Guillermo De Los Reyes
University of Pennsylvania

and Antonio Lara
University of the Americas-Puebla, Mexico
 

Precis: A startling growth of Protestantism has been blamed for contributing to the destabilization of Mexico, particularly in the southern states such as Chiapas where indigenous Indians and peasant farmers have converted from Roman Catholicism in considerable numbers. We suggest a less discussed possible effect of Protestant growth, a dampening of enthusiasm for efforts to resuscitate the Mexican Constitution with its provisions for federalism and for devolution of power. A version of this paper was presented at the American Political Science Association meetings, Atlanta, Saturday, September 4, 1999.

Our investigation is one of a number generated by a program of research funded by CONACyT, the Mexican government research institution, at the University of the Americas–Puebla, into civil society, social capital and voluntary organizations — and their political consequences.  Another result of the CONACyT project is the current volume on civil society  of the Annals  of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (September 1999) edited by Professors Rich and De Los Reyes and on sale at the Sage booth in the APSA book exhibit.
 

 It almost appears casuistic that the revitalization of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 with its emphasis on devolution, separation of powers, and a real federalism, is getting attention while political chaos threatens. The situation is creating fears about implementing long overdue adherence rather than lipservice to the Constitution. But as the poet Wallace Stevens remarked (Men Made Out of Words, 1947) it really is not hard to be torn by “the fear that defeats and dreams are one”. Sadly, pluralism is not an unchallenged virtue in the current Mexican situation.

 The Mexican Constitution itself is exemplary, admirable in its concern for minority rights, while unfortunately in reality its authority  has long suffered at the hands of the country’s dominant (for seventy years) and highly oligarchical Partido de la Reolución Institucional or Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).  As the forces of democratization in Mexico have gathered strength, a renewed respect for constitutional provisions might be expected, but concerns have grown that the implementation could fuel the flames of political disintegration. As will be seen, this apprehensiveness about encouraging the possible loss of Mexican national unity relates to the growth of Protestant sects, with the rebellion in Chiapas as an example.

 On the face of it, an expansion of religious organizations might appear to be part of the desirable growth of NGOs (non–governmental organizations) that develop conditions necessary for democratization.  There has been a markedly increased interest in this subject, popularized by Francis Fukuyama and Robert Putnam, among others. The role in a nation-state of civil society,  social capital, and political culture,  and by their supporting organizations, is increasingly spotlighted by political scientists. Within the framework of what is at least a modest  revival in political culture studies, voluntarism and associationalism specifically have become popular topics. This case is made by those such as Bryan T. Frohle, who in an important essay,  “Religious Competition, Community Building, and Democracy in Latin America” insists that, “A strong, independent institutional and associational life is an essential mobilizer and mediator of support for democratic politics. Civil society, institutions and associations ultimately are themselves sustained by community ‘spirit’ and sociability. This is the great irony of democratic politics: ‘democracy’ enables individual freedoms, but those freedoms are provided through collective identity and bonds of solidarity in mutually intelligible discourse and everyday interactions. In a sense, ‘communities’ are the forces that organize, mediate, and maintain democratic politics.”   In his view religious competition introduced into Latin America by Protestant religious sects is a healthy influence. This optimistic view is one we regard as dubious, and has been the subject of a number of articles by us about the less democratic consequences of some NGOs.

     Double Minorities

 When the two subjects are discussed together, Protestants and the Mexican Constitution are generally examined in terms of the restrictions on churches and the lifting of them during the Salinas regime. But another topic that deserves more attention is the fact that in some cases in Latin America, including Mexico, racial minorities are becoming religious minorities as well by converting to one or another Protestant denominations and thus becoming doubly suspect as divisive influences. “The congregational authority of the local church, Conrad Kanagy notes, “along with the integration of community and church interests, has further solidified the autonomy and cohesiveness of the local community.”   A number of the writers in Donna Lee Van Cott’s recent Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America stress the political consequences of indigenous peoples’ involvement with Protestantism, as well as of their renewed interest in pre colonial religions.

