Wednesday, October 31, 2007
by Ernesto Castaneda Tinoco
According to political theory, nation-states are formed by a government that represents a homogeneous people (nation) within a discrete territory. But sometimes things are more complicated in practice (Sassen 2006:Chapter 6). Announcing her new book “Territory, Authority, Rights” at Columbia University (9/17/2007), Sociologist Saskia Sassen talked about the new kind of sovereignty implied by the town hall meetings that former President Fox of Mexico (2000-2006) organized when he visited the United states while President. These town hall meetings were de facto meetings of citizens with their President, conducting political work, but taking place outside the Mexican territory, an event seen by some as a historical moment (even if local state governors had done the same thing before). It is true that Fox’s government had a clear program to bring the Diaspora closer to Mexico AND to talk about immigration to the U.S. government and public opinion, a sharp contrast with the two previous PRI Presidents, Salinas and Zedillo, who were more interested in talking about US-Mexico trade than about migration. It is important to point out that Salinas started the Program of Mexican Communities Abroad started in the 1990’s as way to create a consensus and support inside the United States for the passage of the NAFTA agreement.
According to political theory, nation-states are formed by a government that represents a homogeneous people (nation) within a discrete territory. But sometimes things are more complicated in practice (Sassen 2006:Chapter 6). Announcing her new book “Territory, Authority, Rights” at Columbia University (9/17/2007), Sociologist Saskia Sassen talked about the new kind of sovereignty implied by the town hall meetings that former President Fox of Mexico (2000-2006) organized when he visited the United states while President. These town hall meetings were de facto meetings of citizens with their President, conducting political work, but taking place outside the Mexican territory, an event seen by some as a historical moment (even if local state governors had done the same thing before). It is true that Fox’s government had a clear program to bring the Diaspora closer to Mexico AND to talk about immigration to the U.S. government and public opinion, a sharp contrast with the two previous PRI Presidents, Salinas and Zedillo, who were more interested in talking about US-Mexico trade than about migration. It is important to point out that Salinas started the Program of Mexican Communities Abroad started in the 1990’s as way to create a consensus and support inside the United States for the passage of the NAFTA agreement.
As Alexandra Delano and Gustavo Cano (2007) explain, this strong interference with American policies affecting Mexican migrants is not entirely new. The Mexican government has gone through different levels of involvement with the migrant population in the United States but as their paper shows that the Mexican government has kept ties, to differing degrees, with Mexicans abroad for more than a hundred years. The fist example is the advocacy that the Mexican government tried to do in favor of the rights of the over 750,000 former Mexican, and now also American, citizens who stayed in the Southwest after the US-Mexico war of 1846-1848 (Cano and Delano 2007:698). Another clear example is the role that the Mexican government played in creating, along with the American government, the Bracero Program (1942-1964). Cano and Delano (2007) show many other examples of previous transnational ties between the Mexican government and Mexican citizens, mutualistic societies, and hometown associations of Mexicans living in the U.S.
Nonetheless, contemporary debates about similar issues give us some material to work with regarding the changing (or constant) nature of the nation-state construct:
In early September, 2007 during his first Presidential address, President Felipe Calderon condemned the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. and said “Mexico does not stop at its borders - wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.” This comment, received an standing ovation from the partisan audience gathered in the presidential palace (and not in the national Congress as has always been the case since the opposition held the building captive and thus prevented this from happening). But public opinion in the U.S. paid attention to these words and started criticizing the premises, which, if true, would entail a diluted sovereignty of the areas in the United States with a heavy Mexican immigrant presence, a long held claim of the critics of Hispanic immigration (Huntington 2005, Gilchrist 2006).
Talking heads at CNN and Fox news used this speech to remind Calderon of the premises of the nation-state theory and practice, not without an acid tone and some cruelty and irony.
Migration in Mind; Fox During, Before and After The Presidency
Even before Vicente Fox was President, as Governor of the central state of Guanajuato, along with close friends Jorge G. Castañeda, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser (R.I.P.), and Juan Hernandez, he elaborated a new vision for U.S. - Mexican relations, especially in terms of migration. They elaborated this new vision during visits to U.C. Berkeley’s Center of Latin American Studies, the University of Texas and elsewhere. They were looking to break with the PRI’s tradition of looking the other way regarding this thorny issue, fearing that any talk of migration would result in a critique of the Mexican political and economic system. They thought that if Fox won, the Democratic bonus would give Mexico a new legitimacy to talk about its members abroad and to play a more pro-active role in the international arena. They wanted to change the US-Mexico relation from one of submission/rebellion to one of cooperation.
As Mexican President, Vicente Fox told the Joint Session of the American Congress on September 6th, 2001, "It is our very firm wish, as Mexicans and Americans, to establish a new relationship, a more mature, full and equitable relationship based on mutual trust." The goal of that speech and visit was to openly have an influence in legislation and policy making in the U.S. regarding Mexican-American relations both home and abroad. Very few people criticized the premises and appropriateness of this speech at the time. One year after being elected Fox was heavily cheered and applauded in congress. Whether this policy agenda would have worked or not, September 11th, 2001 would no doubt change the mood of the nation and change its foreign and domestic policy dynamics.
While the view of Fox et al. was always minoritarian in Mexico, since it went against a long tradition of mistrust vis a vis American foreign policy, at the end Fox and company were able to change the negative public opinion that Mexicans had of their emigrant compatriots. During Fox's tenure the Mexican congress wrote a law to allow Mexicans abroad to vote (photo), not without many blocks which make voting almost impossible, but this set a very interesting precedent that could have a large effect on future elections if the mechanics are changed.It is interesting to note that even after leaving government [amid scandals and in bad terms, as is often the case in politics] these men continued to push for migration reform from inside the U.S. Juan Hernandez published a book in 2006 called “The New American Pioneers: Why Are We Afraid of Mexican Immigrants?” Jorge Castañeda is published a book called “Ex Mex, From Migrants to Immigrants.” And most visibly Fox has come out with a new book called “"Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith and Dreams of a Mexican President." The three books are written in English and are directed to the American public.
The most interesting thing is that Fox has been recently touring the country and giving interviews in popular TV shows, criticizing not only the lack of progress on immigration reform but also criticizing Bush’s “cockiness” and his low level of Spanish skills (all the while talking with an imperfect English, that no one has openly criticized). Fox has been invited to many popular TV shows but he was specially hit hard by Bill O’Reilly who interviewed him , and indirectly by Lou Doubs and Glenn Beck who wished they could have “debated” him.Those who have spoken against illegal immigration in the last years have questioned Fox’s interference in U.S. politics and have often used his many unfortunate statements to further criticize the status quo regarding migration control. Fox presents himself as a spokesman of free trade and globalization, and asks for further cooperation, coordination, and exchange. Some of the angry critics on the right, as well as libertarians and people on the far left, warn against a North-American political union. People at all points of the political specter question his claims about migration, using against him his failures while President and the modest growth of the country.
Nonetheless, all have taken the opportunity to talk back to Fox as if he were a legitimate interlocutor and a representative of something even now that he is out of office. His advocacy, common for Carter and Bill Clinton, is without precedent in Mexican recent history. Ernesto Zedillo was the only other person who did something like this after he moved to the U.S. to hold a research/policy position at the center of Globalization Studies at Yale, and at the UN Millennium Project, but contrary to Fox, Zedillo is really careful not to overextend himself and is weary of talking in public or to the press.Many of the comments in respond to blogs and news articles in the U.S. reporting on these issues have been negative and criticize Fox’s and Calderon’s intrusion in U.S. politics, something that stays very close to political theory and the concept of popular sovereignty as tied to a nation-state; but more than just a theoretical or philosophical proposal, these passionate answers show the embodiment of nationalism and the reification of national borders and culture in the imagined national community, and the fact that as Calhoun would argue "Nations Matter" (see Calhoun 2007).
