López Obrador interview with Armando Bartra
(published in La Jornada Field on 14 October 2008)
With a weekly rate of two or three thousand mileage, 24 to 26 municipalities visited and participation in each tour of about 10 thousand people, Andrés Manuel López Obrador is a privileged witness of the spirit of rural Mexico. In the villages experience problems (migration, shortages of production inputs and rising food prices, among the most common), but also men and women are brave and generous are clear what needs to be done, and is also living history, as the thought of Ricardo Flores Magon, who still discussed in Mops, Nuevo León, cradle of magonista Antonio Villareal. And those good people and that is based deep history AMLO confidence in the success of the movement he leads.
AB: How do you see the field?
AMLO: Remember when we talked about the process depeasantization? I had that concern, because everything was there. They could not, so strong is the history and culture of this country that allows you to face the worst calamities. The producers are still working the land, there is a total abandonment. Although the motivations are different: in the center and the north is more economically viable, while in the south and southeast, the attachment has to do with the livelihood and culture.
However, the situation is very serious. I was just in Manuel Benavides, a border town near Ojinaga. Here we have the meeting in the square. There are about 50 adults. I begin to talk with them sick, poor, diabetic, blind, a terrible situation. Flip and I see no young. And the question is where are? Well, or went to work on the other side or go to the drug. That is, anywhere but following the life of suffering of their parents. And in Benavides were involved in candelilla and when he started the neoliberal policies took away all the support. So the prisons are full of young people and the government only thinks of putting more police, more soldiers ...
AB: How is energy League sovereignty claims to the food?
AMLO: are closely related. We have said: the two axes for the country's economic recovery is self-sufficiency in food and energy sector development. What you need to make the government is betting on basic self-sufficiency and add value to crude oil, building refineries. For many reasons the budget should be reoriented to those two purposes: to create jobs, to temper the migration and reduce the trade deficit, minus oil exports this year will grow by 15 billion dollars and 85 percent of the increase will be for purchases of food and petroleum products. So it is absurd to ignore these two lines.
PRI When governments began to dismantle the policy of promotion of production and left the field, Pedro Aspe asked if it would be counterproductive to withdraw support to producers and depend on imports. And he said no problem, that in a globalized world could matter what it took. Now when the crunch begins to hit because it raises the price of tortillas, beans, rice, oil ... Calderon goes on to say that we buy food abroad. It's the same design, do not learn.
AB: You announced a year ago that the crisis was going to hit us and hit us now. What to do?
AMLO: crisis plan in our fundamental point is the field. In the speech of 28 September in the main square to the fall forecast that oil prices would increase the trade deficit and what would happen is already happening: a devaluation. And soon there will be no money to import something like 50 percent of gasoline and food prices, which are increasingly expensive. Until August the defense of oil was a central theme. It still is, possibly within a few days because we have to mobilize for it. But from September we took a spin and while the oil issue, we began to talk more about the crisis and how to deal with. The speech of 15 was focused on the economic crisis, social and what is happening safety.
AB: Will the PRI recovered spaces advantage of the situation?
AMLO: The PRI and PAN are the same. The relief of the two is in the hands of the oligarchy, which uses one or the other as appropriate. No matter what you do poorly the PAN if the PRI does well, because in the end are the same. I can tell you are planning to Peña Nieto 2012, that his campaign manager is Carlos Salinas, his press chief Emilio Azcarraga, the finance secretary Roberto Hernandez and agriculture to the best place to Fox, Roberto González or Servitje .
But it's hard to get people back to believing in the neoliberal fallacy. That speech became much impact. Now there is worn, is falling under its own weight. What we are experiencing with neoliberalism is similar to what happened with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
AB: Given that, what it's up to the social movement and how political actors?
AMLO: Working with people has prevented the destruction of the movement. Without it we would not have the mobilization capacity we have. And there are no other resource. We do not have the oligarchy nor the means "Honorable exceptions," and we must rely on people. Our bet is the people. I thought that if consolidábamos the support of 20 percent of the population, about 15 million citizens were going to survive politically. This is the quantitative and we succeeded. The quality is the level of politicization. It's amazing. I can go the farthest town, isolated, poor and meeting a peasant leader, a teacher, a woman who has very clear what is happening and what needs to be done. If not for that, I would not hold, either physically or morally.
