Mexico is living its full Energy Middle Ages. Of course I am not referring to the fact that we are using candles and whale oil, but if this trend continues, little would be missing for that. Not only because we live in an obscurantism in which official data on energy is hidden or buried in formats difficult to access and where new ideas are rejected, or because a system of energy vassalage is being implemented where we are all vassals, peasants or slaves of CFE; but because, in addition —and hand in hand with these two concepts—, we are in an Energy Inquisition orchestrated from the pulpits of public power and the State company.
For months, the federal government, starting with the president and the Secretariat of Energy, even leaders of the governing party, has taken on the task of winning the battle of the narrative that the electric reform initiative presented by the Head of the Executive himself is good for the people. Every day messages are positioned on television, radio, social networks, press conferences and in all possible media in defense of the initiative.
Also, week after week, some CFE official comes out to defend, either in the media or through press releases, the presidential proposal. In many cases showing the lack of technical knowledge of the electric sector, of the operational and financial management of the company or of legal practice itself.
However, the greatest problem is the very personal task that the direction of CFE and its social communication area have imposed on themselves by launching replies to any criticism or opinion published by experts, analysts, journalists or almost any person in any media outlet.
“…poor is the one who dares to question because he will end up in the virtual bonfire of CFE…”
Like the Spanish Inquisition of the Middle Ages, the selective persecution carried out by CFE is brutal. Week after week they attack without solid arguments, without figures, without graphs and in a personal way anyone who dares to publish some critical thought regarding the areas of opportunity and negative aspects of the initiative. Public lynching does not take long, nor does the bonfire from power to burn the reputation of those who do not retract. The end, as I pointed out, is to win the narrative, whatever the cost.
The worst part, with all the machinery of the self-proclaimed most powerful company in Mexico, is that substantial arguments based on official figures or evidence are not presented, but rather disqualification and personal accusations are resorted to. Arguments sustained in ad hominem, ad baculum and ad populum fallacies wholesale.
If someone writes that the solution to solve climate problems, advance in the energy transition and optimize the country’s electric resources is not hydroelectric plants, CFE’s reply does not present data, but limits itself to branding the opinion as unfounded improvisation.
If someone shows them that the prices of electric energy from private plants are lower than those of CFE itself according to the data of the Energy Regulatory Commission itself, CFE limits itself to attacking the person and calling him a “lobbyist for private companies” and “enemy of the state company.”
Or if someone questions the hidden subsidies that CFE points out so much and of which it has not presented any proof based on the government’s official documents or statistics, they limit themselves to presenting some unsupported figure, pointed out again and again while waiting for it to become true, and accuse, without further proof or foundation, of promoting foreign interests.
The three examples are real and are a sample of a systemic phenomenon that occurs within the state electric company. It is, then, an energy inquisition that only seeks to give a reply without contributing to the discussion and debate, only to promote its particular interest and not that of society, so poor is the one who dares to question because he will end up in the virtual bonfire of CFE, since it now seems that the fundamental right to be protected is not free expression, but persecution.
This article was originally published by Energía a Debate.
Date: November 22, 2021
Link: https://energiaadebate.com/inquisicion-energetica/ [Online]