How to Squander the Little that Unites Mexico - Lorenzo Meyer

Reforma: Lorenzo Meyer*

Theme and Problem

In Mexico the relationship between the nation and the State or between citizens and authority structures has never been very good, and neoliberalism has weakened it further. If the market is the main force responsible for allocating resources, tasks, rewards and punishments, why do you want a State characterized by a lack of democracy and plenty of inefficiency and corruption?

Indicators

If one consults the dominant view of public affairs in Mexico, one cannot but conclude that citizens have a very poor opinion of the status of their State. An analysis of the surveys in this field raises the question of whether the center of our political life has lost, or is about to lose, its ability to hold the social structure together.

Consider some of these surveys. Formally speaking, Mexico is a democracy that, in 2000 and 2012, experienced two separate peaceful changes of the party in power as a result of an election. However,  the fifth "National Survey on Political Culture and Citizen Practices" (ENCUP), in 2012, prepared by the Secretariat of Government Relations (www.encup.gob.mx) reports the following:

In answer to the question of whether or not Mexico is actually a democracy:

• 34% answered yes; 
• 31% answered no; and 
• 33% said only in part. 

To the question of whether respondents expect that our democracy would improve in the future:

• 27% said yes; but
• 28% felt that it would not;
• 23% assumed that it would only partially improve; and
• 17% simply do not expect any changes. 

It's no wonder that when respondents were asked to choose between economic development and democracy:

• 50% voted for economic development;  
• 21% voted for democracy; 
• 27% refused to choose.

When asked about the extent of corruption in the country, where zero means absence of corruption, and 5 means total corruption, citizens gave a rating of 4.54, i.e., they perceived their world to be very close to absolute corruption.

A majority--57%--said that it ranged from Impossible to Unlikely that in Mexico there would be an end to this unfortunate phenomenon [corruption]; and 91% of respondents felt that ours is a country where the rulers fulfill the law hardly or not at all.

A Light in the Dark

In this very bleak situation there is, however, an issue where the majority response is notable for its positive character. To the question "How proud are you of being Mexican?":

• 75% responded "very proud";
• 19% responded "proud";
• 5% responded "somewhat proud"; and 
• only 1% chose "not proud".

Faced with skepticism about our democracy, the mediocrity of economic growth--the average annual GDP growth per capita in the last two presidential administrations is only 1.3%--the poor quality of government, its inability to combat organized crime and other similar factors, the bulk of Mexicans reaffirm their sense of nationalism. It is, therefore, in the persistence of a strong sense of Mexican-ness, where there is something positive and politically important. But the power elite as a whole doesn't seem disposed to benefit from it, but rather, to ignore and squander it in favor of a status quo that, justified by the "laws of the market", benefits them in the extreme.

Nationalism

The origin of Mexican nationalism can be traced to some Creole [pure-blooded Spanish born in New Spain, i.e., Mexico] circles at the end of the colonial period, but its effective development occurred beginning in the mid-nineteenth century as a defensive reaction to the consequences of our proximity to the United States, an emerging power with a robust nationalism. One of the bases of aggressive U.S. nationalism was the idea of ​​building a nation that was "exceptional" from the start, which in turn served as justification for its imperial actions--its "manifest destiny"--first in Mexico and later in the rest of globe.

There isn't one definition of the concept of nationalism but several. Eric Hobsbawm, the great English historian who recently died, chose the one developed by Ernest Gellner, who interprets it as the demand to achieve agreement between the State and the nation, the latter understood as a social structure linked by a common culture--a system of ideas and behaviors (Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).

The problem of Mexican nationalism is precisely that the demand for union between nation and state has rarely has been met. The last time that coincidence was seen, and it was one of the best, was 75 years ago, during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas [1934-40]. The expropriation and nationalization of the oil industry, reinforced by an agrarian reform that expropriated large domestic and foreign properties directly for the benefit of the peasantry, resulted in a great moment of unity between State and nation. It was a defensive unity, not an aggressive one, which injected confidence into an authentic national project that was rapidly diluted.

Oil and Nationalism

Miguel Alemán [president, 1946-52] couldn't go very far in his attempt to open a discreet door into the oil industry for foreign companies. Carlos Salinas [president, 1988-94] didn't dare put oil in the NAFTA treaty with the United States. Felipe Calderón [president, 2006-12] couldn't move forward much with his idea of ​​making deep water exploration an area in which Pemex could openly "associate" with foreign companies. However, little by little and discretely, since the 1982 financial crisis, areas of petrochemical production have been reclassified or allowed the growing presence of private capital in activities that were originally declared the sole responsibility of Pemex. Today, they are extraordinarily profitable and present almost no risk, such as "services" and transportation provided by companies like Halliburton.

In 2012 the return of the PRI to the presidency and the "Pact for Mexico" has reopened the discussion about what to do with the oil industry. The new government says it doesn't intend to change the basic nature of this activity, as the oil will continue to belong to the nation. But actually that's not the heart of the matter, rather it is what it intends to do with the character of Mexico as a producer, processor and exporter of crude oil.

The nationalist project was precisely not to be suppliers of crude oil to the international market, not to use oil profits to cover current government spending, so that those who owe taxes could avoid paying them. It was to import only what was necessary to compensate for what Pemex couldn't provide.

Today, the Mexican ruling class could once again proposes making Pemex a Mexican company, run by Mexicans to fill real Mexican needs and an example of Mexican capabilities and will power. It could return oil to its character as the material, objective and productive base of the sense of nationalism that today simply doesn't have an anchor and whose energy is dissipated because there are inconsistencies between the unsatisfactory State that actually exists--oligarchic, inefficient, corrupt and unable to arouse the imagination of the majority--and the nation that, despite everything, still demands reasons to believe in and be proud of itself.

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*Lorenzo Meyer is an academic and columnist. He earned a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in international relations from the College of Mexico. He also carried out postdoctoral studies in political science at the University of Chicago. He has written several important works on the external relations of Mexico and on the Mexican Revolution. He has also written on the Mexican political system, its authoritarian forms of power and the democratization processes of the twentieth century. He has taught in Mexico, the USA, Spain and England. He has been a columnist for NOTIMEX, Excelsior and currently Reforma.