MODERATOR: We will now have a message delivered by the Constitutional President of Mexico and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO, CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM PARDO:Good afternoon to all.
General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, Minister of National Defense.Admiral Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, Minister of the Navy.All senior commanders of the Army, Air Force, National Guard, as well as the Mexican Navy.The President of the Chamber of Deputies.The President of the Senate.The President of the Supreme Court.Friends.Girls and boys.Mexicans:
Today, November 20, we recall the beginning of the revolutionary struggle of 1910, and with it we convoke the deep memory of the people of Mexico who, throughout their history, never accepted injustice as their destiny.
The Mexican Revolution is one of the great transformations of the 20th century, which demanded social rights, sovereignty and independence, the nation’s resources, and the people’s right to choose their rulers.
The Revolution was an armed uprising against the dictator Porfirio Díaz, who for 34 years led a regime of oppression, authoritarianism, and privilege.
Porfirio Díaz presented himself as a defender of order and progress, but in reality he built an authoritarian regime sustained by repression, fear, and the forced submission of the people.
Under his rule, elections became mere simulations in which results were predetermined, and any opposition was persecuted, imprisoned, or silenced.
All this occurred while he turned over the country’s natural resources to foreign companies, dispossessed Indigenous communities of their lands in order to grant them to national and foreign private owners, and turned landowners into agricultural laborers with exhausting workdays, starvation wages, and company stores that trapped workers in ever-growing debt.
Thus, in the landed estates, mines, and factories, there were inhumane workdays, miserable wages, and punishments for those who dared protest prevailed.
Repression against Indigenous peoples was brutal. The most atrocious example was the true war of extermination against the Yaquis, with the goal of distributing their lands to private owners.
The “progress” —in quotation marks— of the Porfiriato was, in reality, progress for the few, built on brutal exploitation, social racism, and daily injustice.
The country experienced an artificial brilliance.Railroads, modernized streets in the cities — while misery grew in the countryside.Speeches about order —while uprisings were crushed with blood and fire.
Workers who attempted to organize were persecuted, imprisoned, or killed.The strikes of Cananea and Río Blanco showed the world the brutality with which the regime responded to the most basic demands for justice.
Political freedoms were canceled.The independent press was harassed.Opponents were monitored, exiled, or silenced.And elections—as we have said—were nothing but a simulation.
In reality, what was involved was the perpetuation of control by an elite that governed without being accountable to the people.
This was the Mexico Francisco I. Madero confronted—and which was previously confronted by the Flores Magón brothers, who were imprisoned and exiled.
Madero, a man deeply committed to democracy and legality, first sought a peaceful path. He wrote, traveled throughout the country, founded a political party, and called for free elections. His message resonated with a society tired of oppression.
But when Porfirio Díaz, after having promised in an interview that he “would not seek reelection,” once again decided to cling to power and ordered the imprisonment of his main opponent, it was then that the Apostle of Democracy understood that the institutional path was closed.
In that dark hour, following his arrest in San Luis Potosí and escape to the United States, Madero made a decision that would change the nation’s history. Fully aware of the danger, understanding that his life was at risk and that he was undertaking an unequal struggle against an authoritarian apparatus, Madero drafted the Plan de San Luis.
That document, written in exile and amid uncertainty, called for rejecting the illegitimate regime and set a date for an armed uprising: November 20, 1910 — 115 years ago today.
The Plan de San Luis stated:
“The peoples, in their constant striving for the victory of liberty and justice, find themselves compelled, at specific historical moments, to make the greatest sacrifices.”
It also proposed returning lands to those from whom they had been taken and building a country in which the vote truly expressed the popular will: “Effective suffrage, no reelection.”
Peasant farmers, workers, and different sectors tired of authoritarianism joined the call.Zapata and Villa, great popular heroes, initially accompanied Madero in the fight for a just and democratic country.
