Links and discussion of Mexico's public life
Interview with Hector Aguilar Camin *
Ariel Ruiz Mondragón
After the blow to Excelsior July Scherer in July 1976 who were part of the activities of the newspaper founded new publications that critical speech constituted the reality of the country. Among them would be found not only journalistic issues, but also literary and academic spirit.
In this regard, undoubtedly one of the political-cultural magazines in the country it is Links . Founded in 1978 by a large group of intellectuals, primarily identified with the left-has been an essential reference of national debate for three decades, which has sometimes led it to be, itself, a discussion item.
Earlier this year the magazine has been the fourth change of direction: Hector Aguilar Camin has resumed, and before he had led, with whom we talked about the history of the publication and its future plans.
Aguilar Camin, a PhD in History at El Colegio de Mexico, recently received a doctorate honoris causa of the Universidad Veracruzana. Contributor to newspapers as Unomásuno , La Jornada (which was deputy director) and Millennium newspaper, received the National Journalism Award in 1986. He has authored over 11 books, which include the novels and stories, as well as Mexican history and politics. He was also the host of television open area, which was broadcast on Channel 2.
Ariel Ruiz (AR): Broadly speaking, what are the major changes that have occurred since Nexus was founded in 1978?
Hector Aguilar Camin (HAC): I see several lines of continuity, but I have no clear major changes. Has a change of address: Enrique Florescano directs from 1978 to 1982, I, 1983 to 1995 Luis Miguel Aguilar, 1995 to 2003, and José Woldenberg, 2003 to 2008.
I think the magazine was a magazine Florescano more academic, intellectual, with a very important component of scientific thinking, much more oriented towards the world of academia. The magazine that I did was much more oriented towards political and literary discussion. I think of Luis Miguel, who was with Rafael Pérez Gay, "was perhaps the finest magazine we've done: a highly refined intellectual, thematic design, but with little strength in the public debate. It was a magazine full of treasures, great authors, great books.
Then I think the magazine that made José Woldenberg was much more oriented towards the issue of public policy agenda of the fundamental problems of the institutional life of Mexico, was a magazine more reflective, more balanced, more measured, also taking an insertion important literary and cultural. The
we want to do now Mauleón Hector, Cesar Blanco, Kathi Millares, I and the editorial board is a magazine that holds the best of them all, and have a very clear emphasis journalism high register, and a touch literary feel throughout the magazine.
AR: There were also changes Links promoted in the Mexican press, and in tandem with Unomásuno in its infancy, what is your contribution?
HAC: I think what really brought Links back to the Mexican press was the attention to what they had to say about the day to day politics, people who did not come from journalism or politics, but had been formed in academia, in the cloisters of intellectuals in the literary life of the country but had not done (with exceptions) in a systematic critique of public life.
From Links (not the magazine, but from that time) began to be very frequent what is now the everyday currency, which hardly has an intellectual, a scholar of repute or a scientist with some recognition, which has no involvement as a critical observer of public life. There is more to see the pages of newspapers. Links think was a trigger for this process.
AR: It was also a magazine that accompanied the Mexican transition to democracy. In this sense, what was the influence, in his opinion, had the magazine in the democratization process in our country?
HAC: In many ways. The magazine had actually originated in concern inequality, and on it mounted after the issues of democracy and electoral transparency. Is a continuous fountain of ideas, controversies, debates around two central issues: the political economy of the country, the source of its crisis and how to cope, and the problem of Mexico's democratic transition.
came to have a major influence as a magazine, and also by the fact that many of the authors pass to public life and become officers, and as such gain, then some ability to implement their ideas . Is the paradigmatic and exemplary José Woldenberg, who after having been a excellent observer and critic of the country's electoral reality, ended up becoming an expert through his academic and journalistic concerns, and eventually became an officer in the electoral arena for years. I think he left in his personal performance, an extraordinary legacy of efficiency, simplicity, institutional commitment, intellectual quality. It is, perhaps, the character who best embodies this double aspect of the contributors to Links , who were intellectuals, academics, and at the same time they were hungry for political participation, public administration and government.
Also, for example, Enrique Florescano was editor of the magazine first, and then made a very illustrious career in the field of public administration, culture: it was long time director of INAH, and then has coordinated many areas of CONACULTA, with an enormous number of publications . Always, in all things he has done, has been on these two things: intellectual, prolific historian, full of editorial initiatives with a very impressive bibliography, while the maker, the officer in the field of culture want promote open, build new things.
AR: You are one of the most prominent intellectuals who have accompanied the country's democratic transition. What changes have produced the democratization process in the intellectual?
HAC: I think the election issue and the political transition took too long, but ultimately fruitful too, in our heads and our writings. It is now clear that we were a lot of things out, and that the electoral and democratic transformation of the country is not enough to make a just, equitable, efficient.
now lags behind the agenda of the democratic transition, and begin to appear equally fundamental topics: the institutional design of the powers, insecurity, growth of organized crime and the issue of modernity in the sense of how the country compares with the global process of modernization.