 Democratization of Mexico and implementation of the Constitution entails empowering minorities that have long embraced antistatism in the face of decades of authoritarian domination. That they are now being courted and encouraged to reincorporate into the political fabric is a significant development and on the face of it appears as a positive development, a recognition of political reality and an admission that generalizations made about Mexican political culture have done little justice to its frustrated pluralism and its misadventures in ethnocultural mixing. (Our discussion avoids a renewal of the arguments of the 1920s and 1930s that the treatment of minority history as a digression from the “great issues” is not accidental but part of an agenda. Moreover, we note that as the indigenous movements acquire a higher profile, . a completely positive picture may not appear. Notions that general harmony and balance prevailed and prevail among Indians, in contrast with the divisive power-seeking and violence of the mestizo, have  begun to look like a stereotype.)

Particularly Chiapas...

 There are possible constitutional implications to pluralism and pace to Protestant growth in Mexico when it is associated with the indigenous and with areas where there is political unrest, and that the immediate future of Mexican constitutionalism may have a relationship to the high–profile troubles in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.  An insurrection is still going on there that began in January 1994 and which is remarkable for the notoriety of the movement’s Zapatista leader, the enigmatic Subcomandante Marcos. The Chiapas uprising by the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista National Liberation Army or EZLN) has had a substantial effect on actualizing Mexico’s political expectations.

 Protestantism is only  one of a number of ingredients in the Chiapas situation. But the emergence of religious and ethnic confidence among Mexico’s rural and indigenous population, an aspect of which is the growth of Protestant sects,  focuses attention on those Mexican states like Chiapas where Protestants have a growing presence, and contributes to fears of “heading down the road to another Bosnia”. With respect to this, the relationship between indigenous empowerment and Protestantism does not seem entirely coincidental. And it would seem that any renewal of the federalism set forth in the Constitution surely would be accompanied by the insistence that existing laws recognizing Mexico’s “pluricultural composition originally based on its indigenous people” be recognized. The indigenous writer Irineo Rojas notes that, “We are legally well protected, but we are still a long way from this being applied in practice. We are in the same position now as we were centuries ago.”

 So we would suggest that the discussion of the renewal of constitutionalism and federalism in Mexico should take into consideration the somewhat pessimistic estimations that the political turmoil has reached the point where the survival of the political structure as it has been known for decades can be questioned. When there are worries about the very survival of the nation in its present form, no matter how exaggerated such worries may appear, further fragmenting of power even if constitutionally mandated may appear inappropriat .The specter of the Chiapas rebellion  hangs over all discussion.  In the July/August 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs, M. Delal Baer writes, “The 2000 election will bring Mexico to trial by fire. As the capital sinks beneath a wave of crime, the provinces smolder, and drug lords send corruption creeping through the establishment, Mexico’s rulers seem more interested in fighting one another than their common enemies. For the country to survive as a democracy, this will have to change — and soon. Mexico’s institutions are simply too fragile and its commitment to openness too new to withstand such national traumas for long.” This dire estimation of the situation, if true, is doubly unfortunate if one believes that adherence to the Constitution is one of the ways for Mexico to promote democratization. It also is an illustration of how often the problems of politics are those of integration and assimilation, and points up the fact that in the post Cold War era we are seeing all over the world the difficulties that go with cultural diversity. Even in the United States the fear of cultural secessionism is never very far from public consciousness — witness the desire to make English an official language.

Protestant Rain During the Flood

 The attention that implementation of the Constitution and its neglected provisions has been  getting in Mexico indeed has been long overdue, but in some respects the interest, as well as the growth of religious pluralism,  could not have occurred at a worse time — rain during a flood. Not only in Chiapas, but in Guerrero, Michoacán, Oxaca, Hidalgo, Puebla, and Chihuahua there have been signs not of constitutional devolution of authority but of disintegration of authority. The breakdown of authority comes at a time when the Mexican president has euphemistically claimed that “New federalism is weeping through the country.” Coming from a stronger leader this might inspire support,. It has not. The perception of presidential ineffectiveness has been deepened by the 1999 strike at the country’s largest university, UNAM, widely seen as a Mexico City version of Chiapas in terms of central government loss of control.

 Mexicans therefore will be forgiven an occasional acerbic response when told that democratization simply requires more grass roots activism and the proliferation of nongovernmental organizations.  Religious pluralism is a particularly troublesome part of this situation. The country is witnessing  a remarkable increase in religious sectarianism.  The solid Roman Catholicism of centuries has been challenged. The Assemblies of God now have 3240 churches in Mexico. There are more than one million Mormons. Believers can affiliate with the Church of God in Christ, the Church of God of Apostolic Faith, or the Church of God of Prophecy Mission. Franconia Mennonites compete with Pentecostal Free Will Baptists and Southern Baptists and American Baptists.  Evangelical Methodists, United Methodists, and Free Methodists are enthusiastically in the field. The use of videos, construction of basketball courts, and animation of the worship services may be contributing to this along with the Holy Spirit.

