México its not a religious country.
Mexico is not a religious country.
It is a superstitious country, which believes in magic and miracles. That its.
Superstition is not a religion, nor a form of it.
The President- elect had an indigenous religious ceremony in his inauguration. The inauguration is an official event, but, of course, it is also a ceremony. It must also be a ceremony. In it the new presidentshows the symbols with which he imagines his regime. And invite the community to participate in them.
Religious symbols have been a reason to disqualify some presidents. In the year 2000, in the same ceremony, Vicente Fox accepted Catholic symbols and was disqualified by the left. In 2018, that same left greets with joy that this leftist president makes a display of indigenous religious symbols.
There are many differences between one and the other. The first is that indigenous religions have neither order nor organization nor dogma nor hierarchy. That allows Obrador to do what he wants with it. It does not commit you to anything. It does not tie him to the idea, but it allows him to project the image of respecting that tradition, which is dispersed, multilingual, confused, disorganized. That, in short, does not mean anything. Which means what everyone wants, which is exactly that: empty symbols.
The contrast with the Catholic religion is evident. To be Catholic you must believe certain things and not others. Rituals have a precise, established meaning. And of course you must respect a very clearly defined hierarchy.
The religious act of the new president of Mexico was well received. He did not unleash criticism. Most people either were indifferent or sympathetic to him.
The religion with which he decided to define his mandate is one that does not commit him to anything. He decides at any time what is of that religion and what is not. And nobody can contradict it because that religion does not have any kind of organization, neither of beliefs nor of forms nor of bottom. It’s what he says. And it can even contradict itself: nothing prevents it.
It does not have a canon: it does not have a history. There is nothing forbidden or punishable. There is nothing exemplary either.
In a religion where it is not even established what god or gods are worshiped, nor what relationship there is between those gods, and especially, especially this: there is no duty or clarity about what relationships and should have the god or gods with the human beings. Anyone can do what they want. Nothing is prohibited. Nor is any type of behavior encouraged. Nothing is good, nothing is wrong.
It is a completely utilitarian religion. Utilitarian to the one that establish as a priest of her. Your priest can make any statement and it will be correct. You can take any action and it will not be punishable, it will not be reprehensible in your religion, nor among your faithful.
So, in the vision of the struggle for power, it makes sense that Obrador will do a ritual for the work of his train in the Yucatan Peninsula. It will be an empty ritual: there is no religious hierarchy to which you must respond, there is no faith in one or some gods, there are no stories that commit you to behave or not to behave in a certain way, there are no rituals with meaning. Every action in this act will be at your will.
And, since it is empty, each person can understand it as he wishes. This may seem attractive to some. That the ritual can be interpreted like him, as each one wishes.
That is the proof of my thesis: Mexicans are not religious. We are not interested in talking to god or the gods.
This event is also convenient for Obrador because it will replace the financial and environmental studies required by civil secular law to build such a work.
Or will it be that from now on if you want to do a work you can change the studies of environmental impact with a magical ritual?
Let me do my commercial: in my book about the Battle of Midway in World War II I study how the Japanese were creating a religion that was useful to the Japanese military. Not the people, but them. In the link you can download it or ask for the printed version. Thank you. (Spanish only).
