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A story for the future. Mauricio Tenorio Trillo interview

A story for the future

Mauricio Tenorio Trillo Interview *

Ariel Ruiz Mondragón

The commemoration of the centennial of the great deeds of our history ha conducido a algunas reflexiones (no muchas, la verdad sea dicha) sobre el pasado, presente y, sobre todo, el futuro de nuestro país. Perdidos entre celebraciones tan espectaculares como vacías, discusiones anecdóticas, biografías noveladas y procesos telenovelados, así como ataques a la historia oficial, se ha desaprovechado el tiempo para pensar y cimentar un porvenir distinto.

Uno de los intentos más serios proviene de una colección de ensayos reunidos bajo el título de Historia y celebración. México y sus Centenarios (México, Tusquets, 2009) de Mauricio Tenorio Trillo. En este conjunto de textos el autor aborda, con irreverencia, humor and rigor, different edges of the celebrations and their motives, and some proposals for future coexistence for the country.

On some of those issues we talked to Tenorio Trillo: the essay as a form of knowledge, understanding and how this affects the understanding of the past, the PAN's discomfort with the story took place, the continuing importance of nationalism revolutionary and the responsibility of historians in the creation of new myths.

also touched issues such as the revaluation of the past, present and common future with the United States the country's democratization process and its relation to historiography and intellectual relationship with the government, as well as proposals for a new mixing and to limit liability deficiencies of the political class.

Tenorio Trillo has a doctorate in history from Stanford University and a professor at both the University of Chicago and the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE). Author of five books, in 2006 also held the chair Rosario Castellanos at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Ariel Ruiz (AR): Why what to write and publish this book?

Mauricio Tenorio (MT): There are three main reasons why I decided to write this book. The first has to do with my work not a professional historian who writes books complicated and boring that only read other historians, but to education. I am a teacher, and I've been all my life I've been teaching here in the United States and Spain, for example.

Teaching is another of the parts of the story, the least valued of the historical profession, but it is very interesting. As a teacher, one of the things I always wondered was why the boys were put to my courses. Actually you know what is history and that's what surprised me a lot. I ask: what's the story? Reply: "History is written by the victors history is the past and you have to know because if not, we repeat the mistakes of the past. It is essential to have an identity, not to betray you to be yourself. "And I said," Well, then close the door and let's go. You know what's the story. The data, dates and take them out of these shit Google. "

What happened to me was that after so many years of giving history, I started using this way of writing, to speak, to make a kind of test to unlearn, first, before learning. My teaching work has led me to have some concern about basic questions about the story they have to do more than inform, to try to create doubt, to see the irony of things.

The second reason that seemed important to write this book is very cyclical. I am a historian of what Eric Hobsbawm called "the era of centenarians", from 1870 to 1970, and all my academic life has been dedicated to that period, about which I have written many things. Suddenly I realized that I have reached the Bicentennial, and then maybe pretentious and improperly, I believed armed with some knowledge of history and conduct issues and talk about what's coming.

The last reason is that I write professional books, monographs, full of quotations. But I think for longer-as we say, an essayist in the strict sense of the word, use the essay as a form of knowledge, ie to use irony as a form of knowledge.

I know that part of history professionals, including Mexico and my own colleagues have said that the great error of our academic life is abuse of the trial. Everyone writes essays, is created with the ability to say anything. I think, on the contrary, the trial is a form of social awareness, political and historiographical very important. But it is a form that requires an initiation rite, an entrance fee, in my opinion: I like to write historical essays those who have written history, research in archives, read history, and now they can say aloud essays, with irony , capable of provocation, something . I enjoy reading science tests, which, in Castilian, unfortunately they are few. Who writes the essay in economics? The economist, who has already paid the cost of entry and who has written very complicated mathematical formulas. That is the price that I can have a clear essays.

AR: There is an essay that caught my attention, "The law of nature pachanguera of history", which states that the celebration is a political decision and that what is celebrated the present. Today, what is the political decision that now leads the festivities, on the one hand, and on the other, what is the mind that is celebrated? Especially considering that the federal government is the PAN, which I believe does not share many of the old thesis official history.

MT: would answer with two very specific comments about what you just said that I find very interesting. On the one hand said: "I want to believe, Mauritius, you say you hold is not a matter of history, but the present, and is a political issue. What is the mind that we have today? Describe it. "

And the second is in view of a PAN seems uncomfortable with the textbook that we all learned, with a story from the post-revolution took over the liberal story porfiriana, and urged him we all learn.

Regarding the former, it is curious: one believes that the hardest part of the story is to find those documents that no one has taken, or to find phrases and facts that will give us the truth, and then we will understand completely. But it's so hard to tell, because the past is over and is lost. No, the hardest part of the story, since it is dictated from the present is to understand it, so it is very difficult because you never have the relevant distance.

