Our Mexico, our America

The ideologists of imperialism describe the market as if it were nature itself: before an action, by law, a reaction. The curious thing is that the reaction always occurs in favor of their interests: it is wielded as an instrument of political punishment for governments that do not subordinate themselves to transnational capital. In the counterrevolutionary discourse, for example, the blockade of Cuba does not appear as an immoral act of a political nature, but as a natural reaction of the market. However, the blockade contradicts, by its regulatory essence, the free market; it is a political decision that interferes with its “natural” mechanisms. When a democratically elected government takes office in any country in the region—in the terms of the purest liberal democracy—and asserts its independence, imperialist politicians incite investors: “Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, has sent worrying signals days before taking office,” writes Andrés Oppenheimer, aspiring imperial spokesman for Latin America, in El Nuevo Herald: “she scared investors by supporting a controversial judicial reform, backed an unnecessary dispute with Spain, and invited the dictators of Cuba and Venezuela to her inauguration on October 1.” Let’s be honest, the scare is not on the part of investors, who are not affected in any way by these sovereign decisions, but on the part of politicians who foresee a rebellion in the imperial “chain of command.”

Because this threat, posed to all progressive governments, and subsequently executed with economic political measures, is based on a cultivated pseudoscientific belief: the law of the strongest. If you are the strongest, you have the right to conquer, to plunder, to impose sanctions. It is true that in human history the civilizations that have been momentarily stronger (in no way superior) have conquered the weaker ones. And these nations instill in their citizens a spurious pride for that colonialist past, which they intend to perpetuate. That is the history of Europe, and it is that of capitalism, which from its very beginnings linked all the continents in relations of dependence. But these are different historical times.

In Our America insurgencies spring up, volcanoes that seemed dormant erupt. When imperialism momentarily smothers one —with the use of sanctions, economic and political blockades, judicial or military coups, fraud, media campaigns and, if necessary, assassinations and direct or mercenary military interventions— two others erupt. It is a fallacy, a fake news, this invention that a period of the left is necessarily followed by a period of the right. It is a war of positions, increasingly bloody, in which imperialism uses all its resources. The victories of the right are based on violence or deceit. The day will come when no power, however strong, can claim the right to impose its convenience in international relations. There is no divine mandate, no human jurisprudence, no spurious commercial laws that support the domination of one nation or group of nations over others.

That tomorrow, since the 20^th century, successfully confronts the past and present of international relations. And it is all right that the politicians of conquest, plunder and imposition are frightened when a country like Mexico, so far from God and so close to imperialism, demands that the Spanish colonizers recognize their predatory and genocidal behavior toward the native cultures, or recompose the judicial system of their country, to prevent it from being an instrument in the hands of the traitorous oligarchy, or invite the rulers most hated by imperialism (because they are the freest) to their inauguration. Mexico returns, although it never left, but remained kidnapped by that oligarchy that only recognized the Homeland in the music and the typical costumes, in the chiles and the tequila, but never in the people. The Mexico of Hidalgo and Morelos, of Juárez, Maderos, Pancho Villa and Zapata, of Lázaro Cárdenas and Andrés Manuel López Obrador returns; the Mexico that gave asylum, understanding and support to José Martí, Julio Antonio Mella and Fidel Castro, the one that welcomed the exiles of the Spanish Republic and those persecuted by the dictatorships of the Southern Cone.

That is the same Mexico that welcomed me with open arms in 1989 —a tough year for international left—, because I was a Cuban grant holder from Cuba, that is, from the Revolution; the Mexico where after giving a lecture, the next day, I found written on one of the walls of the School of Philosophy at UNAM, “Cuba, I love you.” In those days, in a small town—whose name I want, but I can’t remember—in the depths of Mexico, in a precarious but dignified house, a peasant asked me the strangest and most beautiful question I remember in my life: “Is it true that Fidel existed?” Mexico has always been there. It beat indomitable in its people, who now take the form of a woman, a warrior. The insurgent Mexico that imperialism fears, goes from Chiapas, passes through the Zócalo of the capital, and reaches the border with the stolen lands of the North. It is not a time for divisions. Imperialism, intuitive, encourages them, but does not distinguish them.

I confess that López Obrador surprised me. The textbooks did not describe his case, but textbooks do not know the people. That is why his words (in Washington, Miami and Havana) of welcome to the Cuban president in 2021 still resound, “who —he said— represents a people that have known, like few others in the world, how to defend with dignity their right to live free and independent, without allowing interference in their internal affairs by any foreign power.” And he added later: “I have already said and I repeat: we may or may not agree with the Cuban Revolution and its government, but having resisted 62 years without submission is an indisputable historical feat. Consequently, I believe that for their struggle in defense of the sovereignty of their country, the people of Cuba deserve the Dignity Award and that island should be considered the new Numancia, for its example of resistance. And I think that for that very reason it should be declared a World Heritage Site.” “No state has the right to subjugate another people, another country,” he stated that day.

Today, a woman assumes the Presidency of the United Mexican States: Claudia Sheinbaum. Even if they hide their anger, even if they brandish financial dangers to intimidate, even if they conspire (because yes, they will conspire), today a new era begins for Our Mexico, for Our America. Imperialism will have to accept, and it will not do so of its own free will, that the era of subordination and imposition is over. Claudia Sheinbaum has been clear: Mexican humanism, which raised the slogan “For the good of all, the poor first,” will not give up. Imperialism, accustomed to warning, was warned: “We coordinate, but we do not subordinate ourselves,” “With the people everything, without the people nothing.”

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff