Breathe
By Linda Atach Zaga
"Everyone has the maximum memory for what they are interested in.
and the minimum for what you are not interested in."
Arthur Schopenhauer
In the realm of the individual, memory is a safety tool. Wise and faithful, a well-occupied memory can save a child from tripping over the same stone or provoking the classmate who days before gave him a beating.
With society and the State, things are different: in these spaces, memory is kept as a historical reference that ends up being manipulated, storing what is convenient and disappearing irritating truths. Thus, the problem is that far from being analyzed to generate learning and non-repetition, memory is often adapted to politicize, divide and, above all, minimize the responsibilities of a present that insists on remembering the mistakes of the past in order to blame others and justify its inaction and inability.
As many know, historical memory is a relatively young term and although it comes from Plato and centuries later from the interpretations of historiography -the writing of history from hegemony- we can affirm that, with a few exceptions, its use responds to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War.
Despite these ideas, the case of Mexico is relevant and does not always fit into generalizations. Born from a story that became a foundational myth, our country is built around a pantheon of heroes that to this day claim their part in the narrative, but also from images and events that have marked our visual culture thanks to a deep-rooted sentimental repertoire that we urgently need to update.
We are no longer the Mexico of the good guys and bad guys of the Independence and post-revolution discourse sacralized on the walls of its most emblematic buildings. Nor are we the country we were when we were surprised on October 2, 1968, or where Lucio Cabañas was murdered in cold blood, or the people who shocked the world with the disappearance of the 43 students from the Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, no. We are no longer the country we were when we were the people we were on October 2, 1968.
They have made it very clear to us that we are, since the morning of December 1, 2018, a State governed by a National Regeneration Movement same that, as it clarifies, completely dissociates itself from the mistakes of the past to rebuild a dignified country without the poor, a nation free of violence, disappearance, femicide and all the crimes that today mark our day to day and that no matter what happens, memory and truth will codify in its archives.
If we are serious about change, it would be great if our president -whom I do trust- would stop using her memory to demand and expect apologies from half the world.
This is no longer the way things are. We cannot continue to act the same if we seek different results. I celebrate that Claudia has instituted a public apology addressed to the relatives of the students killed in 1968, but it is time for the power to speak out and review the massacres of the Lebaron family, the neglect of children with cancer, the crime that recently took the life of the mayor of Chilpancingo, the twenty femicides that happen in Mexico every day, the censorship and death of journalists, the searching fathers and mothers, the defenders of human and environmental rights, the dead found in clandestine graves and the more than 200,000 thousand disappeared in AMLO's six-year term.
Overflowing with wishlists, I take this opportunity to ask for a plaza dedicated to the memory of the victims of the last six years. Also, that new names and stories can be added to the memorial and highlight the complete acceptance of the corruption, violence and impunity that have put us where we are.
In the end, memory is cohesion and reconciliation and that is exactly what we need for our president to successfully realize all that we wish for Mexico. Memory calls for action. It is only a matter of conscience.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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