So, I have the impression that we have come a long way and yet very little that the country has lost many opportunities. I have self-criticism that perhaps we were not smart enough to pose problems early and watch them clearly. I feel that we are still clouded the horizon nationalist revolutionary and nationalist pedagogy throughout the PRI, and that prevented us from seeing clearly problems such as oil, the state's role, the role of the company, the role of law, and there we have the head taken by many taboos. Tolerate unlawful because we believe that there is some justice in the cases of people who break the law, we believe that PEMEX is the bastion of our national dignity (to me seems rather an enterprise worthy of being passed to the scale to see what is being .)
So, I think we are still a lot of cobwebs, and perhaps in this new stage of Links would be good to make a list of taboos to be attacked without mercy, we will do, to see how many enemies we got.
AR: From the History of Links , and in this new era, what has been the political-ideological definition of publication?
HAC: Always I thought of the orbit of social democracy. If I had to define the type of guidance that I like for me and for a magazine Nexos cone is a Azaña Manuel said when told that was defined, whether it was socialist or liberal, and said: "I am strong socialist liberal. "
I believe in collective guarantees given by socialism, because I think it's the only way that everyone can get to enjoy the freedoms that are the essence of what we want from a citizen: to be free at all orders, physical freedom, mental freedom, religious freedom, as well as economic freedom and social freedom, which are the most difficult because they are full of restrictions. Probably pure liberalism can not guarantee the latter two freedoms, social and economic, needs a socialist or socializing component. Then, in order to fulfill the ideal liberal socialist need a floor.
AR: Seeing the first issue of the brand new direction, I think they're doing a magazine with another player profile, I also looking to attract other groups, as well as can be seen in the online version: the young. What the reader profile you envision for this new phase of the magazine? HAC
I do not know if we were thinking of a reader, but While the quality of what we were doing. We had, for example, a group of movie was, of course, young people who had their own interests, and there was not even to consider what the reader wanted to go.
When I started thinking about this, I remembered something that dates back to 1978. When Enrique Florescano founded the magazine, I was the deputy editor. The following year came to be part of the drafting Rafael Pérez Gay. Florescano was then 41 years, I was 32, Perez Gay 21, and the dean of the Editorial Board, which was Pablo González Casanova, was 63. I would like a magazine that could talk to all those generations, I would like to have partners in the journal all these ages. That would make them a natural way we speak, at least in parts of the magazine, all these ages.
AR: What are the main challenges of Links into the future?
HAC: I think the main challenge is the quality of content. If we follow where we begin, this is a number of high-quality, improve and grow in terms of quality, the rest will come alone, in the sense that we will be very acceptable to advertisers and readers.
would put the number one challenge in the quality of magazine, I think that means making each section as done by hand, with an intensity and a microscopic search for quality, detail by detail. It seems that if we do that, readers will feel it, you'll see it, and advertisers will too.
Then, with a magazine that is connected with readers is very easy to approach advertisers in search of resources.
AR: One of the fronts where it has been questioned more Links is its relationship with political power. What has been the relationship of Links with the government, and now with the government?
HAC: It's a fairly magnified by the newspapers, which is currently nonexistent, there is no relation to governments beyond the treatment that may have to invite someone to work, or find a sponsorship advertising. Actually, it was so long in the magazine.
Another thing that was very visible is my personal relationship with President Salinas, and then as all that covered the magazine, as if it reflected this relationship. I, for anniversary number 30, I checked the magazine of those times with great care, and found quite diverse and so wide in its records as it had been before. I did not see the actual content of these magazines is nothing to what some in the press said, those who did so in part because they wanted to beat Salinas, and I sort of criticizing me for doing so. Actually, I think the really existing magazine was far from what the image that those of the press built.
Nor do I think that too many changes now. I never thought or acted, of course, in a magazine in the service of any political interest, sufficient to prove that I have never held public office in my life. Would have to be very awkward to have put something in the service of political power without having benefited from that.
Well, it's part of the literary quarrel, as well as cultural and political dispute, which one has to take the case. As I said President De la Madrid when they came criticism of their children in the imminence of the election: "They are rotten fruits of the season."
is impossible not to, but far from reality.
AR: We talked a lot of changes, but what do you consider the great continuities sen, the permanence of the proposed magazine Nexos ?
HAC: We want to remain the political magazine, cultural and literary doyenne of Mexico. We want to remain part of the discussion of public life, we want to be a part intelligent, thorough, balanced, but also intense and critical the reality of our country and respect the reality that our country and the reality of the world.
In that sense, Links was from the beginning intended as a critical review to discuss and promote changes in Mexican society, a critical review for change. We are in the same, so we have not changed anything.
* A shorter version of this interview appeared in Millennium weekly, no. 599, February 9, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the director.
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