The other day, in an interview asked me if we are in a revolution. Well, we can be and not have realized. The story always work like that kind of galaxy that exploits two light years and only now comes to us and we learn. In 1911, the end of the year they learned that Mexico had a revolution. How are things? For a change of government, Porfirio Diaz resigned, politicians negotiated with Madero, all agreed. But no one knew, at least not the one we know. In 1815, when Hidalgo had been killed and the royalist army and the English Crown had defeated all but one or two guerrillas, and Ferdinand VII had returned, no one knew that Mexico was going to Independence, had not even spoken it. So this is very difficult to understand.

But this is what dictates what we see the past, sometimes unconsciously. Seen now in our centenary, we must see what is being discussed in the press about how to celebrate. One speaks, for example, that there will be a book about women in Independence. Why? For the present, because now women are important, because we had a movement that comes from the sixties, multiculturalism, the struggle for civil rights in the United States and Mexico. Now we have to do that, this is a mandate. However, it is very obvious: how can we, when one is put in the garlic, describe it? It is very difficult. The more chaotic and unacceptable is the present, is much more difficult to organize the past, because we have no notion of what we want, not even a glimpse of what we want or are afraid to come. In this live without an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat is coming, because there is a feeling that this is fucked up, we are all wrong, what else can you fear?

So, this is difficult to decipher, and I think it's one thing to envision. But if one thinks of the great moment of transition in Spain, in 1980, yet no one knew what would happen to the English democracy, and post we have rebuilt, and with good reason, the figure Adolfo Suarez, who knew what he wanted. Maybe not true, but it is important to keep these myths, because at least maintained the notion of future and state in these difficult times, when some were put under the table and plotted or were in the all or nothing.

I think we have many ideas of how to enter government, few of the state and the future that follows. It is normal, and not the fault only of bad politicians. Intellectuals have much guilt.

the opposite is also some intellectuals: Jorge Cuesta into the twenties, who had no idea what was happening and knew his critical describe this, the best Octavio Paz, in the age of seventy, who knew what was the present, where we were going, that communism and Marxism were being made were not presentable. Gabriel Zaid is in the same decade, opposition to the guerrillas. You need a vision not fully present, and I do not see here, among us, myself included.

On the second subject, I think you hit the nail, and is something that is not mentioned in the book: I believe that the PAN-no Vicente Fox, who is not a PAN, the first of the Presidents the whole tradition is PAN Felipe Calderón is very uncomfortable with the story that when I give a class and I make fun of it, stand up to protest in Los Angeles or Chicago. The Blue-Whites are very uncomfortable with that story Jacobin liberalona, \u200b\u200bsocialistic and populist. However, it is curious that dare not get out of the closet to our heroes of Catholic consciousness that it would be nice, why not talk about them? - Or the importance of Catholic thought to the Mexican Constitution. Could have, and rightly, but they are afraid that they come over the populism of the left, right and center of the PRI and the PRD.

What do we have? A PAN uncomfortable with the official story, but the shares with López Obrador, if you ask their heroes, it says the same. What does this occur? Atrophy of the imagination.

AR: Another thing that struck me is the mention in a couple of tests, revolutionary nationalism, that despite everything, including democratization, "remains as the only accessible from us." What can be built to replace the revolutionary nationalism, with its hindrance of authoritarianism, backwardness? Is there a choice?

MT: I do not think so. It's like a huge cow udders keeps feeding us, but nobody feeds it to her. He gave us our pride in the mixture, the heroes of the Revolution, in the Aztec past, in all that we learned in our textbooks. Construction is very complex, because there was not even a will that has made, but was a trial and error: it was appropriate of liberalism and indigenismo Porfirian rebuild it and use what was more or less working. A cow that is then put back an army of teachers union and fucking!, That grew as you have no idea. But mostly it was a welfare state, corrupt, filthy, but also was the IMSS, Infonavit, the CTM, everything without which the cow has nothing to eat.

So we're going to milk, but it has no protein. But there is nothing more than that, there is no substitute. Not even the right has dared to propose something.

As I have studied history in the ancient and historical consciousness, I find some examples: in Spain, in 1980 education drove Franco Spain pride in a great and unique, it is extremely alive, despite that are making big changes in education including the notion of centrality that can speak Catalan, Basque that is published, democracy, freedom of worship, passing the divorce. However, there is a big resistance, today, there is a deep Spain still think imperial. That still alive but no one daily feeding.

But, how do you replace that? Not replace this type of structures, historical consciousness, with a "take it off and put another tape", no. You have to live there, to know, even share

I'm not a critic of nationalism because I think it is a belief ignorant and stupid, and highly educated people, like me, who studied in America and you think, consider that these are things of barbarians. It is a feeling of belonging important, and I respect that. Yesterday someone asked me: "Why these fools in the United States will celebrate the May 5?" Let them celebrate! Who am I, stupid historian, who has not given them anything, not the Mexican government, which now wants to teach history if not give them anything? To celebrate what they like, and who is not me telling them not to do so.

