Anything but the People
For once, the Mexican public received some good news. Last September, the press and television media announced the signing of the National Agreement for Development, Stability, and Employment, an event that opinion leaders immediately depicted as extraordinary, in tones ranging from optimism to outright ecstasy. A closer look at the event, however, raises some vexing questions: What does “national” mean in such a context? By what means was the agreement reached, and what sort of commitment does it entail, at least by those who signed it?
The Mexican public first learned about the agreement on the very same day that it was signed in a solemn ceremony at Chapultepec Castle. Secret (or at least very quiet) negotiations, among unknown parties with undisclosed private agendas, ended up being trumpeted as a “national agreement.” The announcement was made by an assorted collection of three hundred celebrities — football players, movie stars, pop singers, writers, Catholic bishops — who were led by the richest men in the country: the owner of the former public telephone monopoly, the tycoons of mass media, the old moguls of the press, and the leaders of business and finance. The most striking feature of the celebration was the careful exclusion of politicians. Not a single representative from the Congress, the Senate, or any political party was present. Only the secretary for Internal Affairs, Carlos Abascal, was invited as a “guest of honor” to witness the event.
It is also worth noting that the ritual public signing and presentation of the agreement was performed at Chapultepec Castle, the former residence of the illfated emperor Maximilian and, before that, the last fortress to fall at the gates of Mexico City during the American invasion of 1847. It is an eminently public place, but certainly not a place of open public access; it is a historical monument towering over the center of the capital, a memorial of ambiguous meaning but an unmistakable seat of power. It may seem obvious or crude to point out the similarity between such qualities of the location and the nature of the people who convened there, but the castle was probably chosen as a venue with precisely this connection in mind.
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