The writer, historian and EL PAÍS collaborator Jorge F. Hernández was dismissed as Minister for Cultural Affairs of the Mexican Embassy in Spain, announced on Saturday night the Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE) of Mexico in a statement in which attributed the measure to "unworthy behavior", although without informing in principle about the type of behavior to which it refers.
The decision comes two days after Hernández published an opinion column on reading for pleasure, apparently in reaction to statements attributed to Marx Arriaga, director of Educational Materials at the Ministry of Public Education, which were made viral by a quote in which Arriaga attacks reading for pleasure as an act of capitalist consumption. In a column titled "Por Placer" published this Thursday, Hernández defends this type of reading without making direct reference to Arriaga.
This Sunday, before the controversy generated by the termination of his contract, the Executive Director of Cultural Diplomacy of the SRE, Enrique Márquez, published a new statement in which he assures that the dismissal of Hernández “is in no way an act of censorship for the articles and recent public opinions ”of the writer, and attributes the decision to which he referred“ in very offensive terms ”to who was his boss, the Mexican ambassador María Carmen Oñate Laborde, in a meeting.
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“As a background, we must say that given his career as a writer and historian, his literary work and his prestige as a cultural manager in both countries, in January 2019 I allowed myself to invite him to join the Cultural Diplomacy project that he has been promoting with such determination Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard ”, says the first statement from the SRE, signed by Márquez, which was released this Saturday. "However, unfortunately, recently, Mr. Hernández engaged in behavior not worthy of institutional conduct that led us to request the Secretariat to terminate his hiring," the statement added. Hernández was appointed to his position in January 2019.
At a conference on July 29, local media reported that Marx Arriaga said that "reading for enjoyment" is "an act of capitalist consumption."
Arriaga, however, denied having said that through his social networks.
Until Enrique Márquez published a new statement on Sunday morning, Hernández's dismissal was attributed to his public criticism of Arriaga.
Yesterday I was dismissed as Minister for Cultural Affairs of the Embassy of Mexico in Spain.
My applause and gratitude to the exemplary team of the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Spain and the Octavio Paz Library.
pic.twitter.com/iDbbm4YgNV
- Jorge F Hernández (@FJorgeFHdz) August 7, 2021
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