MEXICO CITY (Ricardo Homs/El Universal) – Massimo Modonesi is an Italian academic who has lived in Mexico for more than 20 years. He presides over an association dedicated to promoting the Marxist thesis of Antonio Gramsci, an essential academic reference of communist thought in the first half of the 20th century. Modonesi is a historian and sociologist, professor of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at UNAM.
Modonesi’s ideological activity within the academic context would have nothing unusual in a country like Mexico, open to the world, living in a democratic model, except for its level of influence in the current circle of power.
When we discover that beyond the academic activity, there is an active revolutionary proselytizing work that today has significant influence in the circle close to the President, then the risk arises.
A revolution means a change born out of the exacerbation and resentments about what has happened in the past, rather than a movement that could represent an opportunity to build an inclusive future of collective benefit. A revolution means a rupture, and this always comes surrounded by violence and aggression. Massimo Modonesi talks about the road to rupture in his lectures.
A transformation is not the same as a revolution. Change means evolution because the essence of that which one wants to improve remains. A transformation is a transition towards something better. However, what could be glimpsed in the future of Mexico, if a revolutionary project like the one the radical sector of the 4T wants to develop, is something very different because it is based on the destruction of the current social and political structure, starting from confronting each other and thus replacing what exists today with something radically different.
The revolution is a continuous provocation that seeks to break and confront social groups.
Will President López Obrador be aware of the implications of letting the radical segment of his party operate a rupture that puts the country’s governability at risk?
It is not the same to play with the tiger outside the cage while the tamer is inside, exposing himself to risks. It is now to assume the role of tamer and enter it to control and dominate it. That is the difference between being a political opposition or, in its case, assuming total control of the government.
Today the President has the responsibility to direct the country’s destiny and any subversive movement that puts governance at risk goes against the stability of his government.
The investigation carried out by the journalistic portal Código Magenta on Modonesi’s activity opens a gap to explore this interest that exists today to divide us Mexicans and stimulate resentments.
Massimo Modonesi seems to be the spiritual guide of the radical sector of MORENA. A very close ideological influence for the new treasurer of the Federation, Elvira Concheiro, an academic specialized in sociology who surprisingly acquired the strategic position that should be in the hands of an experienced financier since she will be responsible for managing all the money of the federal government.
Modonesi published together with Elvira Concheiro and Horacio Gutiérrez Crespo the book entitled “Communism: other views from Latin America.”
Modonesi is credited with the view that the COVID represents a political opportunity for the 4T, which President López Obrador expressed at the beginning of the pandemic when he declared that it “came as a surprise.”
Perhaps from understanding Modonesi’s revolutionary ideas, Elvira Concheiro to the Federation’s treasury makes sense, symbolizing the arrival of the radicals to the strategic positions of the federal government in substitution of the moderates who helped the President consolidate his first two years in office.
The departure of Alfonso Romo and the relocation of Esteban Moctezuma as Mexico’s ambassador to the United States could be interpreted as the castling to appoint Luciano Concheiro, the current Undersecretary of Higher Education of the SEP, as Secretary of Public Education and thus formally initiate the educational revolution. Or perhaps giving the formal position to a third party would represent a political commitment by the President but empower him to carry out the educational project of the 4T.
Esteban Moctezuma is one of the few collaborators of the President with ample experience and credibility. His assignment, understood as the search for a rapprochement with the administration of President Joe Biden, represents a significant challenge that deserves an official with Moctezuma’s political stature.
However, everything seems to indicate that the context fell like a “ring to the finger” for the radicals of 4T.
Luciano Concheiro, as the surname indicates, is the brother of the new treasurer of the Federation and has a long academic career in the university environment, which unquestionably gives him the merits to obtain the position. However, his curriculum vitae published by the SEP portrays a political activist who, perhaps as a teenager, participated actively in the student movements of 1968 and 1971, as well as in the land takeovers and agrarian struggles of the 1970s, and since then has accompanied various social activities in Mexico and Latin America. He has also been a prominent member of the Mexican Communist Party.
The assassination of Jalisco’s ex-governor, Aristoteles Sandoval, is a new call to attention that reminds us that the national context is not suitable for utopian experiments of a social and political nature. A player could capitalize on the resentments and grudges of a broad segment of the population, and that is organized crime, which has a broad social base that supports it. Due to its social origins, it connects more with those who have opted for a life of crime as a means of overcoming poverty than with the ideological overtures of an outdated left that responds to the context of the class struggle of the first half of the 20th century and not to our current daily reality.
In a context of social tension provoked by the “rupture” of the social pact, proposed by academician Modonesi and his followers, organized crime, which today more than ever possesses structure and response to the Mexican State, could redirect discontent towards the current government. Like it or not, it inherited the representation of the governmental system that it criticizes so much.
The role of President López Obrador today is radically opposed to that of before 2018 since, at this moment, he represents the institutional authority, and any attempt to provoke social and political instability for electoral purposes would impact his government and the future of our country.
Today are not times of utopias but of practical and immediate responses, far from ideologies that society has already overcome.
What do you think?
Ricardo Homs
El Universal
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Ricardo Homs is the president of the Mexican Academy of Communication AC. Has 25 published books. Homs founded in Mexico the local office of the “Global Consulting Company” created by Al Ries, one of the two creators of the POSITIONING concept.
