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| President Peña Nieto presenting his Third Government Report on September 1 |
Sinembargo: Adrián López Ortiz*
Translated by: Emma Brooks
“Transformation without destruction”: these are the words of President Peña Nieto that have been stuck in my head since he presented the Third Annual Government Report.
It’s a pity, because they portray him and, at the same time, strip him naked. Because these two verbs are, without a doubt, incompatible when you are (or at least claim to be) trying to profoundly change a country.
It brings me back to this government’s slogan: “Moving Mexico”. The phrase is ambiguous and abstract, but also honest. The President wanted to bring us out of our paralysis, not determine a new course. He wanted to shake us up in order to get on international front pages [he was on the cover of Time magazine early in his term], but with no further purpose.
Transformation without destruction; this is exactly what the President has demonstrated in three years. He wants new agencies, new programs, and significant reforms, but it’s all for nothing. When it comes down to it, we have to maintain the status quo. We have to protect interests, keep privilege intact, and continue being a country that serves a select few.
Schumpeter, the great “creative destruction” theorist said it well: in this capitalist world, there cannot be innovation without destruction. Without getting into theoretical nuances, something similar applies to the Mexican political system; it cannot create new structures, and better institutions and incentives without destroying the old ones.
That is why the profound change that the President and his team are trying to sell us, this new Cabinet with its shiny new Ten Point program, is impossible. To truly transform we must destroy. Destroy the old, the obsolete, everything that remains, and most of all, everything that holds us back. And in Mexico, there are many things that hold us back. Many what’s and many who’s.
We are held back, for example, by powerful union leaders, who want to preserve their privileges and those of their class at the cost of the survival and viability of the institutions that they claim to protect. Bring the Mexican Social Security Institute [IMSS] or the Social Security Institute for State Workers [ISSSTE] to the point of bankruptcy, the Secretariat of Public Education [SEP] become ineffective, Central Light and Power disappear [State-owned company in Mexico City eliminated by President Calderón]? What does it matter, if you can be a millionaire on a laborer’s salary and have the protection of the fuero [exemption from prosecution] and of the party.
We are also held back by the political class that fancies itself some “new royalty” from another planet, parading their latest-model suburbans, bodyguards by the dozens, and watches worth half a million pesos, and meanwhile selling us “dramatic” reductions in their agencies’ budgets. We are held back by their corruption and their shamelessness. Their effrontery.
We are held back, and hurt, by organized crime. Narco-politics are a menace to public service, a virus that consumes it and corrupts it to the extent that it is now impossible to distinguish between politicians and criminals in many of this country’s states, and at all three levels of government. Manuel Clouthier, independent member of the Chamber of Deputies, pointed this out on the podium in Congress this week.
We are held back by the incongruity of our President including a government austerity plan in the last point of the Ten Point program, after exhibiting extravagance with the purchase of a new airplane, trips to France and England, and his family's expensive tastes. The incongruity of creating a National Anti-Corruption System, reviving the Secretariat of Public Administration, and simultaneously absolving himself of conflict of interest for the “white house”; we are held back by the shameful role played by Virgilio Andrade [Secretary of Public Administration, who absolved Peña Nieto of conflict of interest in house purchases from government contractors].
We are held back by the complicity, the silence, and the cowardice of the political opposition. Where is the critical voice of the National Action Party [PAN], and the Party of the Democratic Revolution [PRD], or is it better to keep quiet about their government financing? Where is the ideology, where are the values, and the principles of the political parties? Out the window – they’d rather have a Pact of Impunity [reference to the parties' Pact for Mexico].
We are held back by business owners who denounce corruption in public, but feed it in private in order to obtain million-dollar, multi-year contracts. As the saying goes: “To demonstrate this, there is a recording” [of recent behind-the-scenes phone calls between contractors and government officials].
We are held back by the government-aligned media and uncritical journalists who are content as can be with their millions made from official publicity. Those who, filled with pride (and money!), extort and intimidate while nestled in the power their positions grant them.
We are held back by government-aligned intellectuals and the perks they retain. We will likewise be held back by the new Secretariat of Culture, and the grants they will start to hand out in order to create a new official “intelligentsia”.
Finally, we are held back by comfortable citizens, quiet and cowardly, who allow themselves to be overlooked and walked all over by all these actors who know themselves to be untouchable. We are held back by those who do not complain, who do not insist, who do not demand.
Our government institutions are developing, it’s true. Clearly insufficiently in many cases, but there are new spaces, new laws, definite court rulings. There are some admirable people.
These are all valuable precedents to uphold, and public and legal support of them is worth holding on to in order to register complaints, amparos [court protection, like injunction], petitions, journalistic investigations. These are all part of the citizen’s arsenal that can be used to change this country more quickly and to push out that which holds us back, because it will never leave its place of privilege voluntarily.
It is time to destroy this country, in the best sense of the word. It is time to clean up the rubble and construct a new building, one that is more inclusive, more habitable, and more just.
If we truly want to change this country, government institutions, businesses, media, and civil society will have to be distinct from one another, radically distinct and necessarily better. It isn't possible with what we have now—it isn’t enough.
It is time to destroy in order to transform, even though Mr. President doesn’t like it. Spanish original
*Adrián López Ortiz is an engineer and teacher of humanistic studies with a concentration in applied ethics at the Tec de Monterrey. Since 2012 he has been the Director General of Northwest Newspapers in Sinaloa. He is the author of "A Country without Peace" and "Attempt at Provocation" and co-author of "Culture in Sinaloa: Narratives of Society and Violence."