Since nationalism is important, starting to understand and inhabit, First, as in Spain, to build from the bottom. Was on the verge of collapse, but had two central ideas: democracy and Europe. At two filled them with content, not spiritual or discourse, but of money and opportunities. Democracy meant: "You'll have access to a pension, social security, and above all a great investment in education." Europe wanted to say: "Here are the resources for infrastructure, here's the money to build."

We are in the era of "transition," I hate to say, because I make fun of her in a the laws of history that postulated in the book, which is what historians say we do not know what is happening. So we are in transition because we do not know what will happen: either the right or left dare to think. The left, largely shares this revolutionary nationalism and the right not dare to challenge him and has nothing to make change.

But how could fill revolutionary nationalism? Better educate, provide critical. I propose a little fun of the story, live, discuss and laugh, and then, through education, investment opportunities, begin to move away.

AR: You said that José Vasconcelos himself admitted that was dedicated to making myths. But it has been assumed that one of the tasks of historians is to dismantle the myths, but you say you also have to inhabit these myths, share the objectives of national coexistence and redefine them. From this, can you believe that one of the tasks that should be doing the historians would also manufacture myths?

MT: Do not put so clear, but now that you ask me, put me against the wall. I think I should answer you that to be consistent with me itself, historians must effectively participate in the myths, because we make them anyway. What is the problem? See what myths. This does not mean I'm giving up my work "scientific" in quotes: I'm on my meetings with my students in their dissertations and theses in the investigation. Historians have an almost traditional view of history "let's discuss what you mean, where did you get this" and so on.

But we have another role, and we have always fulfilled: it was with historians and history that created this nation. Why should we leave now that?, why not begin to choose those myths that we create, as others have done in other countries, beyond a hero? We need to change size, not history, assuming it, inhabit it and resize it, make democracy can be proud, we belong to a place that allows me to be what I want to be, in which the laws give me justice, including things. Historians have to start creating it.

So, while I as a historian and a connoisseur of English history know that King is not the myth that being said, I think it is well established. As Caetano Veloso responded when American anthropologists and many people told him: "In Brazil it of racial democracy is a myth, no such." "Of course it is a myth, but to be not so bad. I'm not saying there, but not bad to have it. It's a good myth. "

Myth does not mean trick, no cheating, I will not lie to the story. Rather, it is starting to create a form in which everything is memory and forgetting, and start playing with it to be proud, despite the troubles. For example, democratic structures that give us ownership, or to begin creating a joint idea between the U.S. and Mexico, a myth that we allow the Americans, Americans and Mexicans live in a way beyond Tom and Jerry, in a way that assumes that in the past, for what you want, we made history together. At present we are doing, and if there will be future will be together.

Then, create myths necessary. I proposed that the Bicentennial was time to sit at them, what will be a very difficult construction. These things do not happen in the overnight, but yes indeed we are to create myths, but a good historian is one that does not make them, but he who does good myths.

AR: You do exercises historical imagination, for example, calls to look into this other part of Mexico that is America, with the idea that our future is destined to North America, which would be composed of the two countries and Canada. Is it a good idea to make myths? Is it the equivalent of the European idea?

MT: I am a victim and prisoner of my mind, and I can not catch a glimpse. But in fact, I throw a water bottle saying something: North America, the Great Lakes region and the great deserts, should give a historical dimension to our consciences, for us to start making something there to give us pride. Not to say that it has to stop being Mexican or American, or what this means, because there are 13 million Mexicans, and the United States has Mexicanized and we have Gringotization.

In both countries, I notice a nostalgia for the strong hand, in Mexico from the arrival of democracy and, above all, the unleashing of violence and insecurity, and also a U.S. concern by terrorism. Before anything happens, why not begin to sow the seeds of these myths that allow us to say: "we're together"? It is not whether Mexico is safe or not, but that what happens here happens United States, and it is our responsibility to do something. Not to say that we will follow the European model, because our neighbor is an empire.

should be put certain conditions: you you get to your wars, I give you soldiers. Yesterday someone asked me: "You mean that Mexicans are going to fight U.S. wars?" They have been fought all, what is the problem? From the First and Second World, in Korea and Vietnam, Mexicans everywhere have fought for the Americans. You may say: "Americans are bastards." But I talked to the descendants of those Mexicans, and are proud of having fought for the United States. Who am I to say, "You were wrong. False consciousness. "No, this country will not give them anything. He gave citizenship to those who fought the Korean War gave them education and retirement, are proud, therefore, that there are now four or five generations of soldiers.

