have not designed adequate strategies to achieve the desired objectives and do not have the training required for police activities since this is not their constitutional function-, it would be necessary to consider entrusting this task to a different body, it should be appropriately sized, prepared and equipped, with a genuinely effective intelligence, duly coordinated with the areas in charge of the direct fight against crime, which, as it has been demanded from different positions and as established in our Constitution, should not depend on the military area of the administration, but should be located in the civilian part.
The militarization of civilian activities in practice shrinks the democratic spheres. The decision-making mechanisms in the military and civilian management are radically different. I consider it urgent and indispensable to make civilians responsible for managing eminently civilian activities and to keep the military strictly in the areas of military responsibility.
The evident failures in the fight against crime and making military personnel responsible for the management of public works in violation of the law by allowing the non-compliance of legal ordinances and barring it from public scrutiny, a practice that is being applied with respect to, among others, so-called flagship projects, is generating severe discredit to the Armed Forces in the eyes of society, and on the other hand, the administration of public works and placing the military at the head of the administration of customs, airports, and ports, leads to a very sensitive division within the Armed Forces themselves, by creating, among high and middle commanders, an elite that enjoys perks when performing civil administration activities, as opposed to those who limit themselves and strictly perform military functions, in many cases of challenging tasks and even at risk of their lives. This is not a healthy condition for our Armed Forces, a body that for no reason should lose moral authority in the eyes of society or erode its cohesion.
And after the electoral contest, the next step is to solve the problems that most affect the people. There must come a stage of many dialogues with a constructive spirit, from which, among other things, a call to formulate a project for a nation must emerge which, based on their coincidences, will present Mexicans with a proposal that we can collectively turn into realities among all of us.
Video of the event:
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Further Reading: