Agents of Change

12 years ago, in 2000, when the PAN (National Action Party) came to power, all Mexicans asked themselves if in that election they had made the right decision for the future of Mexico, having lived through a period of inefficiency and arrogance under the PRI (Industrial Revolutionary Party) government.

Now, 12 years later, the major error that we made in electing a conservative, reactionary party full of incompetent, mediocre corrupt politicians with no social, legal or moral sensitivity is blatantly clear.

Mexico is currently experiencing one of the worst periods in its history. Widespread corruption, neglect of the population’s problems and needs, rising unemployment, both open and hidden, with 14 million people out of work, and an absurd war on organised crime that lacks strategy, vision and alternatives, is condemned to failure, and has meant the death or disappearance of over 150 thousand people.

It is now clearer than ever that Vicente Fox Quesada, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and their accomplices and collaborators never had an adequate strategy or any nationalist interest in putting Mexico and Mexicans first.

For them it is simply a case of unreservedly handing over the country’s natural resources, since today over 25 percent of the country has been given away in concessions to mining companies and the extractive industry who monopolise and speculate with land to their own ends. The servile appeasement of foreign and national business interests and the loss of sovereignty mean nothing to these governments. What is more, they believe and are convinced that they have acted correctly. They have no shame, but this does not bother them, and they try to convince the population by using the media to contaminate the minds of Mexicans.

The cynicism that prevails in government prevents them from seeing that they themselves are the origin and the centre of the wrongs of these 12 years, with their boundless personal ambition and their lack of principles and values. Even more importantly, however, is the constant violation of the state of law and the perversion in the application of justice for their benefit and that of the people who act in complicity with them, businesspeople, organic intellectuals, unethical media, unscrupulous politicians and all the flora and fauna of corruption. As a consequence, we now see the destruction of the national system, as well as the negation of a future filled with hope, justice, dignity and happiness for current and future generations.

But today, thousands, even millions of students and young people who are prepared and conscious, who have woken up and are disillusioned with the current situation, have denounced these abuses that have built up over time. Their expression of dissatisfaction has coincided with that of the unions and free workers who have been fighting for democracy for many years and demanding an end to the impunity surrounding the serious and profound violations committed by governments in the last 30 years.

This new movement of young people in society must grow stronger every day, demanding a radical move away from this economic and social model that exploits the population and our country’s natural resources.

They can certainly count on the unconditional solidarity of the majority of independent, democratic and respectable intellectuals and journalists, of the working class in rural areas, in industry and in services, of honest politicians and businesspeople in Mexico and abroad. Nonetheless, they must absolutely not lose their drive, enthusiasm and true desire for change and transformation towards a fairer, safer, freer and more democratic society.

Together, we and those young people are the new actors and agents of change. Let us not lose the drive or the opportunity so that in six years, if we get there peacefully, we will not feel the same regret of not having correctly chosen the government that we need. Let there be no repetition of the negative and contemptuous statement that the people gets the government it deserves; that is an insult to the intelligence and the moral and human integrity of the Mexican people.

Young people burst onto the public scene when they quickly deduced from the positions of the political parties in power and their allies that those people saw the electoral process as a simple exercise that would conclude with the announcement of their supposed victory. Their enthusiastic participation is a warning that this will not be the case, because students are demonstrating strong morals and values that have not been seen for years, which must be used to build an element of fundamental stimulus for all social and political forces, and for the members of society who long for substantial change.

Listening attentively and calmly to the call of young people is, right now, a priority for the whole country, so that we might obtain the results proposed by this sensitive sector of Mexican society. They want no more blood to be spilled, no more violations of the state of law, no more attacks on their own future and the future of all Mexicans.