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An essential element in our sovereignty

© Yhezel Armando Vargas

The myth was born in 1936 when President Lázaro Cardenas, in a swift and daring moved nationalized the oil industry. It was an extremely controversial decision at the time, over the years some historians -especially those with ties to the Mexican government- insisted that President Cardenas received an overwhelming support. Actually it was not like that; it is true that Cardenas was a popular President and that he received a considerable amount of support from the population, but there was also opposition to these measures.

A political party was born as a reaction to the President's policies. The National action parrty was considered for many years as harmless; in a month it will be on power. From that day on the oil became more than a natural resource, it became a symbol of Mexico's freedom and for leftists it was the country's most powerful weapon it its struggle against the United States.

The Presidents that ruled after Cardenas changed dramatically the party' economic but the oil industry remained untouched. Even President Salinas (1988-1994) who ruled over a period of profound economic reforms was loyal to Cardenas's legacy.

The government's propaganda system made Cardenas a legend. Oil was revered as a patriotic symbol, at times cartoons appeared comparing a barrel of oil to the constitution or the national flag. Monuments were erected to oil, speeches were given honoring oil, and schoolchildren wrote songs and poems to the nation's "black oil."

Pemex was the state company that controlled oil, it had it's own union, at times the most powerful and corrupt in Mexico. The oil industry reached its height in the late seventies when tremendous amounts of oil were found in the southeastern states. An enthusiastic President Lopez Portillo divided the world into nations with and without oil and declared that from that moment on and because of its natural wealth Mexicans would have to learn to "administer abundance."

Mexico's wealth dreams ended in a nightmare when the oil prices went donw in the early eighties and President De la Madrid (1982-1988) began a slow economic opening in which he diminished the role on oil in the economic system. Salinas then opened the economy and reduces drastically the country's dependence on oil. Ernesto Zedillo, his siccesor sontinued with these reforms, and now oil is not loved as it once was, but it remains important to Mexico's finaces