Breathe
By Nelly Segura
The recent proposal by Congresswoman Brenda Ruíz Aguilar (MORENA), to create a registry of traditional festivities in the original towns and neighborhoods of Mexico City is a nonsense that shows her complete ignorance about the true essence of these communities. The local Congress urged the 16 municipalities and the Ministry of Culture to initiate this registry with the objective of declaring them intangible cultural heritage. Although it sounds like a positive step, the reality is that this proposal is not only limited, but is another bureaucratic attempt that threatens to stifle the most authentic cultural manifestations of the capital.
Ruíz Aguilar believes that a formal registry will preserve the festivities of native peoples, but this notion is profoundly mistaken. Traditions do not need to be on an official list to be real or valid. In fact, imposing a registry only bureaucratizes and limits the spontaneity of the celebrations, ignoring that the native peoples and neighborhoods have maintained their festivities for centuries without asking anyone's permission. Does the Congresswoman not understand that culture lives in everyday life, and not in a sealed document?
The example of Santa Rosa Xochiac that he mentions, where he assures that the towns celebrate "up to four traditions", is proof of his lack of understanding. How can he believe that the cultural richness of a town can be reduced to a fixed number? Native communities do not live their traditions as a closed calendar, but as an integral part of their lives, adapting to the circumstances, expanding and creating new forms of celebration. Reducing these expressions to a numbered list is not only ignorant, it is also dangerous.
What is most worrisome is that this is not the first time a similar registry has been attempted. The Secretariat of Indigenous Peoples and Neighborhoods and Resident Indigenous Communities (SEPI) itself, under the direction of Nelly Juarez, has recognized that the registry imposed in her administration has not worked. SEPI argues that "you have to know who the peoples are in order to support them", but this statement is absurd. The original peoples have been here long before the arrival of the Spaniards. They do not need government recognition or bureaucratic "validation" to exist.
This same absurd logic seems to permeate the proposal of Congresswoman Ruíz. What is the use of a registry which does not work? What both the Congresswoman and SEPI should question is why they believe that traditions and culture can be controlled from a government office. The peoples already know who they are and have been struggling for decades, even centuries, to maintain their customs in spite of urbanization and state indifference.
It is inevitable to suspect that this proposal is more than a simple "protection attempt". If a festival is not registered, does that mean it does not exist? Will those that are registered be offered a budget or permits and thereby generate internal divisions? Under this guise of cultural protection, there seems to be a plan to control and limit the festivities of the towns, reducing them to a manageable number for the State. If this registration becomes mandatory, traditions run the risk of disappearing or becoming merely symbolic events, standardized and deprived of their genuine meaning.
In addition, Ruiz Aguilar omits the most important factor: community consultation. It is absurd to propose measures that directly affect native peoples without first consulting them. The communities do not need anyone to tell them how many holidays they can celebrate or how they should organize themselves. What they do need is to be respected as guardians of their own customs. But this detail seems to completely escape the deputy, who prefers to speak from ignorance and not from understanding or dialogue.
Traditions should not depend on state benevolence to continue to exist. To reduce cultural expressions to a bureaucratic formality is to strip them of their authenticity and turn them into mere spectacles approved by the State.
The native peoples have been resisting for centuries, and the last thing they need is for someone who does not understand their realities to tell them how to preserve their culture. This kind of measures do not protect anything, they only bureaucratize and limit, showing the deep ignorance about the value and nature of the traditions they pretend to protect.
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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