Antonio Navalón
What will be the last summer of this Mexican six-year term has formally begun. It is also, in many ways, the last summer for many places where, whether due to uncertain electoral results, war, or invasions, the alteration of their normal life will begin to outline what the world of the present will be like and above all, the weight of the commitment of the past.
I am currently in Europe, and all the time, I feel the missiles flying over my head from Russia to Ukraine and vice versa, with the ever-present threat that it would be enough for one of them to explode in the wrong place to initiate a global catastrophe. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, no one imagined that this event would end up triggering a war that would result in 18% of Ukrainian territory being occupied by the Russians, more than 6 million Ukrainians taking refuge in other countries, nor the hundreds of thousands of deaths that this conflict has caused. It is also a war causing many countries to reinstate compulsory military service, with social reactions that we will see. However, that will not be easy to assume and will constitute a kind of traumatic cut.
We no longer have the millennials as the dominant generation. Still, we have those who followed them, and since they were born and we have been cradling them, they never had in their calculations or assumptions the idea of having to be in the military by obligation. It is a change that, beyond producing laws and legal modifications in the parliaments, forces to have a space for reflection since even Putin himself and his Russia – which is not exactly a model of respect for others – made and created conditions in which many people were exiled and that remind us more of the years of the Vietnam War than of the new wars. In short, it is tough to imagine the position and disposition of young people about going to war and doing compulsory military service. I question this because we are talking about generations whose only proximity or scenario of participating in the war had only been raised in their video games.
The truth is that while Europe breathes, enjoys, suffers, and discovers a hitherto unknown country, thanks to the Olympic Games, there is minimal reflection on the war itself and on the fact that this war already has hundreds of thousands of victims and millions of refugees. As armies and weapons inevitably run out of steam, one of the contenders can only stay in the conflict as long as the United States, Europe, their ideological allies, and their neighbors continue to lend and finance their participation in the war. Otherwise, it will be a matter of time before the Donbas area and what is left of the region will be part of the new reconfiguration of the European map, which we now know what it looks like but do not know what it will be like once the war is over. A war that, in the words of Donald Trump and as one of his election campaign promises, could end “in a matter of 24 hours”.
In Mexico, the beginning of the end is underway. In less than 60 days, the man who has gained the most power democratically, the only ruler who saw the apotheosis of democracy of what it means to have the support of the majority – not only reflected in the numbers obtained by his candidate for President but also by his absolute dominance in the Chambers of Deputies and Senators – the time has come for him to leave. Such is the law of life and the Constitution, despite their continued efforts to modify it to their liking, changing it so much that it ultimately becomes unrecognizable. In that sense, judicial reform is essential to achieving the objective. The uncertainty of this transition is palpable, and it leaves us all on the edge of our seats, waiting to see what the future holds.
Justice is a term that takes a long time to mature. Almost nowhere in the world are societies happy with their judicial system. The problem is that the previous step for justice to be expeditious and, above all, fair is to guarantee widespread acceptance when approving the necessary legal modifications to decide on the life and functioning of a country. It is obvious that after the clash and what has been experienced during this six-year term, justice is undoubtedly – and rightly so – at its lowest point of credibility. This is partly because no institution, such as a mañanera, can withstand intensive treatment for such a long time without coming out unscathed.
It is useless to start discussing whether what happened was fair or unfair. The outgoing president does not want to leave the National Palace without having liquidated, first, the possibilities of constitutional change by using his legislative majority. Secondly, he does not intend to leave without approving his judicial reform, which may end up being just another electoral process in which, in order to participate according to what has been said, it would only be necessary to know how to read and write to become a judge. The fact is that with the idea of proposing a raffle to pre-select the candidates or that it is not essential to have experience – not only jurisdictional but also legal – it is always possible that the human being, in his tireless search for efficiency and truth, improves what we have. In principle, from what we know, have suffered and experienced, it is challenging that with these instruments, it is possible to produce a new generation of judges who are up to what we need, which, in the end, is only that our claims are treated seriously and that we can have guarantees and public faith that justice, despite everything, is justice.
In the midst of all this, looking to the left or the right – depending on where you are – and focusing your vision on the United States, an interesting picture emerges. The first two weeks without Joe Biden have been awful for Donald Trump. For starters, it’s impressive that his advisors still need to understand that the campaign that was done and won against Biden disappeared when the still-president resigned from the presidential race. Now they have to face off, recovering the worst of Trump – which is neither his intelligence nor his strength – which is to insult.
Right now, the world is being shaped by different ethnic realities. African Americans have a significant role in the birth and development of American history. However, numerically, it has been gradually losing its weight due to the diversity of migrant ethnicities that have arrived in the United States, such as Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Pakistani. The migratory flow of these ethnic groups to the United States is increasingly important, a fact that indirectly affects Donald Trump’s attacks on Kamala Harris. The American vice president has Indian ancestry on her mother’s side and Jamaican on her father’s. Therefore, unless Trump has discovered a detector that allows him to identify the sense of belonging over ethnic origins, it is clear that there is a shortage and lack of solidity in his arguments against the smiling – and surely histrionic – former prosecutor and candidate for president of the United States.
Now, everything is in the air, and no one knows who will win. Although I do invite you to follow the campaign since, among the various phenomena, a significant one has taken place: the joy and enjoyment of badly hurting and using human decrepitude due to the effects of old age has disappeared, and the creation of a character like Donald Trump, who until a few weeks ago was smiling and confident about his imminent return to the White House, now, he is beginning to look worried and suspicious about what might happen.
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