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 Editorials | Issues | February 2007 
Mexico's Fox Breaking Tradition in U.S. Visit
 Laurence Iliff & Alfredo Corchado - Dallas Morning News
| | By tradition, former Mexican presidents are supposed to quietly fade away, preferably in self-exile far from home. But Fox refuses to do so. |
No matter what former President Vicente Fox says at Southern Methodist University this Tuesday, his speech is already controversial and represents a radical break with the past.
By tradition, former Mexican presidents are supposed to quietly fade away, preferably in self-exile far from home. But Fox refuses to do so, despite critics at home who say that Mexico's powerful six-year presidency is best followed by silence.
"Vicente Fox has to understand that his presidency is over," Green Party leader Jorge Emilio Gonzalez said recently.
But since leaving office Dec. 1, Fox has been touring to speak out on topics such as democracy and poverty, like a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton.
In another groundbreaking step, Fox will meet with North Texas supporters over lunch and talk about his plans to build a presidential library - a first for Mexico.
Fox supporters include Dallas public relations consultant Rob Allyn, who called Fox is a "historic figure of world democracy" because of his role in ending 71 years of one-party rule in Mexico.
Former President Vicente Fox of Mexico will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Southern Methodist University's McFarlin Auditorium as part of the Tate Lecture Series. The event is sold out.
Allyn, who was a secret consultant to Fox during his 2000 campaign, is helping the former president make the transition to a high-profile private life that includes paid speeches and fund raising for his library and "study center."
"I've been helping him to prepare for his next life," Allyn said. In Dallas, that includes "a small lunch ... sponsored by his friends."
Allyn said Fox differed from many of his predecessors in that he did not leave office with vast wealth.
"It's notable that a (former) Mexican president needs to go to work for a living," Allyn said. "It's commendable."
Fox will not be soliciting donations from North Texans to help build his library, Allyn said, but the former president won't be turning down contributions either.
"We welcome support, whether financial or time and talent," Allyn said.
For his part, Fox said it was his right and duty to speak out on issues facing Mexico.
"Those who believe that a former president should not speak out on the issues he believes in are still living in Mexico's authoritarian past," Fox said via e-mail last week while traveling to Nigeria. "I have been intensely promoting the changes and causes of our new democracy and the progress Mexico is making in freedom, prosperity, education, housing, health care and poverty reduction, which we must nourish and strengthen every day."
A former rancher who once called for open borders between Mexico and the United States, Fox continues to generate the kind of controversy that marked his six-year presidency.
Jean Towell, president of Dallas-based Citizens for Immigration Reform, said she was "disappointed" to see SMU invite Fox. She said he was not a friend to the United States while in office.
"I think that he expected our country to do things his own country won't do in terms of immigration," said Towell, whose group opposes illegal immigration.
And in welcoming support for his library, Fox may draw the scorn of some North Texans who wonder why he is promoting his library in the U.S.
"I think it is a desperate attempt at vindication," said Gustavo Bujanda, a Dallas communications consultant who traveled to Mexico and voted for Fox in the 2000 election. "It is a telling sign that Fox is looking for speaking opportunities in the U.S. while in Mexico not even allies want to be seen with him in public."
In Mexico, critics of the former president's decision to speak publicly have jumped on him, especially for two comments he made in U.S. speeches.
In Los Angeles, he confused Colombian Nobel laureate in literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez with Peruvian writer and former presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa.
And in Washington, Fox implied that he had gotten revenge against leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by seeing to it that Felipe Calderon from Fox's conservative National Action Party won the election. The issue is delicate in Mexico because the vote was razor-close, and Lopez Obrador has accused Fox of illegal meddling in the election. A judicial panel criticized Fox for his role but said he had done nothing illegal.
Fox left office with approval ratings at about 60 percent. So did his predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo, who returned to Yale University to head its center for the study of globalization, where he has stayed out of the international limelight.
The five presidents before Zedillo, however, left mostly in disgrace as a result of repression, corruption scandals or economic mismanagement. Nearly all lived outside of Mexico for a time, a tradition that goes back decades.
In his new role, Fox can probably count on plenty of North Texas support.
Another strong backer is Juan Hernandez, a former professor at the University of Texas at Dallas who spent more than a year helping Fox hone his message prior to the 2000 election. After he was elected, Fox appointed Hernandez as his liaison to Mexicans living and working outside Mexico.
Hernandez credits Fox with giving Mexican immigrants in the U.S. enhanced standing in their home country.
"Before, these people didn't even exist for people back in Mexico," Hernandez said. "They were not part of the country. Vicente Fox started a debate about immigration and the people behind the debate. He took them out of the shadows."
U.S.-bound immigrants in Nuevo Laredo had both praise and criticism when asked about Fox's role.
"Every other president in my lifetime did the same thing: They ignored us," said Agustin Sorana, 40. "We were traitors. This man at least recognized us and gave us a place in Mexico. Fox didn't start illegal migration. It's been going on since the time of our grandparents."
Jose Mondragon, 39, had a different view of what Fox did for immigrants.
"I didn't like that he called us heroes, because what we do isn't heroic. It's desperation," Mondragon said. "Instead of focusing on creating jobs for us, Fox did the easy thing and labeled us so that we could all feel good about ourselves."
Clara Borja Hinojosa, founding director of the Mexico Institute in Dallas, plans to attend both the private lunch in Dallas and Fox's lecture at SMU Tuesday night.
Hinojosa is a native of San Francisco del Rincon, Mexico, just a few miles from Fox's hometown of San Cristobal, and she knew him growing up. She praised him for his role in guiding Mexico to true democracy by ending 71 years of authoritarian rule.
"He ushered in the transition in Mexico," Hinojosa said. "... He brought change without violence. It was a monumental change, one that I don't think Mexicans truly value."
If asked, she said, she would "be delighted to contribute to a man who returned greatness to my beloved Mexico."
"Fox did promise more than he delivered," she said. "He did have at times display a loose tongue, but he faced a divided Congress. He was a good man, a decent man. I think his greatest legacy was his decency."
The Dallas area is home to more than 100,000 people from Fox's home state of Guanajuato, she noted, and Texans have benefited from his support of free trade.
"I think he brought Texas and Mexico closer. He brought our people and economies that much closer."
She said there was "cosmic energy" in the fact that Fox will be promoting his presidential library and speaking at SMU, possible site of a future George W. Bush presidential library.
For Mexico, she said, the proposed Fox library represents "an opportunity, for the time ever, to witness history and to see how and why decisions were made."
The library is to contain presidential papers, records and historical documents from Fox's administration and career, documenting his rise from rancher to Coca-Cola executive, federal legislator, governor and president.
"It's a huge, positive contribution for Mexico," Hinojosa said, and "for the two nations, since we're more intertwined than we care to admit." |
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