So I think we should sit down and discuss, not only include a new concept of history, but also insecurity, underdevelopment and poverty. Would be the time that the rich take responsibility, which the United States and Mexico have never existed. Here there was no Marshall Plan, but not so bad to tell us: "Here is the investment, but you have to come to this." Our country will not ever be like the American Union, or what we want, but must reach a certain level of development, income distribution and inflation, such a judicial system, and so on. To tell us: "Here are the funds, I'm not giving you the free, and eventually we'll have to have some agreement." The Americans and Mexicans have lived all the time, they like and dislike, and there no problem. I believe that America is one of those ideas that can reshape our revolutionary nationalism, cast. But it is not easy to sell this idea here and there.

But historians are in the dilemma of doing what we always do, or at least release a message for the future historian: "Look, I already realized that this was dangerous and wanted do something, but did not fly. There was more imagination. "

Why it did happen in Europe? Why were much more intelligent historians and intellectuals? No, because there had already been killed enough, and because they had no other. How much more we have to do with the destruction of our institutions by drug traffickers? How many more you have to go to America, many more remittances, how many more massacres must be to think otherwise? I do not know.

AR: In Mexico, what has been the impact on the Mexican democratization process historiography?, Is this has contributed to this process?

MT: I think the process of democratization has brought good news and bad news for those who create historical consciousness. One, I think democracy has undoubtedly become more insecure the grid, which has meant that fewer people leave the academy, and has created incentives for it is more stable, professional, at least, all fields of social sciences. Although lacking a lot of investment and is a disaster of higher education, academia is much better, and is good news.

Second good news, and not say publicly because they are secrets between us has brought democracy to the intellectuals, historians and opinion makers who think myths and more money. If our major sponsor before the state was and still is, we never left our pattern-revenue sources have diversified so that most of us our income doubled and we have entered the elite pundits and the media. And democracy also brought press freedom relatively quickly, rather than creating a mass of well-paid journalists do research, then the spaces we occupy.

Turn on the radio or television on any channel, and there we are, all of us. That is good news, nobody will say no. Many of us live very well off of it, which is good news, which would reduce that we are participating. At the beginning of the democratic transition, before the election of Fox, I saw people like Enrique Krauze, Roger Bartra, or even the actions and speeches of a person as Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, and then José Woldenberg, and others who were thinking they were participating and creating these myths democratic then we would need.

Something happened in the process, and some felt betrayed because it was they wanted democracy. Jorge Castaneda has lived in this, but then was disappointed because he was not the sponsor

Sometimes I think that some believe that democracy will be much more, and who are their parents, and indeed we are . López Obrador, in his final campaign in 2006, together Elena Poniatowska, appointed the great heroes of democracy, and did not include the engineer Cardenas. However, while the enemy, you have to recognize that even with its responsibility in the 1988 electoral fraud, not rising, no fuss, to behave at the limit of the notion of state in this country, did much to this country. To me it makes me a boring person, but it's almost our Suárez. Fool, if you want, but he behaved like a statesman.

But even though we have a better academia and a lot more influence in the media and in public life, I would say that today's intellectuals and academics we speak of the political class as if "fuchi" but we are politicians, we are on the subject garlic all the time, not only because we believe, but because we are in the halls where politicians consult us. I think many of my generation who are in the CIDE, who have become counselors, school directors, OECD Secretaries of Education, IFE officials. We are the political class.

I expect that history would have been most affected by the democratic change: the way we write, the discussions, the role of historians and themes. While they have changed: is an interpretation of the institution-based Independence, the Constitution of Cadiz, all of which has to do with this, with democratization, but not as much as I expected. I think this has to do with that despite the democratic changes, which are very large in many respects, one thing has not changed with the Fox administration or the Calderon Cardenas nor is the relationship of intellectuals to the state . Sponsorship remains the same weird, yes, but go to work at my television, or go to the embassy this, or why not my advisor, why not pay you the textbook, why not arrange me Bicentennial.

Fox I thought that something would happen, but not only nothing happened, but turned to the best of terms against the intellectuals, and Calderón think some intellectuals were horrified that this itself would be the first Catholic was fags out to hunt and we would be in fair to intellectuals, but we as always.

But there was, at the level of expertise, much discussion. For example, a new branch of history, very important election history. Not previously studied nineteenth-century elections, because they did not, and less in the Porfiriato. Now I have people doing research elections.

AR: There is a chapter on Guatemala. We have seen that ran out the ideology of mestizaje as an element of national cohesion. On the other hand we have the threat multicultural, and you point out some of the dangers of it. However, in some way suggests a mixing reformed. What changes proposed in this notion of miscegenation?