 Although Protestantism has been growing throughout Mexico, the growth in some states such as Chiapas has been particularly marked: “In the sixties, thousands of Chamula Indians had resettled in the Lacandon jungle, most of them Evangelicals who had split from their Roman Catholic-dominated communities. They had founded new villages in the jungle and given them biblical names such as Jerusalem, Jericó, and Betania.” They identified with the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, Children of Israel fleeing bondage. They resisted environmental and other federal controls, and could not understand federal land policies. Further evolution of government authority in such an atmosphere clearly presents problems.

Challenge to Community

 The threatened disintegration of the body politic has been partly attributed to the unwillingness of Protestant Evangelicals to go along with longstanding local customs, an unwillingness that has divided Mexican communities and led to violence. Some of the homeless in Chiapas are Protestant outcasts from villages who have refused to support festivals and feast days dating from time immemorial because of the use of alcohol, “a decision that was hurting the pockets of the PRI-affiliated Indian chieftains who controlled the alcohol business.”

 In Chiapas at the end of 1994 an event took place which dramatizes the current problems of Mexican political discourse and especially of democratization. There were for a time two state governments, each claiming to offer the best hope for ending the year-old rebellion that the Zapastista Army of National Liberation was leading in the eastern portion of the state.The first was that headed by Eduardo Robledo of the PRI), who ostensibly had won the August 1994 elections. Sr. Robledo had to be inaugurated in the City Theatre rather than the statehouse because of security fears.  President Ernesto Zedillo was present for the rituals and Sr.Robledo had some Protestant backing.  (The right wing in Mexico is currently identified with Catholicism and the left wing with scepticism.) But also claiming to be governor was Amado Avendaño, gubernatorial candidate of the Partido de la Revolución Democrátia (Party of the Democratic Revolution or PRD). His swearing in lacked the presence of President Zedillo, but included marimba music, incense, and formal presentation of the ‘ruling cane’, a stick festooned with ribbon. He appeared to have considerable Catholic support.

 For some, this was neither the first nor last case of the federal government in Mexico City, i.e. the PRI, interfering in the constitutional process and usurping the legitimately elected officials. Admittedly the PRI is not a party in the American sense, but more of a family firm and social insurance scheme which has co-opted hundreds of thousands if not millions of supporters by handouts. Decaying, it presides over a country  where recollections of President Salinas’  boasts about the fruits of the NAFTA  pact and President Zedillo’s 1994 election promises to provide for the “well-being for your family”, as well as advertisements of himself as a leader who “knows how to do it” produce hollow laughter.

 President Zedillo has frequently put himself on record as anxious to enforce the Constitution and pursue devolution of power,  stating that “We will push ahead with the transfer of authority, resources and responsibility from central government to other levels of government.” But a fear in Mexico is that the country lacks competent leadership might experience problems that some other countries have, that federalism seems indirectly to encourage secessionism —  with examples ranging from Canada and Italy to Yugoslavia and the former Czechoslovakia. In short,  that this is not a good time for discussing federalism.  President Zedillo has not inspired a lot of confidence, and has been nicknamed El Nerd or Agua al Tiempo (water at room temperature, after his favorite drink). For decades personalismo has been put ahead of the Constitution,  and  from personalismo there has often sprung caudallismo,  authoritarianism. Undoing such a longstanding political culture ironically would require a strong leader.

Pick Your Crisis

 The prospect of disintegration is not as farfetched as it seems, when one of Mexico’s leading intellectuals, Carlos Fuentes, frankly concedes that “...the pro-Americans in Mexican society do not disguise their hope that Mexico can become a sort of undeclared fifty-first state of the Union.” Mexico’s political structure is reacting not to one crisis in Mexico but to layers of crises. One set of problems has partly been created by NAFTA, but the Chiapas uprising has as well called attention to the demands of indigenous people in a number of Mexican states to have a voice in political affairs Evidence about this is abundant; and the leader of the Chiapas revolt, Subcomandante Marcos, is a prolific writer. Once written, the letters and essays are often “on the Internet by the next morning”. Indeed, he has been pursued electronically but ineffectively by the Mexican government, troubled at being “a helpless victim of the information age” and seeking to get its counter-insurgency position out on the net. (Marcos use of the Internet underlines the tragedy of the peasants in a competitive North American economy. They are not online. It is their white urbane leader who is online. The Internet is widening the gap between the haves and have-nots.)