The Plan de San Luis was more than a call to rebellion: it was an act of faith in the people of Mexico, a conviction that no power, no matter how great, can prevail over justice and truth.
Madero’s call had an impact.
After only six months, on May 10, 1911, General Navarro, Porfirista defender of Ciudad Juárez, surrendered to the revolutionaries.
Madero made his way to Mexico City, cheered and acclaimed in every village and city. His triumphant entry into the capital recalled that of Benito Juárez after winning the country’s Second Independence.
Madero was elected President by popular vote.
However, the fall of the old regime was not instantaneous; it was a monumental task.
As President, Madero devoted every day of his life to pursuing that ideal, which he believed essential to building a peaceful and prosperous country. He was not free from missteps and perhaps did not fully grasp the depth of the people’s demands for justice, but his faults pale next to the greatness of his vision.
Madero was a pioneer of democracy when it was barely a whisper—a bold dreamer who chose to fight against the inertia of decades of injustice and authoritarianism.
The coup d’état that overthrew Francisco I. Madero and Vice President José María Pino Suárez in February 1913 was a premeditated betrayal orchestrated by a faction of the old Porfirista regime within the military establishment, which remained intact and was supported from abroad.
During the so-called “Ten Tragic Days,” the government’s enemies, among them Victoriano Huerta and Félix Díaz, conspired to destroy the democratic project Madero represented.
The U.S. ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson, joined this conspiracy, openly intervening in support of the coup plotters and backing the agreements that sealed the downfall of the legitimate government.
This foreign interference, combined with internal betrayal, culminated in the assassination of Madero and Pino Suárez — a crime that opened one of the most painful and violent chapters in Mexico’s history.
After the coup, on February 19, 1913, the Coahuila State Congress issued a famous decree rejecting the usurper Victoriano Huerta and empowering Venustiano Carranza to create an armed force to restore democracy and constitutional order.
Villa and Zapata continued the revolutionary movement to fight against Huerta’s regime, forming part of the forces that finally overthrew it.
The truth is that the entire nation became a battlefield, marked by fires, hunger, and epidemics. The numbers are staggering: according to Jesús Silva Herzog, between 1913 and 1917, war, misery, and typhus claimed the lives of one million Mexicans.
It was a period of pain and betrayal but also of decisive struggle, in which the spirit of the people—hardened by tragedy—continued advancing toward the homeland Madero had envisioned.
The Mexican Revolution was enshrined in the Constitution of 1917, the most progressive in the world in terms of social justice. The main demands of the people were recognized:
The right of peasant farmers to land.The minimum wage.The eight-hour workday.The right to organize unions.Social security.The right to education.
And despite strong pressure from foreign companies and governments, the nation regained ownership of its natural resources.
General Lázaro Cárdenas, years later, fulfilled the spirit and letter of the Constitution of 1917.
Rather than continue outlining the events that followed, today I would like to concentrate on the 34 years of Porfirista rule and the Revolution, since doing so is a historical responsibility.
Because those who today defend iron-fisted rule, force above law, those who adhere to the far-right or a so-called freedom enjoyed only by the privileged few, do not know the history of Mexico or its people.
The Porfiriato of the past is the same type of system that they want to resurrect today: a regime marked by dispossession, silent extermination, slavery, a silenced press, imposed peace.
We must also not forget the period before the current Transformation: 36 years of regression, poverty, inequality, corruption, and privilege; the neoliberal period.
Four Transformations have marked Mexico’s history: Independence, the Reform, the Revolution — all of which were armed.
And the Fourth, a peaceful Transformation decided by the majority of the Mexican people, which upholds justice, liberty, democracy, and shared prosperity.
The Transformation that began in 2018 is strong because it is marked by honesty, results, and love for the people.
Because when a people recognizes its history, its dignity, and its collective strength, it defends its conquests and achievements.
That is why today, with the strength of our collective memory, I want to affirm that Mexico will never move backward!
