Y si Adelita se fuera con otro...

By: Gerardo Enrique Garibay Camarena

24/10/06

On october 24th, Fox’s administration announced that the traditional revolution’s anniversary parade has been cancelled, this cancellation is, according to the presidential spokeman,  “an expression of new times”. That same day, Jesús Ortega, former campaign manager of López Obrador, reacted saying that this government only has yet to destroy the monument to revolution, because that’s the final purpose, demolish all, and build a mall on the top of it.

Ortega’s, and a lot of others, reaction is logical, since this cancellation is a clear and definitive step on the demystification process of the “Mexican revolution”, a period that, thanks to government propaganda and “Indio” Fernandez’s movies, became a sacred cow.

The Mexican revolution wasn’t, as the official history put it, a fight to dethrone the dictatorial rule of Porfirio Díaz (who, by the way, left the office as early as 1911 without barely any blood spilling) but a bloodthirsty civil war between criminals and merciless warlords that claimed the life of thousands and ended as far as 1929, when, under American sponsorship, those criminals and warlords got together to create what has become to be the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

That’s why, while the “PRI-Gobierno” ruled the fate of the country, that historical episode had a great political relevance, as an annual occasion (yes, anooooother one) for the Mexican citizens to show their gratitude to the revolution and their happiness about the leadership of the revolutionary government, of course, under threats of losing their jobs if they did otherwise.  

However, as the country is becoming more democratic, this holyday, and with it it’s parade, slowly started to lose significance, until the dissapear of this last one, which is also the first step for the extinction of a holyday that doesn’t belong to the Mexicans, but only to a political group. That’s why, even when this parade is focused on sports, the president of the Conade (National Sports Comission) stated that it’s cancellation “doesn’t matter at all (to the Mexican sports community)”.

It seems that the same phenomenon is taking place about Benito Juárez’s figure in particular and the whole Mexican XIX century’s story in general, let us hope to continue on this way, to close wounds, overcome traumas and be able to look clearly into the future, without the ideological dogmas we’ve inherit of the “revolutionary family”, who was always so happy to promote historical misleads.

It’s good news, it’s a sign, that, step by step, this country is getting mature enough to admit it’s own history in an objective way, without overestimations o mityfications worthy of a “banana republic”.

As the sargeant of the corrido would have tell: it’s good news, my dear Adelita, a sign that our Mexico is changing, in a good way.