But we must also support those parties and candidates Broad Progressive Front (FAP) because it suits the movement in order to transform the country. This is not an end in itself, is a medium. We know for example that if elected deputies hundred women and men of the PAF, possibly 30 will have a progressive attitude, while 70 will act with the logic of traditional politics and maybe some end up spoiling in the House. But the important thing is to advance. Because if we go wrong in the 2009 mid-term election, it hurts to move and if we do well, help. But we will not transform the country to earn a certain number of deputies in Congress or in the Commissions thinking and reforming laws to be resolved Mexico's problems. That's half.
organizations are important, if not stop thinking about transformation. Sometimes the peasant organizations are helping, supporting farmers, seeing the other world. But worse is what happens in the Left parties, which many think only of the charges, how to be aldermen, mayors, deputies, plurinominal be listed. They do not care if it is right or wrong movement.
AB: Your money's on the social movement. And this is shocking, because some think the main thing left is the party and government positions. You now see the things backwards. How did you come to that conclusion?
AMLO: is a good question. There is a great decline, a major breakdown. And we will not Mexicans get ahead, we will not face major problems, without a profound transformation of public life. And this transformation will not occur in the mold of traditional politics, nor will it give up and down. You must be from a movement of renewal. As said the magonistas: only the people can save the people, only the people can save the nation. And this is twofold: to help stop the depletion and defend the assets of the nation. If there is an organization that deals with the marketing of coffee, there is defending the people, helping people have more income, but at the same time to be thinking and working on the profound transformation of the country. Because we will not succeed if there is a profound transformation. Or in states where governance can make substantive changes to this policy, for example, what a governor can do with famine or unemployment?, Very little. So you have to bet on the model change political, economic and social.
And talk about transformation, not just economic, not just the material. For me the most important is that we create a new stream of thought, a renovation that includes all areas at once: the shape of politics, the economic model, social justice, but also the strengthening of values, a revolution of consciousness.
This is even more important because we have many values, it is extraordinary for the cultural and the immense goodness in the people of Mexico. That itself is a treasure. The people who will more easily succeed in a globalized world are the people and culture, and we have an ancient culture. Because, Otherwise, even if we progress in the material we will not achieve the happiness of the people who should be the fundamental purpose.
AB: Your emphasis on ethics, austerity and the story will make an atypical politician.
AMLO: The three things are essential. Ethics is what gives you strength, if not understand that politics is an ethical imperative, it could be an opposition leader. I could not face opponents who want to destroy you. But if you all an ethical attitude and found no weaknesses, they will not be with you. As for austerity, not administrative issues, but of principles. Can you imagine that you have two, three late-model cars, a home, how can you speak for the poor? The story is fundamental. Here are all the teachings. Some Mexican politicians are extraordinary. Venustiano Carranza Behold: moderate antiagrarista, but with a major nationalist stance, as if it had not promoted the nationalization of oil in the Constitution of 1917, after there had been no expropriation. Madero like to call a revolution needs to be an exceptional person. Not to mention those closest to us, as Mujica and Flores Magon. What politician is sacrificed more for their ideals that Ricardo Flores Magon? Do you see why put up with campaigns, attacks, they are nothing compared to the attacks and the suffering of other leaders? A demagogue Miguel Hidalgo called him and severed his head, like Morelos, Juárez and smelly Indian told him and walked in a carriage, risking everything. And with a stubbornness, perseverance ... All this is very sobering.
But also go to towns and in each there are historical lessons and people who know them. As a man of 80 years, Mops, Monterrey-Hidalgo, I think it's called, told us how President Cardenas expropriated a Business grandfather Lorenzo Zambrano, Cemex's current owner, to give to the workers as a cooperative. And the cooperative work well. Well, 60 years after privatization comes Salinas and again. And who do you think he sold it? ... Lorenzo Zambrano.
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