Peace and tranquility are the fruits of justice. That is why discourses that normalize violence as a road forward, that glorify imposition, or that seek to restore a country marked by privilege for the few, find no echo.
Whoever calls for violence is mistaken.Whoever encourages hatred is mistaken.Whoever believes that force replaces justice is mistaken.Whoever calls for foreign intervention is mistaken.Whoever believes that allying with foreign interests will make them stronger is mistaken.Whoever believes that women are weak is mistaken.Whoever believes that the Transformation is dormant is mistaken.Whoever thinks that the campaigns of slander and lies find a response in the people and youth is mistaken.Whoever thinks the people are foolish is mistaken.
Mexico is experiencing a moment that once seemed impossible. Today, power is no longer used to subdue, but to serve. There are no more impositions or privileges — there is a Constitution, democracy, and a government that listens, respects, and responds to its people.
Today, freedoms are not only granted from above; they are exercised from below — from every neighborhood, every community, every voice that speaks with dignity — because in Mexico no one is silenced anymore, no one is persecuted for thinking differently. And that is a conquest and achievement of the people of Mexico.
Today, government is no longer a space reserved for the few. It is no longer a club of the privileged. Today it represents everyone: students, workers, merchants, youth, Indigenous peoples, women — but above all, it represents those who have the least, the humble, so they may achieve well-being.
The era of the luxuries of power is over. Government is conducted with austerity, ethics, and honesty. Because — let this be heard loud and clear — moral authority cannot be bought, not with all the money in the world; it is built over a lifetime with consistency and convictions!
For this reason, we do not tolerate corruption, and we will continue to fight impunity with the law in hand.
Today’s Mexico is the Mexico of a people who say: Never again racism, never again classism, never again discrimination, never again justice for the few. No one and nothing is above the law. Nothing by force, everything by reason and law. It is a nation that, with pride, defends its achievements, its history, its memory, and its heritage.
Nothing good can come from those who have made corruption their way of life. Nothing can be expected from certain media outlets that use their space for slander, from commentators who change their opinions based on convenience, or from the powerful blinded by ambition.
That is why we remember history — and we know that when a government accompanies the people, nothing and no one can defeat it.
They slander us because they know of our honesty; they know we will not submit to the interests of those who once held power or enjoyed privilege, nor to any foreign government or interest.
They know we will not be decorative figureheads or mere instruments of those accustomed to stealing and concentrating the nation’s economic and political power.
We have the support of the majority of Mexicans, especially of those historically pushed to the sidelines, because we seek shared prosperity, because we know that “for the good of all, the poor come first,” and that with the people everything is possible — without them, nothing is possible.
Our honesty and love for the people accompany us. That is why the campaign of slander and lies does not take hold, because the people know we will not surrender in the face of illegality or injustice. The people of Mexico are stronger today because they know that together we defend sovereignty, independence, and justice.
I would like to close by recalling that the Mexican Revolution left us great teachings and legacies. One of them is our Armed Forces, born from the Revolution, born from a heroic popular struggle against a coup d’état.
For this reason, I recognize — and the people of Mexico recognize — its patriotism, bravery, dedication, and service to the nation.
I would like to congratulate all naval and army officers who are promoted on this historic day, November 20, and I urge you to always uphold your loyalty to the people and your love for the homeland.
Mexicans:
Our history has shown, time and again: When we advance together guided by the principles that have shaped us, nothing can stop us. Today Mexico advances, more than ever, with a people with dignity and memory. Mexico advances on the path of honesty, peace, democracy, and justice.
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO, CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM PARDO: Long live the Mexican Revolution!
AUDIENCE: Viva!
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO: Long live Francisco I. Madero!AUDIENCE: Viva!
Long live Zapata!Viva!
Long live Villa!Viva!
Long live Carranza!Viva!
Long live free, independent, and sovereign Mexico!Viva!
Long live Mexico!Viva!
Long live Mexico!Viva!
Long live Mexico!Viva!
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