The Revolution is a Memory
Joseph and Brachenau title their 9th chapter “A Revolution with Legs” giving the image that perhaps the Mexican Revolution is ongoing. The revolution presented the Constitution of 1917 which wrote into law that Mexico’s resources belonged to the state. State control of key industries came about due to the Mexican Revolution. Yet the privatization of nationalized enterprises in the 1980s ended this social compact of the 1917 Constitution (Joseph and Brachenau, 2013. Page 200).
There have been a host of movements and political parties that have come about since the Mexican Revolution. There was the National Revolutionary Party that became the Party of the Mexican Revolution which eventually became known as the PRI and would dominate politics for 71 years. In the 1980s the PRI would be opposed by the National Action Party (PAN). Later in the 1990s the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) would stage an uprising seeking indigenous control of land and natural resources. In 2000 the Alliance for Change (PAN) would finally defeat the PRI. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would create the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and launch repeated attempts at the presidency, eventually succeeding on his third attempt.
After looking at the above, Mexico has been moving through the internal processes of a democracy, not a continued revolution. In a democratic nation differences in opinion will move voters towards parties that reflect their beliefs. These parties may form blocs such as PAN that seek to gather enough support to put a figure into power that can best change the system in a way that reflects the majority of those who supported the alliance. This is not revolution, this is how law and policy is continually shaped through the democratic process. Even the restructuring of the Constitution of 1917 can be seen as a reflection of the will of the people. In the U.S. the second amendment is constantly a flashpoint. There are those who support it, and those who would like to see it drastically changed. This does not constitute a revolution, rather an altering of the rules which regulate the people through the power of those people as exerted through their vote.
Joseph and Brachenau (2013. pg 208–210) list the various movements that are taking place or have taken place in the last few decades of Mexico. The rise of LGBT communities is given a historical setting and then shown as a movement that continues to this day. The shift away viewing of the state and president as a revolutionary family metaphor where the president is the father figure who is both kind yet macho. The various indigenous movements such as the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) is shown to be a continuous force in Mexican society. All of these are movements that reflect changes that are taking place in society. Changes that the world is going through as can be seen by the various indigenous movements from around the globe. LGBT movements are also global and reflect a growing shift in how society will view itself. These are not revolutions, these movements are not changing the fabric of the government, rather they shift how society perceives itself.
Mexico is a nation of millions and with that there will be a constant struggle as each individual attempts to shape the nation through the power of their vote. This will cause struggle and strife at times, here in the U.S. we are still watching the proceedings from the last change of power (the January 6th Hearings). These are natural occurrences when differences of opinions meet at the ballot box. There will be struggles, there will triumphs, yet none of these would I classify as a Revolution.
