Jorge Alcocer V.
According to the dictionary, the meaning of the word “sovereignty” is: “the highest political power corresponding to an independent state.” It is obvious that the word “sovereignty” is an essentially political concept, which in international affairs is usually understood as the right of each state to determine its internal affairs without interference from external actors.
As a concept and practice, sovereignty has undergone significant changes over time. Perhaps most important has been its reduction – or limitation – by international treaties and agreements, whether those that are binding on all countries (the UN) or those that support supranational spaces/organizations such as the European Union.
For a citizen of any European country, the concept of sovereignty has different meanings than for a Russian, Chinese or Mexican. The European Union is the first experience of a political-economic organization that, on the basis of a common space, places itself above nation-states without disappearing, although they are repositories of limited sovereignties.
For Mexicans, sovereignty is something like the virginity of the nation. Defending the homeland means preserving national sovereignty.
What is meant by the history of Mexico in the 19th and early 20th centuries and by our position as a border country. The defense of sovereignty has been the cloak that covers state authoritarianism in the past and present. It was also a pretext to justify “patriotic fraud”, as in Chihuahua in 1986. The more authoritarian the regime, the more protective of sovereignty the government will be.
I don’t know if the same thing happens in other latitudes, like in Mexico, where the word “sovereignty” has endless adjectives attached to it. Governments yesterday and today, regardless of party background or ideological inclination, use the concept as they see fit. In the vocabulary of Mexican politics we find national sovereignty, popular sovereignty, economic sovereignty, food sovereignty, energy sovereignty, educational sovereignty, cultural sovereignty, etc.
This proliferation of adjectives gives rise to several paradoxes. We talk about “energy sovereignty” while consuming gasoline and natural gas, which mostly comes from the United States. The same thing happens with “food sovereignty,” for which we turn a blind eye to the thousands of products that come from abroad, which are part of the daily diet and take up the most space in the refrigerators of Mexican homes. On television, in dramas and dramas, they talk about educational or cultural sovereignty. foreign films. I remember in the 70s of the last century, someone remarked that in Mexico, children may not know who the father of the country was, but almost everyone knows about Mickey Mouse.
After the first quarter of the 21st century, perhaps it is time to admit, to paraphrase Enrique Krause, that we need sovereignty without adjectives.
Understand that in modern Mexico, while defending sovereignty, we must take responsibility for our current position in the world and the challenges ahead. In particular, it is necessary to take into account the costs and benefits of our position in North America from the signing of NAFTA in 1994 and its extension in 2018 to the USMCA. Today, this position is under threat due to the imminent arrival of Donald Trump in the White House. The future of the second floor of 4T largely depends on what happens to the crown jewel of the neoliberal scene: the Mexico-United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement.
The problems that Trump uses as a cudgel against Mexico will not be prevented by citing the defense of national sovereignty. Migration and fentanyl trafficking require a government strategy without jingoistic rhetoric. Effective measures are the color of the day. Hope for a deal with Canada to negotiate with Trump has faded. Perhaps the first is to have ambassadors and negotiating teams in our two embassies with our northern neighbors who have the skills and experience required to replace them in the White House.
The best defense of national sovereignty begins with eliminating the use of additional adjectives.
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Source: Aristegui Noticias
John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.