Following all these symbolic struggles, real effects are resulting such as the national guard being mobilized to the border, and the construction of a wall being built between the two nations. But paradoxically at the same time a new plan (Acuerdo de Merida/Plan Mexico) of cooperation would bring American funds, purchases, and expertise closer than ever to help fight drug lords in Mexico. One could say that while being independent Mexico has lost much sovereignty to the U.S. because of NAFTA, the number of Mexicans living in the U.S., the dependence of millions of families on remittances, the millions of people, goods and contraband passing through its borders aiming to arrive to the U.S., Plan Merida, an important number of Mexican nationals fighting in Iraq, the large ex-pat community with more than a million influential American citizens settled in Mexico, and because of how much the Mexican economy is affected by the American business cycles.
President Calderon has been reluctant to meet with Mexican community leaders in the U.S. to prevent negative reactions; nonetheless, on Friday October 26th, 2007 he meet again with a group of leaders from the Institute of Mexicans Abroad who asked him to intervene more in protecting their rights into what they see as a growing xenophobic environment in the U.S. (Presidencia, Reforma 2007).
The question is, does a more open intervention by the Mexican government diminishes or increases the sense of “Mexicanization” of the U.S. and therefore loss of citizen sovereignty? Luis Ernesto Derbez, the Minister of Foreign Relations under Fox, after Jorge G. Castañeda left, thought so. That is why there was an arm-long distance to the discussion about immigration reform. But some say that this hampered its approval, although at the end this was something for the U.S. government to sort out.
The left presidential candidate Lopez Obrador, as well as Ernesto Derbez and then Felipe Calderon advanced a new policy/PR campaign of co-responsibility, that accepted that Mexico was part of the problem because of its high unemployment and poverty, but also part of the solution (partly in trying to close its southern and northern border to immigrants from Central and Southern America). It seems that critics from the right have taken these arguments and deployed them against Fox without approving of the idea of co-responsibility and preferring to act unilaterally (the way to act, according to the idea of national sovereignty and territorial independence).
There are some questions about these public debates and controversies: Is it that, by responding to Fox and company, their opponents constitute and legitimize them as relevant political actors inside the American Public Sphere even though they are not citizens? Or is it the contrary, and by the statements of Fox and the like are only drawing more attention to those with radical views? Where is the middle ground in all of this? Why are their voices not represented in the public media sphere?
One could say that this is only about personal popularity, and about increasing the ratings. But what is happening with the public watching these debates? Is it being critical of both sides or is it getting polarized?
References
Cano, Gustavo and Délano, Alexandra. 2007 "The Mexican Government and Organised Mexican Immigrants in The United States: A Historical Analysis of Political Transnationalism (1848-2005)", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33:5, 695 – 725
Calhoun, Craig. 2007. "Nations Matter: Citizenship, Solidarity, and the Cosmopolitan Dream." New York: Routledge, 2007.
Castañeda, Ernesto. 2005. "En Memoria de Adolfo Aguilar Zinser." Nuestros Tiempos. http://esfuerzocotidiano.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_archive.html
Kates, William. "Former Mexican president says Americans wrong on immigration." Newsday Forum/Associated Press. October 29th, 2007. http://www.topix.net/forum/source/newsday/TH84SF7JD7BAJJF8R
López, Mayolo. "Alarma Situación de Paisanos en EU." Reforma. Octubre 27, 2007. http://busquedas.gruporeforma.com/reforma/Documentos/printImpresa.aspx?DocId=924706-1066&strr=ALARMA%20SITUACIÓN%20DE%20PAISANOS%20EN%20EU
Presidencia. "El Presidente Calderón se reúne con Líderes de las Comunidades Mexicanas en el exterior.”Boletín Informativo Lazos. IME. Octubre 30, 2007.
Sassen, Saskia. 2006. “Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages.” Princeton: Princeton University Press.
