Jose M. Muria
T
urinating through Campeche, the Mexican city that I like the most, the pleasure increased when I heard that the doctor in political science José Alberto Abud Flores was about to take possession of the new position of rector of the Autonomous University of Campeche, of which He was dismissed in 1999 in a very bad way – as had happened to the eminent doctor Ignacio Chávez at UNAM three decades earlier.
The one who orchestrated the dirty maneuver to please his governor, at the time José Antonio González Kuri, was neither more nor less than Alejandro Moreno, current national president of that PRI who cunningly betrayed his principles and his nationality.
That rout of 1999 did not determine, but it did contribute to the resounding defeat of that imitation of the PRI that was left then at the hands of the unfortunate Vicente Fox, which opened the doors wide to the Mexican right-wing, although it should be recognized that they had already begun to open with Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo.
Dr. Abud had been a supporter of the candidacy of Layda Sansores, whom the bad González Kuri defeated, and he paid dearly for his preference, since he even had to leave the state. She is now governor with unquestionable legitimacy and put things in her place. I’m sure Abud Flores will do a good job.
The other placer comes from northwestern Mexico. At the beginning of the millennium, Víctor Espinoza, a researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef), aspired to the presidency of said institution, from which Dr. Santibáñez retired, who in turn had succeeded the long-lived Jorge Bustamante, practically the creator of that house of studies, although thinking little about the daily life of its headquarters. Dr. Espinoza, deeply rooted in Tijuana, since he was born near there, in a city with the air of beer –Tecate–, wanted and pushed for Colef to be more Mexicanist and not turn around to see only what was happening and did in the other side
or in the center of the country.
Unfortunately, the interference of the capital put someone in the presidency with more political than academic aspirations and, of course, willing to dance to the beat that was set for him from the center. It did not go badly for the man, because he continued on his way there, but after him the Colef began to deteriorate regrettably.
The fact that it is now the eminent academic Víctor Espinoza who has assumed the presidency of that house of studies has given rise to two things: greater vitality and, above all, a greater commitment to the daily life of Tijuana and that sector of the northern border. .
It is not about losing sight of what is happening in the rest of the world. As the unforgettable Luis González put it with such success, the studies of society must be very broad but must have a center from which one looks around as far as sight and knowledge allow. The more and more intensely, the better.
Dr. Espinoza, forged at UNAM, enriched in Madrid and deeply rooted in his homeland, is now the president of Colef. Surely he is going to endow it with a much more solid mystique. Those of us who know him are sure of that.