MT: I think it's a weird cycle. We must accept that the breed has failed as a state ideology, if fulfilled his role is one thing we historians and political scientists can discuss, but no longer works because it has nothing behind: there is no welfare state, and we must accept that it was also a way to cover the deep racism in this country.

Then the second part of the cycle is: we throw away the mixture, is a racist ideology, has not been for nothing. What's next? What I propose is that unless we find something better to assume that the breed we have a problem of race and racism in this country, we endow the idea, that is inevitable and undeniable. Then, start building a new concept of mestizaje, which serves to say: "Because we have issues of race, we must emphasize that the breed has existed, exists and will exist, and we have do everything possible to continue to exist, because the opposite choice is even worse, and that, ultimately, the race is not an issue. Miscegenation is a fact and there is nothing to do about it, but start to give institutions a chance to protect the chances of identity.

To me the problem of identity market does not worry me, I worry about the problem to occur in misery, as in Guatemala and Mexico. So if there are institutions, courts, laws and economic possibilities, then, that each person choose their identity. Anyway we mestizos, and it does not matter if you want to plead as mestizo more indigenous or redeem your English. But you have institutions that protect you, you can not kill you and you can be or cease to be.

The problem now is not just that you can not, for example, be an Indian because you discriminate, but can not stop being indigenous because the anthropologist gringo and Mexican multiculturalist will scare because you have your "truck", you'll go to America and then you let your identity.

Then it is institutions that allow opportunities for the indigenous do not have to say "I have mixed", and just access to education, there road, hospital, etc., and now if he wants to keep talking Tzotzil do so. If you want, is a meat-free market institutions.

AR: In much of the book are historical imagination exercises, but not limited to the past, but also attempts to scan the future, for example the idea of \u200b\u200bAmerica. In one part of the book you say: "In 2010 we must also hold future potential." As is now the country, what future notes in two issues raised in the book: democracy "ugly" and inequality?

MT: I think I have the right to have a little hope and optimism in this regard. One of the future that I like most is that these two major issues, democracy and inequality, they start to discuss in a more than Mexican. I think this idea of \u200b\u200bAmerica would be a way to reframe the situation with the United States made more accountable to our political class.

think one thing: one of the major reasons for the irresponsibility of our political class is not afraid of anything. And the poor are poor, the rich are rich, and I can hijack but I live like a king.

If you put a plan of investment for development by the United States and Canada as well as they did in Europe with Spain, Portugal and Greece, and told our leaders: "Goals are transexenales, no matter if they are PRI or PAN, have to be responsible for fulfilling, in everyone's interest because it is a fortune. " Thus even governments become responsible.

I also think, hopefully, that any president should spend the whole six years to educate. At least entertain on that expenditure, and I bet that something good will happen. Not necessarily have to destroy Elba Esther Gordillo, as this, as my friend Fernando Escalante, be happy that their teachers had a lot of money and lots of visibility.

In these futures do not know what would happen, and I can not imagine, but it would be something different. What more do I have to fear is the inertia of not being afraid or future, or, apparently, the need to think about it.

* A slightly shorter version of this interview was published in M Weekly, no. 681, November 15, 2010. Reprinted with permission from the director.

Diaper Raffle Poem For Invites

SEASON OUR ARTISTS EXHIBITIONS ART FAIR 2010

Sample 9 - Christmas Art Fair - 20 to December 24
Sample 8 - Pilar Ceramic Workshop Miquet-3, 4 and 5 December

Sample 7 - Claudia Zanchetta - "Borders" - Sculptures, Paintings, Video-November 26

..... .................................................. .................................................. ...................
Sample 6 - Angelica Rochon Workshop - contemporary art -19, 20 and November 21

Sample 5 - Cartoons - Items - October 15 to 30
Sample 4 - "MEMORIES OF NATURE BEFORE DESTRUCTION"
Angelica Rochon / paintings / photography / installation / video / sound

Sample 3

Sample 2

Sample 1

Lots Of Cm But No Period

Painting-Sculpture-Ceramics-Glass, Works of artist-

Presentation:

Nadalin

-Casagrande, Rosell-Vera Candiotti-Roggiano-Rochon-Molina biological Miquet-Tejeda-Menegosi-Vitanzi-

Volleyball Free Cameltoe

An empty class cultural heritage

The class is empty. That morning the teacher enters, looks at the bare walls, the tables clean, tidy shelves but not life and think:

_ "Another course begins, some are gone and others return to start. Follow the wheel !

Fixed to the bare walls and decide who is to leave them alone for now: a new group of children will go through this class for two years and knows that those walls will be filled with interesting things very interesting ...

This is the story of the classroom of any school: one group takes control of them for a while. Work, learn, laugh, cry, play y. .. they go to school.

That's what happens in this room with bare walls.

