A thousand years ago, Mexico, this physical, historical and cultural area which we call Mexico today, had already seen the rise and fall of great civilizations and had already witnessed notable achievements in architecture, the arts and thought. Nomadic groups of hunters and gatherers began to populate this territory more than 30,000 years ago and, around 7,000 years ago, as in other places on our earth, agriculture began. Some of the plants that have grown on our soil since those times, such as squash, beans, chili, tomato and avocado, continue to be much enjoyed in our diet. As time passed, another crop gained such importance that it became – and continues to be – the very symbol of sustenance and life in Mexico: corn. Very few countries are the direct heirs of such an ancient, profound and living culture. Like China and India, today’s Mexico is the result of millennia of transformations that have taken place in a historical process of continuity. A thousand years ago, some of the greatest cultures that flowered in Mesoamerica had already declined and belonged to a mythical and legendary past. Mexico was the scene of one of the most extraordinary episodes in world history. Right in the middle of the second millennium, the encounter between the different indigenous peoples that inhabited the domains of Mesoamerica and the Spanish conquistadors took place. Thus the "new world" was born. Never before had two so different and so distant civilizations encountered one another: one, which dominated a continent in avid expansion, was the heir of Greek and Roman culture, was immersed in the Judeo-Christian tradition and was tinged by the legacy of the Moors. The other civilization, that of our territory, ancient and prodigious, lived enclosed within its own space and with no notion of the world that extended beyond the great waters. The valiant defense of kingdoms was insufficient. Ferocious military conquest, economic collapse, terrible epidemics and forced labor decimated the indigenous population. From the ashes of the pre-Hispanic world a notable cultural foundation emerged. The Spaniards and the Indians built Mexican culture together. The indigenous population was converted to Christianity. The dimension of this task can still be seen in the thousands of churches and monasteries scattered across the national landscape. That profusion of facades, altarpieces, paintings and sculptures, many of them of such high quality that they have become expressions of universal art, reached its splendor in the Mexican baroque. During that period of spiritual richness, the cult to the Virgin of Guadalupe took root. The continent’s first printing press, the first university and the first academy of arts were established in Mexico City. Our land has always been fertile for talent. This was proved by the abundance of physicians, engineers, astronomers, writers, musicians and painters in New Spain. Among all those personages, a great woman, an enormous talent in world literature stood out: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. When the ideas of the Enlightenment, which promoted the development of the sciences and spoke of freedom and equality among men, began to reach New Spain from Europe in the eighteenth century, the ground was ready to make the most of them. A generation of Creoles then laid the foundations of Mexican cultural nationalism and began to feel that this land should be a nation different from Old Spain. On occasions we Mexicans have tended to feel the three centuries of the Viceroyalty as alien. But from the perspective of the year 2000, we should acknowledge that that period had a decisive importance in forming our country, and above all, that its cultural heritage has a clearly positive facet. The knowledge, skills and sensibility of the indigenous peoples, the materials of this land, combined with western concepts and models, created countless admirable works in Mexico, a unique and profound culture, both in its academic manifestations and in the immense variety and richness of its popular expressions. We can all perceive that presence today, active and alive. It is a foundation of our identity, our unity and our hopes. It is good to remember this at the end of this millennium. The mysterious Olmec culture, originally established in the south of Veracruz and the north of Tabasco, the mother of the first calendars and systems of writing in the Americas, and the origin of many of the deities that would later be venerated in Mesoamerica, was born a thousand years before the Christian era. With its monumental architecture, murals and enormous and complex urban layout, Teotihuacan, the splendid city of Quetzalcoatl, expanded its influence as far as Central America; in the year one thousand its legend was so powerful that, from then on, other peoples saw Teotihuacan as the place where the gods had assembled to create the Fifth Sun, and they strove to feel themselves the heirs of its wisdom and splendor. A thousand years ago the classic Maya civilization, whose grandeur dazzles us, even though we are only now beginning to decipher its writing, had already passed its peak. El Tajín and its pyramid of niches, Monte Albán and its amazing plaza, the Xochicalco site, where major cultures adjusted their calendars, Cacaxtla and its mural paintings, to name just a few examples, all flowered before the beginning of the millennium that ends with the year 2000. Beginning in 1325, in the lakes of the Valley of Mexico, the city of Tenochtitlan emerged. It was built by the Mexicas, who became the most powerful people of those times. As others before them had done, the Mexicas proclaimed themselves the heirs of Teotihuacan, the place where power and riches had become concentrated, where the arts had flowered. Based on that ancient and extraordinary lineage, they affirmed that while the world lasted, the fame and glory of Mexico-Tenochtitlan would never end, would never be lost. In the same way, we look to the past in search of the roots and the strength of our identity, our unity, our hopes. It is good to remember this at the end of this millennium. We are a mestizo country. Mexico is the homeland of a combination of races and cultures that has no equal in the rest of the Americas. In what are now other countries, the colonizers