Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Is taking to the streets to express oneself the same as rescuing the nation? Some will say that it is necessary to fill the streets to make oneself feel and present the demands of a large sector of society. There are also those who will say that it is not only not good but that it is not necessary because it creates chaos and confusion in the processes of national discussion and debate.
There are positions for and against. It is a good debate. It is a debate that emerges from a specific context. It arises seriously in the prolegomena of an electoral process considered by all as crucial for the future of the country. There will be those who will argue that a victory of Morena’s postulates is indispensable to consolidate a process initiated by the current government and that it is necessary to continue along the same path. There will be those who will argue that continuing on the same course means leading Mexico to a precipice of authoritarianism, loss of liberties, and a one-party system.
This debate has generated an atmosphere of confrontation and division in the country. Some call it polarization. The political environment is full of bitter epithets, thrown from one side of the court to the other and back again. There is an indisputable fact: at the apex of the discussion is La Mañanera. This so-called daily press conference is an instrument not to inform the citizens but to disqualify, label, denigrate, and blame anyone who dares to question the actions and decisions of the government and, particularly, of the President of the Nation.
Specifically, the President defines the tone, quality, and value of the national debate because he is the President and has established an iron control over the media every morning. This iron control exists because even though the media may have differences of opinion or criteria with what the President says in his monologue, all the media are pending what he states in his press conferences.
This “tone, quality and value of the national debate” that AMLO imposes on the political conversation is a harsh confrontation with broad sectors of society. He has alienated vast population sectors for the most diverse reasons. What is present in all his opinions is the marked disdain for the people he criticizes, the scorn as a tone he uses, and the invention of data, sayings, and facts to support his positions.
We can speak of the “victims of the 4T” with all certainty. Women, children, young people, farmers, journalists, intellectuals, businessmen, doctors, academics, researchers, middle classes, and many more. All have been insulted and offended by the President’s words and actions. The incredible thing is that he does not care.
It took some time for society to react to the President’s behavior. At first, there was the notion that he would come to his senses, seeking acts of reconciliation. But when this did not happen, some voices began to be heard, articulating the need to organize forms of resistance to the government’s onslaught. The political parties that were brutally defeated barely managed to babble loose and unconnected ideas about how to face the new reality that had never lived. They were as bewildered and lost on the Richter scale because they were diminished and lacked any influence over the facts and decisions of the country. They could not understand the blow received in the 2018 elections.
The pandemic disarticulated society. The women’s movement that had gained extraordinary strength in 2019 and 2020, including having carried out a successful national “One Day Without Women” strike, abruptly faded away. Fear of unexpected illness isolated and individualized the existence of most of the nation. At that time, and placed before an inert society, the President loosened his supposed “government program”. Everything seemed to be under control. There were few expressions of resistance. The official interpretation of that moment in the country’s history was that the 4T had triumphed all along the line. But it was a wrong perception, a product of the disease that destroys all politicians who govern without wisdom, although with cunning: arrogance.
What was not seen, nor considered relevant, was the organization of civil society groups that began to organize in the face of the vacuum left by political parties clueless and overwhelmed by their defeat, but also by the 4T government that failed to react to the pandemic, did not want to spend money on the country’s recovery, and, therefore, allowed the death of nearly one million people victims of Covid.
That citizens’ organization woke up and demanded the parties to unite on a common front and to leave behind their ideological and programmatic differences. That need to unite was clearly seen by the civil society. However, the parties were slow to understand it, so dumbfounded by their defeats and the pettiness of their internal bureaucracies.
The 2021 electoral coalition of the opposition would not have happened had there not been this demand from civil society on the importance of its union. The parties resisted this call, but reality prevailed: either they united or would be overwhelmed by the ruling party. The political parties as only they know how: in defense of internal interests, of sects and groups, imposing candidacies that generate discomfort, new arrogance, and ruptures, big and small. The same thing is happening everywhere.
Today, we are at a crossroads that may well define the continuity of the liberal Republic as we know it or accept our slide into the black waters of authoritarianism, a narco-State, and corrupt militarism.
The elections will be decisive for the future. And civil society is called to react with all the strength it has accumulated in the recent agonizing political journey. Today, its mission is, perhaps, more transcendent than ever. It must impose the rationality and clarity of the objectives to be pursued in these troubled times. This is no time for petty vices and short-sightedness. The Republic is at stake, and civil society has the privilege of a crystal-clear vision of the short, medium, and long-term objectives.
Therefore, filling the Zócalo tomorrow, February 18, affirms that we are still here collectively. We are more and more each day, firm as the process advances and more resolute in our determination to force the laggards and those fearful of losing something of theirs that this is the moment to act with generosity in carrying out the collective deed of saving Mexico from its downfall and then, to focus on the task of national reconstruction.
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