Miss do not worry, take as many "flying hours" behind his back and looks forward to the new group. Know that there is much work ahead, and while he smiles, he thinks,

_ "Dear boys and girls from 5 º A, I welcome after another long summer. Start again!

Business "

Find A Senegal Parrot For Sale

The dark side of the left. Interview with José Woldenberg

The dark side of the left.

Interview with José Woldenberg *

Ariel Ruiz Mondragón

In the four most recent decades the Mexican left has experienced significant growth that has made outstanding player Mexican politics, which has held important positions of power. Is a key period in which he has spent virtually the catacombs of the guerrilla struggle almost to the Presidency of the Republic through his intense activity in the independent unions, social organizations and party complex construction.

The development of the Mexican left has had many downs. In the mentioned period also took actions, policies and behaviors more than questionable, which, paradoxically and ironically, there have rarely gone against his own achievements: for example, the defense of privilege, political intransigence, the revolutionary and the atavism attack on the electoral institutions.

on the follies of political sinister José Woldenberg published late last year Disenchantment (Mexico, Cal y Arena), a fiction in which, through a character named Manuel passes critical review of four dark moments of the Mexican left in the period mentioned, in addition to a review of works in which seven writers expressed disappointment communism.

About this book we had a chat with the author, which addressed matters such as literature and memory, the claim of reformism, the bright moments on the left, ethics and politics, and the need for democratic left , among others. Woldenberg

holds a Masters in Latin American Studies at UNAM, which institution is a professor in the Faculty of Political Science and Social. Former Board Chairman of the Federal Electoral Institute, director of Nexos and the Institute for the Study of Democratic Transition. He has worked in publications such as Unomásuno , La Jornada, Point, and currently Etcetera Reform. He has written at least a dozen books and co-author and coordinator of many others.

Ariel Ruiz (AR): Why publish a book like disenchantment, especially taking into account historical memories and historical books such as left memory or history documentary SPAUNAM ? José

Woldenberg (JW): For several reasons. First, there is an attempt to recover his memory, and in this sense is related to left Memory and the Documentary History of SPAUNAM . But unlike those texts, this is a more critical view. Those, in one way or another, were very festive texts largely apologetic, of which I have no regrets because they offer a face of those events that are worth retaining.

But now what interested me was to show the other side and take a critical approach to some of the episodes of the Mexican left in the past 35 years, I think, from my subjectivity, marked for evil.

In that sense, creating a fictional character who goes through a series of events that really happened was a formula that seemed to me appropriate to make that criticism.

AR: How has your transition from the political science literature in this book?

JW: I call loaded test story. I believe that the creation of this character to me allowed me to see the events from the outside, and gave me freedoms that perhaps from the trial or from the autobiography could not deploy. For example, the character is, perhaps, more empathetic and more blunt than I am, but I wanted to highlight the issues inks I'm concerned and I discouraged, as are told in this story.

was then that why I chose this fiction actually charged, but conscious, and so begins the book, which says a caption I use Doris Lessing, who assumes the inability to write the only kind of novel interests you: a book equipped with a moral or intellectual passion so strong that it can create an order, a new way of seeing life. Assuming that disability

, anyway I started writing this book.

AR: There is also the possibility that you stated in the appointment of Alain Finkielkraut ago: "The past must be taken as one's sleeve who is drowning. "

JW: Yes. Even that was a possible name for the book: "As someone who is drowning." This, taken from the phrase I take from Jankélévitch Finkielkraut, which says that the past is to grab the sleeve as someone who is drowning. Because I think a very relevant consideration: the past is doomed to disappear, the inertia of the past makes things evaporate, dilute. Then it takes an effort to try to keep it alive, which is to recover memory.

already know: the memory is always subjective and individual, and I do not doubt for a moment that those who lived, for example, the same episodes of trade unionism, the unification process on the left, the Zapatista uprising and the 2006 post-election conflict, have other views and other versions, surely legitimate. But I'm here I want to recreate this.

AR: One of the book is the mnemonic exercise, and the other is composed of seven essays on writers who were very critical of communism. Why did those seven? There would be many more we could add.

JW: Of course that could increase the list, but what have these seven writers? One, they are very good writers, from my very particular point of view. Two, six of them were fascinated, in a moment, by the Soviet experiment, they placed their hopes in him and that, ultimately, were deeply disappointed.

Third, because they are of seven different nationalities; room because the reasons for disappointment are different in each of them, and fifth, which is perhaps the most basic, it all stopped, whether in novels or testimony, a reflection about what had happened. For example, in the case of Arthur Koestler, he became a novel, a fiction, but in the case of Howard Fast and André Gide they left their testimonies.

What I think gives the final set of reflections of the seven are the different veins of disenchantment. For example, Fast became disenchanted after XX Congreso del Partido Comunista de la Unión Soviética, cuando se conoció el llamado “Informe secreto” de Jrúschov, y cuando se pusieron sobre la mesa todas las aberraciones de Stalin.