exterminated the indigenous populations or segregated them in reserves. Others favored the emergence of two and even three separate societies: white, native and black, which mutually nourished their wrongs, resentment and mistrust. But in Mexico, certainly with a few painful exceptions, the rule was inclusion and blending, not exclusion and prejudice. Cross-breeding incorporated indigenous peoples of the most diverse ethnic origins, Spaniards from various regions and also the black population. That rich combination was to give rise to a new nation. Although its ethnic aspect was so important, the decisive blending was cultural. If we look at the set of tastes, values and customs that characterizes Mexicans, we realize how the influences of different peoples combine in our culture. We can also see that this process has never been interrupted. With the passing of time, people from the East, from the south of our continent and from many European countries have equally found their home in Mexico. In the cultural sense, Mexico is a prodigious construction where the different identities dissolve and become strengthened in that other, new, Mexican identity. Sometimes indigenous culture predominates: we continue to eat corn, beans, chili, cacao and turkey. Many national dishes are mestizo, such as mole or the highly varied candies. On the other hand, the preponderant language, clothes, domestic furniture and the instruments of transportation and work are usually, and have been for centuries, of European origin. In the community sense of existence, in that predominance of "us" over "I" there is an indigenous echo, just as there is in the lavishness of our fiestas. Popular attitudes toward death are a combination of two kinds of stoicism: the indigenous and the Spanish. Mexico has never been, nor should be, a nation that excludes diversity. On the contrary, it is, and should continue to be, a varied and multicolored mosaic. A mosaic of "small-homelands" whose inhabitants, even if they are obliged to emigrate, always conserve the love for their homeland, for the people, for the unique landscape in which they were born and grew up. Every one of those pieces of the Mexican mosaic has its own identity. Each one has different characteristics in its attitude to life, work, the body, love and death. Artistic sensibilities, customs, ideals and devotions change. But those "small homelands" unite into one will, one common identity. Happily, those "many Mexicos" between the Río Grande and the Suchiate, between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, in the mountains, deserts, high plateau and on the coasts, coexist, exchange ways of being, influences and tastes, support one another and live in close unity. Fortunately, those "many Mexicos" all feel part of the larger homeland, part of the idea and tangible reality of which they form part, and give strength to our nation. Throughout the millennium that ends with the year 2000, and particularly during the twentieth century, humanity has rent itself time and again over religious, ethnic, cultural, economic, political and national differences. Differences that have seemed so irreconcilable that they have been the pretext for wars, extermination and persecution. In the world of the twentieth century, Mexico has been an exception. Although there have been unfortunate cases of discrimination or exclusion in our country, which we must fight, Mexicans do not pursue Mexicans or anyone else. Social brotherhood is one of our greatest contributions to human history. It is also the source of our unity, identity and hopes. It is good to remember this at the end of this millennium. In 1810, the priest Hidalgo called on Mexicans to fight for Independence. After long years of heroic struggle, in 1821, Mexico succeeded in becoming a sovereign nation. In The Sentiments of the Nation, José María Morelos drew up the noblest of programs for the homeland that he could as yet barely envision, and proposed that a democratic and republican, egalitarian, educated and just nation be created. Morelos conceived it in the following words: "Sovereignty issues from the people, who only want to deposit it in their representatives. Since the law is above all men, the laws our Congress passes should be such that they oblige people to constancy and patriotism, moderate wealth and poverty and increase the daily wage of the poor." Expressed 186 years ago, these sentiments continue to be valid, and we Mexicans must make every effort to fully comply with them. During that period, however, it took us several decades to reach agreement on how this new nation should be governed and organized. Mexicans lost half of the nineteenth century on internal conflicts that made us vulnerable to the powers of those times. Instead of democracy, we suffered domination by local leaders. Instead of national integration, separatist attempts were made. We suffered quarrels and the egoism of many. The result could hardly have been more painful: we were deprived of half of our territory. Faced with the risk of losing it all: freedom, independence and homeland, in 1857, an extraordinary generation of Mexicans began a great national decade which laid the foundations of modern Mexico. That year, the liberal Constitution was enacted. It was not the first, but it was, until then, the most important in our history. To it we owe our civil liberties and our individual rights. But perhaps the most important aspect was that we Mexicans, led by President Juárez, proved to ourselves for the first time without a doubt that we were fully capable of defending our sovereignty. After a long and painful struggle, the invading empire brought in by the conservatives was defeated, and the law was applied with justice to those who tried to impose a foreign monarchy on us. In 1867, after defeating the forces represented by Maximilian, Benito Juárez succeeded in restoring the republic as the form of government Mexico needed to achieve economic progress, democracy and justice. For ten years, during the Restored Republic, under the governments of Juárez and Lerdo, Mexico made notable progress on the political front. Then came the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, in which the country progressed economically but fell back in political and social matters. Agriculture, mining and industry began to grow. Thousands of kilometers of railroads were laid and new ports were opened. But social differences in rural areas and cities became more acute. People’s rights were violated. Freedom was oppressed. Exclusion prevailed as a form of government. The result was the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Let us recall the ideals and values of its leaders: the apostle Madero traveled from city to city preaching democracy; Zapata demanded land and liberty; Pancho Villa rode, with a sense of justice, at the head of his Northern Division; Venustiano Carranza defended national sovereignty and convened the Congress which gave rise to the first constitution in the world which combined individual freedoms and social rights. Once the fighting stage was concluded, the undefeated Obregón began the normalization of the country and the educational crusade; then the dour Calles undertook the establishment of institutions; General Cárdenas distributed the land and nationalized petroleum. Let us also recall the images of the people who lived, took part in and suffered the Revolution under the orders of those leaders. The struggle of that people, of those men, those women, those old people, those children should be honored by us, their children and grandchildren. The Revolution’s promise of justice, liberty, equality and education to Mexicans continues to spur our unity, our identity and our hopes. At the end of the millennium, It is good to remember this. The 1917 Constitution, our current constitution, contains the noblest ideals of the Revolution: safeguarding national sovereignty, attaining social justice in the fields and in the factories, providing everyone with free basic education, guaranteeing a life with dignity for every man and woman, and, of course, making democracy a reality, which was the ideal that sparked the 1910 movement. The governments that stemmed from the Revolution set about attaining those ideals of justice, democracy and development; each one did so with a different emphasis, according to its own understanding of the country and its circumstances. Errors were certainly committed along the way, and much remains to be done to fulfill the programs established by the Revolution. Many millions of Mexicans still suffer poverty, injustice and inequality. But despite those major problems, no one can say that in Mexico the twentieth century went by in vain. On the contrary: in the last one hundred years, we Mexicans have made undoubted progress. Such important material, political and cultural advances occurred that they have changed the country, and now demand more and better solutions to today’s problems. In 1900, we were 15 million people living, above all, in the countryside, in small settlements without communications. Our life expectancy was no more than 30 years, for infant mortality was very high and health services extremely scarce. Almost nine of every 10 Mexicans could neither read nor write. Our economy was predominantly agricultural and highly dependent on a few precious metals such as gold and silver. Industry and services were barely starting and were located in few parts of the republic. Now that we are many more Mexicans, almost 100 million, the large majority of us live in hundreds of cities that have grown over this century and are connected by an extensive network of all kinds of communications. Our life expectancy is 75 years. Nine out of ten Mexicans can read and write. In our current economy, which is 40 times larger than in 1900, the industrial and services sectors predominate. The country is a leading player in international trade, now not only for its raw materials or natural resources, but for its manufactures. Today, Mexico is the first exporting country in Latin America. When we look back over our past we should do so objectively and justly. We must not forget that in the midst of a world continually at war, a world marked by hatred and intolerance, we Mexicans have built a country that has freedom and internal peace. In this, we must repeat, we have been an exceptional case, because in almost all the rest of the world, the twentieth century has been perhaps the most destructive in history. Suffice it to recall the two world wars and the totalitarian regimes of left and right that left tens of millions dead. In this landscape of violence and desolation, Mexico has been, since the third decade of the century, a place of freedom, stability and peace, a modest but generous country that frequently opened its doors to those persecuted in other lands. In the last few years, with the determination of all Mexicans, the economic crisis has been overcome, and in doing so, new opportunities to address our people’s enormous and long-standing insufficiencies have been opened up. One particularly notable achievement during these difficult years is that we Mexicans have made firm progress in fulfilling the first ideal of the Revolution, Madero’s democratic ideal. Democracy is the sign of our times. We Mexicans have begun to live in a genuine democracy. A democracy based on full freedoms: freedom of thought, expression and action; freedom to become organized to fight for ideas and to elect officials. Nowadays, democracy is not only the best method for Mexicans to settle our disputes, but the path towards building a decent, free, just and prosperous life in the twenty-first century; a life in harmony that respects another of our great strengths as a nation: the diversity that characterizes us. We are a country that does not measure its history in years or centuries, but in millennia. Natural disasters and human errors have struck our house, but they have not knocked it down. They could never do so. Mexico has solid foundations of unity, identity and hope that no adversity could destroy. Its soundness stems from the legacy of our millenary culture and from the efforts of each generation of Mexicans. In this transition from the second to the third millennium, It is good to remember the example of the women and men who preceded us in building Mexico; this common home of ours, so well-loved, which we call Mexico and whose "fame and glory", like that of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, "will never end, will never be lost while the world lasts."