 Despite all of this, “The aim of devolving more power from central government to individual states has been a recurring theme of the current [presidential] administration.” Of course, that is power being redistributed by a government which acquired it under unconstitutional circumstances. Carlos Salinas won or stole the 1988 presidential election after a supposed computer failure attributed to overloaded circuits and “atmospheric conditions”, and then claimed to have put Mexico permanently on the high road economically, but with little or no respect for constitutional norms.

  The Chiapas uprising is a demand for enfranchisement by a group which has heretofore been voiceless, a plea for their inclusion in state and local government — but local and state government in Mexico so far has been perceived as part of the problem rather than the solution, so corrupt that empowering it would seem to some to be an invitation to anarchy. Poignancy is added to this situation by recalling how upbeat Mexicans had been just a couple years before the fall, believing that with the signing of NAFTA  and with the booming stock market that a rosy future beckoned and full democratization was around the corner. Actually, had anyone bothered to look deeper during the Salinas presidency, which so enthusiastically promoted itself, the rot was widespread. The announcements about progress were not matched by realities. Mexico was premature in announcing that  it  had become a first world country.

 Chiapas produces nearly fifty percent of Mexico’s natural gas and sixty percent of its hydroelectric power, along with substantial amounts of lumber, coffee and beef. Yet, in some areas seventy percent of the homes do not have electricity. Unsurprisingly this mix of obvious wealth and bone cutting poverty has contributed to the uprising: “It is precisely in regions with a high percentage of indigenous peoples that can be found a systematic political, juridical, economical violence that has led, in some cases, to the outbreak of violent, armed conflicts. The EZLN, in Chiapas, was born amongst indigenous peoples who, most of all, demand dignified living conditions. They prefer, as they say, risking their life in a dignified manner, rather than dying little by little from the diseases of poverty.” It is obvious to the guerrillas that Chiapas and the other poor states can not fully take advantage of NAFTA  without enormous amounts of capital, and they suspect that the majority of the  population of those states can never realize any advantage from the agreement.

 So a problem with Mexican constitutional federalism is that if it is strengthened it may increase the chances for some sort of secessionist movement or in a grotesque turn of events aid strong local political bosses who are even less sympathetic to genuine reform that the bosses in Mexico City. There are therefore tradeoffs involved which lead in unknown directions. Until now the guerrillas have stayed away from talk of independence but the black cloud is there. Fuentes writes, “Governments can no longer respond with authoritarian, centralist measures. And there can no longer be coherent policies based on the incoherence of electoral fraud. As it has in its culture, Mexico must now bring together its society and politics. Otherwise, like Maradona, we shall be booted out of the game.” Mexicans are indeed paying dearly for the long PRI rule, which has had an effect on the country’s personality as well as its pocketbook.

 The Chiapas rebellion has been complemented by a guerrilla action in Guerrero known as Ejército Popular Revolutionario or EPR, and by still another uprising in the Sierra Madre Oriental.  Actions in Guerrero have taken place only thirty miles from Acapulco, directed by “Comandante Antonio”. Should the rhetoric of these movements turn to talk of an unacceptable level of political autnomy, those who fear that the uprisings harbinger a new medievalism of hopelessly overlapping authorities will claim vindication.

 The possible consequences of the emergence of a strong Protestant minority is only one of Mexico’s problems when it comes to finally living up to the fine words of 1917. All the thirty-one states  have their particular  dilemmas, but another big headache standing in the way of more constitutionally-inspired local autonomy is that many states have considerable overdue loans, and are looking to Mexico City to bail them out rather than to be put more on their own. A disturbing thought is that perhaps constitutionalism and federalism are like an expensive car that only countries with a stable political culture and successful economy can afford, a point raised years ago by Seymour Martin Lipset and often repeated.

 Is this the time to  have a constitutional renaissance and end vertical rule, push devolution, and experiment with the balance of powers? If not now, for God’s sake when, could be an understandable reply. What is sure is that the growth of Protestantism is related to pluralism, devolution, and the curtailing of central authority, and that all these inter-related concerns have taken on special and troubling meanings in present–day Mexico. As Baer remarks, there is a limit to how much trauma can be endured.