En el caso de Gide, él desde antes había viajado a la Unión Soviética. Vio que aquello en materia cultural era un páramo en el que se estaba tratando de homogeneizar lo que debe ser diverso, y dijo: “Esto está mal.” Koestler se desencantó por los juicios de Moscú, y Victor Serge lo hizo por la burocratización y la insensibilidad; George Orwell, quien a final de cuentas fue el único que no fue comunista, se decepcionó por la matriz misma del sistema que se estaba construyendo, a powerful state unable to respect the freedoms of individuals, and then created the dystopia that is 1984.

Meanwhile, Ignazio Silone, who very early, as delegate to the International Italian Communist Party, saw ways to "discuss", and said: "This is not," not to be uncritically aligned to a position and not being asked to condemn someone without knowing who the document is being brought to trial. Not that.

Each is very expressive, everyone has strong reasons, but the seven together make the mural more complex, more colorful and more eloquent.

AR: But the other writer you try, José Revueltas, was very radical, because not only lashed out at the Communists, but came close to condemning the human condition.

JW: That's what I read in terrestrial Days . I think in the case of Revueltas his book is terrible in the best sense of the word, ie, makes his characters very introspective, and I have the impression that almost reaches the conclusion that mankind is unreformable. It says in the text, do not say in its political life, because the appeal of Riots in political life is that while writing this book, as militants continued. In 1949, when he wrote, have not even broke with the party, I say that the book itself, but its membership no. And when he wrote errors then yes, he was a convinced anti-Stalinist.

is a phenomenon that I find very interesting. I think the literature of Revueltas was ahead of his own political texts, and I think, at least until now, has no expiration date, and perhaps some of his political texts themselves.

AR: I think your book is a vindication of the reform that goes from the creation of a university union to defend electoral institutions. Why too much of the left has been so bad given the reformist path? In the book are few episodes ranging from radical left-wing guerrillas that it murdered even reformist leaders of the left, to knock for democracy.

JW: I think you overshoot, that is perhaps one of the strong threads of the book. But I would go even further, because there is a huge paradox: most of the Mexican left, which is in the parties, trade unions, agricultural organizations, which has publications, etc., is de facto reform. However, there is a kind of bad conscience: he wants to be thought of as revolutionary. In the case of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), I think in his own name is that breath.

However, I would also say this: the mechanics of political change and what the Left has succeeded in recent years, has done, from my point of view, the revolutionary currents that go down, and that want to or not, reformism has its way, often without recognizing their own name.

What I mean by reformism? A policy of gradual changes that are in the sense that you think right, and that can be deployed by a participatory and peaceful way, and today in Mexico even institutional.

So, I think the great challenge of the Mexican left to grow further is to assume that democracy is a way, but is also an end in itself. He says the character in the book, and I think that's one of the things that are not yet solved, since there are still a bad conscience that each time it appears the ability to skip stages of the revolutionary path, again activate a set of expectations, the truth, I do not think that can lead to nothing.

That was the case of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. The criticism made, rather than to the EZLN, is the inability of a constellation of diverse leftist groups to clearly condemn the use of arms, especially at a time -1994 - where there was a transition process up, when things were changing in a democratizing effect.

Then, there is a difficulty to commit themselves to a peaceful folds institutional and social change.

AR: The book is very critical, and it identifies four moments of the Mexican left negative: the conservatism of the Student Council (EWC) in 1986-87, the intransigence of the PRD in the early 90's, the EZLN violence and lies about the 2006 elections. But what has illuminated aspects?

JW: A lot. Glad you mentioned. The book is called his name, largely because I want to address the dark side of the left, from my perspective, of course, "and he made no light, but there are many that really happened. For example, I think the process of unification of the left, the process, not the moment to be seen as a happy and very important process.

Two, the left's commitment to the electoral process is a great thing and is a great political capital. The 1988 elections were a time of exceptional growth of the Mexican left, as well as the 2006. Also the political and electoral reforms of 1994 and 1996, which attended the PRD, were policy and institutional redesign that enabled what we see today: electoral competition as never before.

The Triumphs Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, and then for Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Marcelo Ebrard at the nation's capital, as well as victory in Zacatecas Amalia García are bright moments. The decriminalization of abortion see it very favorably.

there are plenty of bright moments, but this is a story that is neither balanced nor wants to be, because when you go that route, then what you want to highlight and focus on the losing end.

I wanted to do consciously is a story of a person to be disenchanted by a series of attitudes, and on-hopefully-I would like to have a debate, a discussion and a correction.

why the text is about the dark side of things, which does not deny that in reality there are many adventurous moments. Moreover, I have forgotten many.

