Antonio Navalón
People. People. People. We are the people. Nothing without the people. Everything with the people. At some point in history, Andrés Manuel López Obrador would change his identity to place a new sign of identity which is the one he chooses, embraces, and represents better than anyone else and for his own benefit, which is to be the embodied and living spirit of what is in the best interest of the people of Mexico. It was July 1st, and it had been five years since that historic day in July 2018 when a man forged under the ranks of the PRI – a fact that should not be forgotten – and who grew up amid political dalliances and struggles that include personal risk. Sheltered by one of the most intelligent characters of his party and with a confrontation with those most inclined to establish a regime of authoritarianism, this is how the figure that emanates from the president of Mexico was developed.
History is not an isolated event based on a moment. There is no text without context, and in the face of this, it is necessary to know that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with his commitment to making it clear that he is not part of the system that forged him, has gone to the extreme of not only ignoring his past but doing everything to destroy what he once shared and that surrounded him. From day one, confrontation has become a constant in this administration, making it clear that either one is on the side of the 4T and its maximum leader or is simply against it and deserves all that this implies.
Just as it is convenient and necessary to put an end to those who abuse the goodwill of the people, it is necessary to know that no people can live or triumph over themselves if there is a division and confrontation between two or more parts that make it up. President López Obrador’s speech in his fifth government report fulfilled what was expected, a speech loaded with reiterating what inspires this government. In the past, Abraham Lincoln made a statement about his government being the “government of the people, by the people and for the people”, a phrase and ideology that – I do not know if successful – the Mexican leader has not stopped boasting. The people as a shield, as a raison d’être, and as the only destiny that will carry all our sacrifices, successes, and mistakes, was and has continued to be the discursive line of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Accompanied by the new generation that will succeed him and escorted by two women, his wife Dr. Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller and the recently appointed Secretary of the Interior dressed in white as if it were an ancient event from ancient Greece or Rome, what happened this July 1st was nothing new and nothing we had not expected from the President. The discourse he has handled since before he wore the presidential sash is not one of integration; he does not believe in integration. He is a radical prophet who believes that his mission is none other than to find the good ones and exculpate and remove the bad ones. Lopez Obrador believes that building a state institution is less important than building a new national conscience, which is why it is so easy to destroy institutions and why we are so generous in granting pardons.
A severe warning was also made, with names and surnames, to politicians, businessmen, intellectuals, or anyone who did not accompany him in consolidating his Fourth Transformation. They are not imprisoned by the walls of the true religion and true God but imprisoned from the future by the flaming sword of the one who does everything and sees everything.
A speech of hate. At the time he began his persecution of the Jews, I doubt very much whether Adolf Hitler really knew what he was doing. What is clear is that the triumph of the will and the Nuremberg congresses and laws were the beginning of a path that culminated in Auschwitz. By this, I am not saying that this will happen, much less that it is what President López Obrador is looking for. But taken from the enthusiasm of his historical mission now that he also feels it is ending, it is essential to know the limits of what can and cannot be done to construct the new Mexico.
The country that the president of Mexico and his 4T wants to install is one in which there is no room for anyone who does not share his ideology or thinking. It is understandable and the cause of many mistakes that the fear – and above all the feeling of not having anything to contribute to the new country – triggers and provokes many people, apart from those who are already leaving, to want to become by any means a determining factor in the construction of the new country.
Except for the balance of institutional destruction, at this moment, it isn’t easy to know what the Mexico that will succeed the six-year term and government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be like. The big question – which is no longer up to him to answer but to those who accompany him – is: do they really believe that it is possible to forge the future of a country based on the exclusion of others? What is needed to be part of the future of this country? If you ask the president, his answer is simple: 90% loyalty and 10% effectiveness. We have to determine if this is enough to solve the severe problems afflicting our country and, if not, formulate a solid counter-proposal to achieve it.
Given what the President has done, we must not use fragmentation and division in our speeches or our day-to-day life; we already know the consequences of what this can bring about. We have to build an alternative or opposition that makes sense, capable of leading us to open the doors of the future. And that begins with excluding ethnic and social cleansing and hate speeches.
What Andrés Manuel López Obrador has done is extremely important and has never been seen before in the history of Mexico. Getting more than thirty million fellow citizens to vote for the leaders is something – for better or worse – simply out of this world. I hope he cares as much as we do about what will be the historical verdict on his time in the presidency of the Republic. And the fact is that, after having consolidated the greatest democratic triumph of the country, it would be deplorable and sad if the balance of his actions and that popular and democratic success ended up failing our nation’s political stability.
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