Jorge F. Hernández at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in 2019 Pedro Andrés / FIL
Let them see us with a book in hand.
Let them see us reading and see what we are.
That the poor man and the rich man, the nurse and the mechanic read for pleasure, and that is read in order to know.
That they see us with a book not to forget and to imagine.
That they read us with intelligence and not bureaucracy, that we are of votes and not
bots
, that we are devout and unorthodox. Let each paragraph that falls under its own weight or erratic misprints be read and read who is authoritarian and who are the everyday victims. I have been repeating for years that the only thing that saves us as people, country and planet is in books, in reading the three main creeds of the world that base their faith in the written word, that if a law is not written we do not have to to obey whoever tries to invent it as a rule and that even frustrated loves turn to smoke if there are no words in the ink of the heart. I have been repeating it for so long that today I feel that I am rid of the official stupidity, the government mud, the nonsense of believing that the State is something foreign to the Government and that the high honor of representing Mexico abroad does not diminish or close personal opinion ,the ability to reason or the search for common sense. On second thought, today I get rid of it.
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Last Saturday I was dismissed as Minister for Cultural Affairs of the Embassy of Mexico in Spain. It was reported by telephone by the executive director of cultural diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, but as of this writing, no official document has yet arrived that exposes the termination of my contract and the reasons for my dismissal have not been stated, except in innuendo, versions, corrections and miscellaneous aberrations. In the first instance, the director of cultural diplomacy accused me of "serious behavior and little worthy of institutional behavior" and then, he edited the word "serious" and hours later, he openly resorted to irrational slander: the aforementioned official publishes what which he titled “Avance” to allude to a meal I attended a few weeks ago in Mexico City.He affirms that at that meal I referred to the ambassador in "offensive and misogynistic terms", who until today - and pending that they indicate to whom I give my responsibilities - is my boss. I learned about the ill-fated progress together with the ambassador (whose name was changed by the executive director among other misfortunes of her terrible writing) and we both could not believe the abuse and injustice of dragging her person and figure as a parapet or pretext to try justify a decision that - said by himself - refers to a private conversation, over the table with three of my best friends and our wives, where what is "documented" (as he seems to want to reveal) are other matters, very unrelated to the ambassador, women, gender equality and myself… but that is another topic that I will hint at later.
However, the desperate devious advance reveals an improvised and uncomfortable nebula, since it does not answer or clarify the morass of various interpretations that have been assigned to my dismissal. He wants to clarify without doing so that the discomfort generated by what I write and publish could have seriously affected one or more public officials and that indeed, there are many veiled ways to obstruct public opinion, freedom of expression and yes - we knew it from the beginning —The voice of the writer turned public official must be modulated and self-censored not only for the civic alignment.
Mea culpa
: In a ridiculous eagerness to be at the height of great intellectuals who have honored the Mexican Foreign Service, I worked to rescue not only the Octavio Paz Library in Madrid, but the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Spain itself that had practically already been shrouded to the edge of my arrival.
Forgive the paragraph, but it is necessary to publicly inform that the miracle with which said institute of the Embassy of Mexico in Spain survives is due to the commendable effort, tireless work and true love for serving Mexico of the diplomat Jaime Viña, the artistic vocation and culture of Manuela Lema and Mónica Sotos, as well as the titanic work of every day of Eloy Barajas, librarian and in charge of all literature that is presented, ventilated and read in said institute. All this without today receiving the budget corresponding to the current year, drawing up savings from past items and even putting our share aside, in addition to the shame with which we continue to request extensions from at least one Spanish institution to whom we remain to owe euros last year. I close the paragraph with the same relief,all the more reason to feel like I'm free.
Involuntarily championed by the ridicule of a de facto dismissal that is flooded with bureaucratic slob and bots with lies, I am honored to defend what I write, criticism in general and the free expression of ideas ... because I am really accused of alleged sayings in The after-dinner I held before my wife and my best friends I have written evidence stating that I did not say or imply what they now want to put in my mouth and yes, on the contrary, legal proof that an upstart was at that table uncomfortable that, in the end, showed signs of a latent psychopathy and nefarious obsession against me: for not a few days that individual harassed me,he intimidated and threatened with the invention of having recorded me (which is a federal crime and I do not believe that the Ministry of Foreign Relations wants to justify my dismissal on that illegal basis). Of course I did not say that and those who know me already smell the powerful lie to confuse, blur and ultimately hide the following:
I tried to inform my superiors of the threats and insults that flooded my phone with offensive messages that offended - not Ambassador Oñate - but Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. That is what is documented and works in my defense as proof that I tried to report and follow due process against the harassing individual (also accused for many other reasons), at the time a minor official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the Service Foreign Mexicans and apparently, wanting to better cut their losses, Dr. Enrique Márquez unilaterally made the decision to dismiss me, without any consultation with Ambassador Oñate herself and without telling her in advance that he would mention her as justification for an arbitrary decision that entangles the try to explain it and without considering all possible interpretations,explanations and speculations.
I said: I get rid of it.
I know what I said in one and many other after-hours.
Paraphrasing Jorge Ibargüengoitia: "Misogynist, me? ...".
Rather, the misogyny, alcoholism and accommodating authoritarianism of which I feel that today I am free to read for pleasure without affecting anyone, in silence or out loud and to be able to write in absolute freedom ... and exhort with these lines to see us all with a book in hand, read us as we are, what we have tattooed on the skin of memory and everything we imagine.
Let's all get rid of those who offend books and read what we feel like to relieve ourselves of so much blood shed, so much eviction, lies and abuse.
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