AR: In the early seventies, as shown in the book, one of the major topics on the left, and I think the transition has been lost somehow, it was social inequality. It seems it was more successful the political transition, but what happened to social inequality?

JW: You look good: there was a democratic transition that made us move from a hegemonic party system to a balanced, non-competitive election processes competitor, a monochrome world of representation to a plural of a presidency to a limited overwhelmed; of Congress subject to a lively and plural. It was a major political change.

But that apparently does not change, and that from Humboldt, is that this country is absolutely deformed, crossed by an inequality, sometimes as ECLA itself says, prevents thinking about building a "we" inclusive, Both Mexico because Mexico is marked by inequality, the sense of belonging to a national community becomes involved.

I think that's the fundamental problem of Mexico, and maybe you're sharpening. I also believe that this problem is where the left can have their roots and better growth.

But I insist it is not just opt \u200b\u200bfor equity, which is what must be the unique flag on the left, but combined with the other great achievement of civilization that are individual freedoms.

In this conjunction that, I think, has tried and succeeded in making social democracy in the world can be a way for the development of a strong left and able to reverse the structural failure of Mexican society is its profound inequality.

This topic is in the genetic code on the left. But I say should be of concern even to the right, because one can not be betting only the deployment of freedom in a world of great inequalities as the Mexican. I Said No: The United Nations Programme for Development has warned that much of the disenchantment with democracy in Latin America has to do with poverty and inequality, because people perceive that their material conditions of life in democracy and improve perception then is: "Beautiful Democracy!".

Then, of course, is one of the main concerns of the left, but it should be all political. There is a minor issue.

AR: Another big issue that crosses the book is the discussion of political ethics. Are there any ethical specific policy to the left?

JW: I do not know if I can have an ethic of left and another right. What I do believe, unlike the cynical and pragmatic, is that politics and ethics should be connecting bridges.

There is a pragmatic policy that is perhaps hegemonic, which can be dispensed without difficulty ethics. It is the policy that would, in short, that the end justifies the means.

AR: And as you said in the book, the media are shaping the ends.

JW: The media are often more important than ends, because they are modeling the actor: the way I act, speak, say and unfold, I will be doing to me. Then, the media are not incidental, but rather the opposite: they tend to be more important than ends.

is no coincidence that the armed revolutions usually end up in moments of terror. Because who has pursued the formula feels legitimate political activity, and may extend for a further period.

I return to the idea of \u200b\u200bethics and politics. The character, of course, it repels the amoral pragmatism, but also the other extreme, in which ethics is not in charge of policy requirements, which would as a matter enclosed in itself, so the quotes - at least two teacher-Adolfo Sánchez Vazquez, who is the one who has thought of, from left, the links between politics and ethics in a way, I think, more sophisticated.

AR: Do not you think that, on many occasions, the left has seemed to threaten its gains?

JW: Yes, the left has been beneficially incentive and political change. That is, democratizing change in Mexico would not be understood without the contribution of the Mexican left, but it has also been beneficially. That is, given that there are democratic ways of choosing the rulers, today the PRD has five governors and the mayor of Mexico City. So, while it has been a driver of change, has been receiving him.

However, at certain moments it seems that the Left threatens the very achievements that have served to unfold and grow. This is the case of conduct after the 2006 elections.

Before the 2009 elections could speculate how much it would affect the post-electoral behavior, 2006, but what happened in them, which, by adding the votes of the PRD on one side and the alliance Convergence-PT on the other are something like half of those who had received the Coalition for the Good of All, should be a warning to rectify, I think.

But the hardest thing in politics is correct, because the dynamics of the PRD is very easy to accuse moderate currents the most radical of the results, and also very easy to turn, radicals accuse the moderates of them. Stronger than the reality is the lens through which it is viewed.

Then, reality can change, but if you continue with the same lens, will continue to draw the same conclusions. That is the most powerful issue for any political organization.

AR: At the beginning of the book the main character says: "We are the generation of disenchantment. We made lots of noise and our nuts are rotten. "

JW: Well, the character can be much more emphatic what I am. I think Manuel's vision is high contrast, and that is what I think may be the intention. Maybe in my view there are many more gray, but the idea was to put the character through a series of issues that I believe deserve to be discussed.

AR: For writers who are discussed in the book, after the disillusionment with communism was different positions, from those who continued to insist on social change to that observed in a pessimistic way to the human condition. "You are still left?

JW: I think this is a plea from the democratic left positions to the left. That is, I still believe that a democratic left in Mexico is not only possible but necessary, because it is very difficult from other political ideologies can be put in the center issues of inequality. So I say a democratic left, which is able to combine the drive for equality with the drive for freedom.

* A slightly shorter version of this interview appeared in Millennium weekly, no. 664, July 19, 2010. Reproduced with permission of the director.