Monday, January 22, 2007

 

Fox to Build Mexico’s First Presidential Library

 

By Allan Wall

 

So what has Vicente Fox been doing since recently completing his term as President of Mexico?

 

Fox’s biggest project is the preparation of his proposed presidential library, to be located in the state of Guanajuato.

 

Fox’s proposal, announced several months before leaving office, would be a genuine U.S.-style presidential library. This would be a first for Mexico. Though the country is replete with good historical museums, it has nothing comparable to a presidential library in the U.S.A.  That would be changed with the Fox library.

 

So what exactly is a presidential library?  A U.S. presidential library is not simply a museum dedicated to a particular president.

 

A presidential library is a special repository containing presidential papers, records, and historical documents from the administration and career of a particular president. Located in the president’s home state, it can also be the scene for special events.

 

And, after the passing of a former president, he is usually (though not always) interred on the premises of his presidential library or museum.  For example, the late Gerald R. Ford, who recently passed away, was buried on the grounds of his presidential museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

 

In the United States there are now 18 presidential libraries, most maintained by the Office of Presidential Libraries, a branch of NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), although other agencies and institutions maintain some.

 

The former U.S. presidents whose legacies are represented in these libraries are John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dwight David Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (a museum in Grand Rapids, and a library in Ann Arbor), James Earl Carter, Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush and William Jefferson Clinton.  A presidential library is already in the works for current Oval Office occupant George Walker Bush.

 

Beginning with George Washington and continuing until the 1970s, former presidents considered their presidential papers as their personal property, rather than government property.  But NARA convinced them to donate their papers to that federal agency, which maintains most of the libraries of more recent presidents.

 

A presidential library serves several purposes.  Serious scholars can do research, and ordinary citizens can visit as they would other museums.  They are good for both research and tourism.  And they serve as specific meeting-places for those attempting to come to terms with a particular president’s historical legacy, elements of which are often open to various interpretations.

 

Back to Mexico.  The ambitious plan of Vicente Fox and associates is to construct a presidential library in the state of Guanajuato, probably in the municipio (roughly equivalent to U.S. county) of San Francisco del Rincon, in the little town of San Cristobal, by Fox’s ranch.

 

The project is to be funded by the Vamos Mexico Foundation and by businessmen.

 

And what a proposed project it is. The complex would include two large buildings. One would be the Presidential Library museum building. And the other would be the Centro de Estudios de Democracia, or Center for Studies in Democracy. That sounds a little reminiscent of the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and it probably is. But one of the goals of Fox’s Center for Studies in Democracy is to actually be a formal educational facility, granting masters degrees and doctorates.

 

A design model of the buildings has already been made and presented to the mayor of San Francisco del Rincon, Guanajuato, for consideration.

 

It’s definitely an ambitious proposal, and unprecedented in Mexican political history.

 

Not only that, but Fox plans to have his complex constructed by the end of calendar year 2007!

 

It should be interesting to see how the plan develops, and how the Fox administration is presented in the context of Mexican political history. This is always a consideration in presenting the life and career of a politician. How is his career presented, and what is emphasized?

 

Also, what kind of a curriculum will the Democracy Center have, and who will impart classes there?  And how will the entire project be viewed by the current Calderon administration?

 

Certainly, if the project is successful, it is highly likely to become a new Mexican tradition, after which every Mexican president would be obligated to have a presidential library after leaving office, just as in the U.S.A.  

 

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Allan Wall, a MexiData.info columnist, recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.  He currently resides in Mexico, where he has lived since 1991. He can be reached via e-mail at allan39@prodigy.net.mx.