“Transformation without destruction”: these are the words of President Peña Nieto that have been stuck in my head since he presented the Third Annual Government Report.
It’s a pity, because they portray him and, at the same time, strip him naked. Because these two verbs are, without a doubt, incompatible when you are (or at least claim to be) trying to profoundly change a country.
It brings me back to this government’s slogan: “Moving Mexico”. The phrase is ambiguous and abstract, but also honest. The President wanted to bring us out of our paralysis, not determine a new course. He wanted to shake us up in order to get on international front pages [he was on the cover of Time magazine early in his term], but with no further purpose.
Transformation without destruction; this is exactly what the President has demonstrated in three years. He wants new agencies, new programs, and significant reforms, but it’s all for nothing. When it comes down to it, we have to maintain the status quo. We have to protect interests, keep privilege intact, and continue being a country that serves a select few.
Schumpeter, the great “creative destruction” theorist said it well: in this capitalist world, there cannot be innovation without destruction. Without getting into theoretical nuances, something similar applies to the Mexican political system; it cannot create new structures, and better institutions and incentives without destroying the old ones.
That is why the profound change that the President and his team are trying to sell us, this new Cabinet with its shiny new Ten Point program, is impossible. To truly transform we must destroy. Destroy the old, the obsolete, everything that remains, and most of all, everything that holds us back. And in Mexico, there are many things that hold us back. Many what’s and many who’s.
We are held back, for example, by powerful union leaders, who want to preserve their privileges and those of their class at the cost of the survival and viability of the institutions that they claim to protect. Bring the Mexican Social Security Institute [IMSS] or the Social Security Institute for State Workers [ISSSTE] to the point of bankruptcy, the Secretariat of Public Education [SEP] become ineffective, Central Light and Power disappear [State-owned company in Mexico City eliminated by President Calderón]? What does it matter, if you can be a millionaire on a laborer’s salary and have the protection of the fuero [exemption from prosecution] and of the party.
We are also held back by the political class that fancies itself some “new royalty” from another planet, parading their latest-model suburbans, bodyguards by the dozens, and watches worth half a million pesos, and meanwhile selling us “dramatic” reductions in their agencies’ budgets. We are held back by their corruption and their shamelessness. Their effrontery.
We are held back, and hurt, by organized crime. Narco-politics are a menace to public service, a virus that consumes it and corrupts it to the extent that it is now impossible to distinguish between politicians and criminals in many of this country’s states, and at all three levels of government. Manuel Clouthier, independent member of the Chamber of Deputies, pointed this out on the podium in Congress this week.
We are held back by the incongruity of our President including a government austerity plan in the last point of the Ten Point program, after exhibiting extravagance with the purchase of a new airplane, trips to France and England, and his family's expensive tastes. The incongruity of creating a National Anti-Corruption System, reviving the Secretariat of Public Administration, and simultaneously absolving himself of conflict of interest for the “white house”; we are held back by the shameful role played by Virgilio Andrade [Secretary of Public Administration, who absolved Peña Nieto of conflict of interest in house purchases from government contractors].
We are held back by the complicity, the silence, and the cowardice of the political opposition. Where is the critical voice of the National Action Party [PAN], and the Party of the Democratic Revolution [PRD], or is it better to keep quiet about their government financing? Where is the ideology, where are the values, and the principles of the political parties? Out the window – they’d rather have a Pact of Impunity [reference to the parties' Pact for Mexico].
We are held back by business owners who denounce corruption in public, but feed it in private in order to obtain million-dollar, multi-year contracts. As the saying goes: “To demonstrate this, there is a recording” [of recent behind-the-scenes phone calls between contractors and government officials].
We are held back by the government-aligned media and uncritical journalists who are content as can be with their millions made from official publicity. Those who, filled with pride (and money!), extort and intimidate while nestled in the power their positions grant them.
We are held back by government-aligned intellectuals and the perks they retain. We will likewise be held back by the new Secretariat of Culture, and the grants they will start to hand out in order to create a new official “intelligentsia”.
Finally, we are held back by comfortable citizens, quiet and cowardly, who allow themselves to be overlooked and walked all over by all these actors who know themselves to be untouchable. We are held back by those who do not complain, who do not insist, who do not demand.
Our government institutions are developing, it’s true. Clearly insufficiently in many cases, but there are new spaces, new laws, definite court rulings. There are some admirable people.
These are all valuable precedents to uphold, and public and legal support of them is worth holding on to in order to register complaints, amparos [court protection, like injunction], petitions, journalistic investigations. These are all part of the citizen’s arsenal that can be used to change this country more quickly and to push out that which holds us back, because it will never leave its place of privilege voluntarily.
It is time to destroy this country, in the best sense of the word. It is time to clean up the rubble and construct a new building, one that is more inclusive, more habitable, and more just.
If we truly want to change this country, government institutions, businesses, media, and civil society will have to be distinct from one another, radically distinct and necessarily better. It isn't possible with what we have now—it isn’t enough.
It is time to destroy in order to transform, even though Mr. President doesn’t like it. Spanish original
*Adrián López Ortiz is an engineer and teacher of humanistic studies with a concentration in applied ethics at the Tec de Monterrey. Since 2012 he has been the Director General of Northwest Newspapers in Sinaloa. He is the author of "A Country without Peace" and "Attempt at Provocation" and co-author of "Culture in Sinaloa: Narratives of Society and Violence."