Coordination of Historical Memory, from the National Palace to the General Archives of the Nation

The Commission for the Coordination of Historical and Cultural Memory of Mexico had a central role in conducting the official narrative during the controversial 2021, the year in which the government of the Republic linked the commemoration of three major historical events for the nation: 700 years of the Foundation of Tenochtitlan (in 1321, it was proclaimed without much academic support), 500 years of the defeat of the Mexica at the hands of the conquistadors or 500 years of the “indigenous resistance” —it was also said— (1521) and 200 years of the consummation of the Independence of Mexico (1821). Once the mission was accomplished and “taking advantage” of the fact that said Commission was left headless, its extinction was decreed and its course will be to leave the National Palace and go to the General Archive of the Nation.

Last Friday, through its publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF), President Andrés Manuel López Obrador formally repealed various provisions of the Regulations of the Office of the Presidency of the Republic, among them, the Fraction X of Article 3 that accredited the existence of the Coordination of Historical and Cultural Memory of Mexico as a unit dependent on the Presidency and whose head was Eduardo Villegas Megías until his appointment as the new ambassador of Mexico in Russia, and who also served as technical secretary of his Honorary Council.

Likewise, the repeal of Article 37 that listed the powers of the Coordination of Historical and Cultural Memory of Mexico was made official, among them, “develop strategies to disseminate, project and guarantee the right to memory of the nation”, as well as the responsibility for designing, developing and implementing a Great Repository of Historical and Cultural Memory of Mexico that would be fed with historical archives provided by federal, local and private agencies with the objective, among others, of promoting dissemination actions in the field of historical memory.

Due to the decree, the Honorary Council was also dissolved, which until Friday was made up of Arturo Beristain Bravo, Carlos Pellicer López, Cristina Barros Valero, Elena Poniatowska, Horacio Franco, Margarita Valdés González-Salas, María Isabel Grañén and Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, as its president.

With the appointment of Eduardo Villegas Megías in charge of the embassy in Russia, a position he assumed in mid-2022, Memoria Histórica was left headless and a new coordinator was not officially appointed.

The casualties and the controversy

Through her official accounts, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller announced that with the appointment of Villegas Megías as a diplomat, the President “took the opportunity to instruct that the aforementioned Coordination become part of the staff of the General Archive of the Nation”.

He gave details about the departure of other founding members of the Honorary Council throughout more than three years of function of Historical Memory. He mentioned the loss of two members due to death: the historian and anthropologist Miguel León Portilla, in October 2019, and the poet Minerva Margarita Villarreal, in November of that same year.

Gutiérrez Müller explained the reasons for the departure of other founding members: the ethnologist and INAH researcher Luis Barjau, who told the council, according to Gutiérrez Müller, that “he had many other occupations”; Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, “due to serious health problems”, and Frédéric Vacheron, representative of the UNESCO Office in Mexico, who justified that “the seat was intended for the head of UNESCO”.

Since 2020, Dr. Matos Moctezuma assumed a critical position towards the decisions of the federal government on the commemorations in 2021 for the bicentennial of the Consummation of the Independence of Mexico and the 500 years of the Conquest, but above all he opposed the plans of commemoration for the supposed 700 years of the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, a fact of which he said, there is no concrete data. Regarding the latter, the INAH emeritus researcher pointed out that it was “nonsense” and “manipulation of history.”

Contributions of the Coordination

Regarding the incorporation of the functions of the coordination to the AGN, Gutiérrez Müller expanded: “it could be that a new council is constituted in the AGN where the National Coordination of Historical Memory is now. In any case, we have participated these years with great enthusiasm, free of charge, for the care and dissemination of our national heritage and in due course the AGN will tell us if we can be of any use to them”.

On November 19, 2018, the still president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the project of said Coordination. “I am pleased that this initiative is taken, that archives and newspaper archives are recovered and preserved, that we can have all the heritage of our history. It will depend on the Presidency of the Republic because we are going to give all our support to this program,” said the virtual president of Mexico at the time.

Once the Commission was created, its Honorary Council met for the first time in May 2019. The third session was held in February 2020, at the National Palace, still with the presence of Matos Moctezuma. Then came the outbreak of the pandemic and there were conflicting positions on the criteria for the 2021 commemorations.

In 2019, this coordination was in charge of launching the National Reading Strategy, in coordination with the Fondo de Cultura Económica. The most outstanding milestone in this task was completed with the publication of the “21 for 21” collection, made up of 21 classic books of Mexican literature, history and arts, from which they were distributed, according to the information official, more than 2 million copies.

As a first step for the announced Great Repository, in 2020 the Coordination launched the project “Memórica. Mexico, make memory”, a digital collection of open access to historical and cultural documents of Mexico, which, until the beginning of last year, it was said, already had more than 200,000 digital elements available.

Likewise, it signed a collaboration agreement with the Ministry of Culture for the preservation and digital promotion of historical memory and cultural heritage and in September 2020 both institutions presented the Libraries project, with the aim of supporting the teaching process for basic education during the pandemic impasse. This body also signed similar agreements with the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt) and other educational institutions, such as the Anahuac University and the University of Guadalajara.

It should be remembered that also as part of her activities, Dr. Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller traveled in 2020 through Austria, Italy, the Vatican and France to request on behalf of her husband, the President of Mexico, the loan of codices and pre-Hispanic objects – she insisted on the so-called “Penacho de Moctezuma” based in Vienna— to form a great exhibition on the occasion of the 2021 commemorations.

The founding members of the Honorary Council:

• Arturo Beristain Bravo
• Carlos Pellicer Lopez
• Cristina Barros Valero
• Elena Poniatowska
• Frederic Vacheron Oriol
• horace frank
• Margarita Valdes González-Salas
• Maria Isabel Granen Porrua
• Minerva Margarita Villareal
• Eduardo Matos Moctezuma
• Luis Humberto Barjau
• Miguel Leon-Portilla
• Eduardo Villegas Megías as technical secretary
• Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, as president

Main actions promoted by the Coordination:

• National Reading Strategy – “21 for 21” Collection (FCE)
• Libraries
• memory. Mexico, remember

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx