Antonio Navalón
It is written in the history and practice of human relations and world survival that – as Charles Darwin explained in his time – there is a law of natural selection of species in which only the strongest, the best prepared, and the most easily adapted to change are the ones that survive. The 4T is much more than a political experiment. The 4T is a redefinition of resistance capabilities in which the goal is to see who can survive in the hostile environment surrounding the country’s political sector.
Mexican jails are not filled with the members of the cartels and the thousands of criminals in the country, nor are they filled with those responsible for the very nasty plague of corruption that stalks our land. The promise was made to end corruption and bring to justice those responsible for the sad and troubling national picture. However, being in the fifth and penultimate year of the administration, this was another of many promises that were not fulfilled. What is certain is that it was precisely the environment of corruption and the lack of transparency at the moment of accountability were some of the elements that flattened the path for the arrival of President López Obrador and his Fourth Transformation. A regime in which it has been demonstrated that there is not much room for debate and that the only and last word is the one that comes out of the mouth of the person who resides in the National Palace.
We are in the middle of August, and the moment of truth and certainty is getting closer and closer. At this point, it is essential to know who will occupy the National Palace, although it is more important to know for what purpose he or she will occupy it.
The issue of our children’s books is an issue that escapes an undeniable question: any political regime that wins by a democratic procedure that would have given the people the opportunity to choose has the right to impose or not systems that replace the previous ones. An election is enough to lead the way to change, exit, or destruction of a country. The only difference between the right to change and a well-made change is its mechanics. Legal systems can be changed; nothing prevents the president from decreeing the end of the Constitution and calling for a constitutional process. However, what the president cannot do is change a legal system to full-fledged authoritarianism without counterweights.
Currently, the problem is not whether or not they had the right to change the content of the textbooks; the problem is that their vision of how the world and Mexican society should be differs significantly from most Mexicans’ vision and way of thinking. Although they have the legal power to make the changes they deem convenient in the textbooks, it has recently been found that such change does not fully comply with what is stipulated in the General Education Law since such law mentions that before the textbooks were produced, the study plans and programs should have been published, which did not happen. Given this, a judge issued a definitive suspension, but, as has become customary, the government ignored and disregarded the judicial mandate.
The key to any law lies in the widespread acceptance it achieves. The difficult part of any law is not to impose it with blood and fire on others. What is complicated is that widespread acceptance becomes the best element of the defense of the law.
We have reached the end of a historical cycle in which the great question that arises does not revolve around whether or not to condemn the guerrillas of the seventies – a right and power that a State can exercise – but rather the real question lies in the search for a balance between what can be done to defend society and what is intended to be done when there is no other way of change than through the use of violence.
Many things have changed in Mexico in the last decades, including us. Still, the big question that needs to be answered is if all the changes, all the violent acts that are registered every day, and what it means to live in the shadow of a regime without legal protection, what will it be replaced by? And I ask this question because, so far, there are no clear proposals to guide to the true path of development and growth. All Mexicans have the right to question what kind of change will come when this administration ends. It is not only about holding elections every six years and changing leaders and political ideologies as a repetitive and meaningless act; it is about finding a way to be better. And in that sense, the reality is that so far, we have failed miserably.
Nor is it a matter of surrendering to what happened in the past and resigning ourselves to accept that what “did not happen in our time does no harm”. It is about achieving a national harmonization in which the past, present, and future are aligned with the growth and development we seek as a country. It is not that we forget all the damage that corruption and violence have caused our country; it is that we can understand the real damage that such a corrupt, violent, and confrontational path leaves a large percentage of our society completely unprotected.
The solution does not lie in the continuous proposition of changes, campaign promises, or in seeking victory for one side or the other. The key is to draw up a road map to ensure a real transition that, with all its built-in elements, will convince everyone of what we need to do to improve.
The modern world is at loggerheads. We live in times when polarization and social division have triumphed over the need for harmony and consensus-building in societies. The problem is that the world and Mexico need to know what they want to be, where they are going, and who they are willing to follow. In this sense, what is less important are the ‘corcholatas’ or this failed attempt to try to change mentalities by force without an explanation that counts with the active collaboration of parents and all those who do not feel represented by the 4T. However, not feeling identified or not sharing with the ideology or actions of the 4T does not have to mean being that part of the country excluded and violated in different ways morning after morning.
The most challenging thing that society, not only politicians, faces is to mark our limit. And that limit is not only characterized by imposing laws or posing situations that cannot be changed through dialogue or conviction. The limit has to be marked under the affirmation that all those not part of the Fourth Transformation and loyal to President López Obrador have the right to remain Mexicans. Not sharing an ideology or political action cannot and should never be a reason to be excluded or delegitimized by those in power; quite the contrary. The president’s primary duty is and should always be to safeguard and protect the integrity of all Mexicans at any cost.
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