Yesterday, May 2nd, I joined the academic strike against the law that repeals the norm that regulates the Conacyt and creates another institution. I joined not only because of the content of the law that the legislators approved, but also because of the ways in which they did so. Many colleagues stopped, tired of the undemocratic imposition, of centralization, of the ideologization of the public space in which scientific and humanistic research is carried out in our country.
The content of the law has alarming aspects. Its sixth article says: «The State must encourage training, research, dissemination and development of projects in the humanities, sciences, technologies and innovation to be carried out under the following principles: epistemological rigor (…) solidarity, social benefit and caution.” It later establishes: “The competent authorities in the application of this Law must ensure that said activities comply with the limits established in the applicable regulations, especially those related to the precautionary principle (…)”. In other words, if an investigation exceeds the limits related to the precautionary principle, the State will intervene. In this regard, Javier Flores (@javerosf), in an article published in Nexos, affirms that: «The precautionary principle is a kind of not well-defined dogma that has served the director of Conacyt to establish barriers to research in some fields of knowledge as in biotechnology. Without a clear definition, such a principle could well be: “damn, I don’t like that.” And, of course, research cannot depend on unclear precautionary principles. That leads to arbitrary censorship.
Another serious issue is how they intend to allocate scholarships for postgraduate studies, since it will benefit postgraduates who study national problems identified on the national agenda. Let’s see who wins a scholarship studying Kantian pure reason, or Aristotelian metaphysics or the Higgs boson. These are highly relevant issues, but they are not directly and obviously linked to the national agenda. Aristotle does not remove hunger or prevent diabetes.
They will say that the precautionary principle will arise from broad social and scientific consensus, but after what has been seen in the Chambers, only the path of outrage is credible. That is precisely the central reason why I joined the strike: legislators are our representatives, those who vote for the majority, but also represent minorities. For this reason, the debate of the initiatives and opinions is central, so that the representatives of the majority can publicly defend the reasons why they intend to approve a law. The waiver of procedures attacks the rights of representation and transparency (Morena’s favorite word). And the lie (they lied about the open parliament; let’s not even talk about the botched jobs to reach a quorum on the sad night of Xicoténcatl) attacks their honor: they are representatives of the people, not power bishops. His behavior was an attack on democratic life. That many initiatives want to pass and there is no time? Work harder, don’t leave everything for the last night. And don’t lie, I thought that the “has been as it has been” was a sin of the past that they always blame.
Twitter: @munozoliveira
