Saturday, August 6, 2011

Sicilia's Rift with the Legislators

Javier Sicilia had a meeting with a number of legislators last week in which Manlio Fabio Beltrones essentially said that it was their turn to listen to and learn from Sicilia. The implication, for Sicilia at least, was that when crafting a new security law his opinions would be the driving philosophy. That has turned out not to be the case, specifically with regard to the codification of the army's use in domestic security, and Sicilia was quite angry. Jorge Fernández Menéndez says that the issue is the one of the legislators not having the guts to own up to differences of opinion with Sicilia to his face, and to acknowledge openly that his is just one of many outlooks:
Sicilia is a political actor playing his cards, legitimately. What's incredible is that Congress followed along with his ideas, to the letter. That sectors of the PRD say that they will listen to the poet is logical, but for a man like Manlio Fabio Beltrones to "explain" that it's only a legislative procedure and that they will then come "together", senators, deputies, and Sicilia's social movement, to legislate with regard to the issues is absurd. First, because legislating is the responsibility of the legislators and no one else. And second, because nobody has granted Sicilia's movement representation of the society. It's a legitimate movement, but with limited, scarce representation, as the marches demonstrated.

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