This editorial by Fernando Buen Abad originally appeared in Revista Conciencas on December 15, 2025. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those ofMexico Solidarity Media, or the Mexico Solidarity Project.**
Our diplomacy under the Fourth Transformation demands to be understood not merely as a technical exercise or a set of institutional formalities before the international community, but as a space where a profound struggle is waged over the meaning of public life, historical truth, and the emancipatory horizon of our peoples. If the 4T has fostered an ethical and political shift within the country, the pending—and increasingly urgent—task is to build a revolutionary international counterpart that breaks with neoliberal inertia, imperialist interference, far from silent obedience to organizations captured by private interests, and the reproduction of a geopolitics based on dispossession, lies, and the systemic violence of transnational capital. This alternative diplomacy cannot be limited to the reactive defense of the Mexican state, but must become an active platform for transformation, both educational and mobilizing, capable of uniting wills, articulating struggles, and producing critical thought. It is, therefore, a revolution of consciences taken to the diplomatic field, internationalist in its most fraternal sense, where every gesture, every intervention and every pronouncement becomes a seed of emancipation for Mexico and for the world.
Our revolution of consciences entails dismantling the cynicism that has become normalized in the international arena: the hypocrisy of those who speak of human rights while financing wars; the double standards of those who invoke democracy while supporting soft coups or persecuting popular leaders; the technocratic façade that hides corporate interests behind the neutral language of “cooperation” or “stability.” To confront this scenario, transformative diplomacy must recognize that truth is a political weapon: not to impose dogmas, but to unmask structures of domination, expose historical inequalities, and reaffirm the right of peoples to sovereignty and self-determination. Truth—as a critical tool—cannot be merely decorative; it must be challenging, mobilizing, capable of breaking complicit silences and generating new balances of power. This begins with updating it constitutionally.
This diplomacy of truth is inconceivable without the active participation of the people. The old diplomatic model operated like an elitist club of expert merchants isolated from the people, trained not to feel or listen, to feign neutrality in the face of human suffering. The diplomacy of the Fourth Transformation, on the contrary, must be nourished by the moral energy of social movements, by communal wisdom, by the history of struggles that Mexico has offered to the world: from Cardenismo to Zapatismo, from the defense of oil to the hospitality shown to political refugees. The revolution of consciousness demands that foreign policy cease to be a matter for elites and become a collective educational process, where society participates, evaluates, demands, and proposes. This is not about “popular” diplomacy as a mere slogan, but about a real process of transformation, where the people are the subject and not the spectator.
Transformative diplomacy must recognize that truth is a political weapon: not to impose dogmas, but to unmask structures of domination, expose historical inequalities, and reaffirm the right of peoples to sovereignty and self-determination.
A new revolutionary program of diplomacy requires cultivating its own critical theory, free from colonial complexes and epistemological subordinations. Mexico can no longer import foreign conceptual frameworks to interpret its own reality or to integrate itself into the world. The revolution of consciousness needs diplomatic thought that draws from the Latin American tradition of sovereignty, from practices of solidarity-based integration, from experiences of anti-imperialist resistance, and from the intellectual legacy of figures such as Martí, Bolívar, Mariátegui, González Casanova, and Freire. Revolutionary diplomacy is not voluntaristic improvisation; it is rigorous theory, articulated praxis, and a dialectical reading of the international situation. It requires recovering the critique of communication, media warfare, lawfare , and the corporate and financial diplomacy that today de facto replaces classical international politics. Without a profound understanding of these dimensions, no transformation is possible.
In this context, communication occupies a strategic place. Transformative diplomacy must contest the construction of global common sense. It is not enough to defend Mexico’s image against media campaigns; it is essential to create our own platforms, alternative information networks, and grassroots communication networks that challenge the informational hegemony of capital. The revolution of consciousness in diplomacy implies transforming embassies and consulates into centers of media literacy, spaces for critical research, and hubs of internationalist solidarity. Information must cease to be a commodity and become a tool for emancipation. And this is not about government propaganda: it is about producing collective knowledge, documenting struggles, making injustices visible, supporting emancipatory processes in other countries, and weaving a continental network of critical communication.
Another essential element is the recovery of the principle of internationalist fraternity. Mexico, which has historically offered asylum to political refugees, can once again become a global leader in active solidarity. The revolution of conscience demands abandoning the fear of diplomatic conflict when human dignity is at stake. Foreign policy cannot be timid or complicit in the face of economic blockades that kill entire populations, covert military interventions, or campaigns of lies that justify aggression. A revolutionary diplomacy not only condemns these practices: it organizes, convenes, mobilizes, and coordinates global efforts for peace with justice. It is not about confrontation for the sake of confrontation, but about exercising ethical firmness that inspires respect even among those who do not share the transformative project. A diplomacy of moral fortitude is more powerful than a diplomacy of tactical expediency.
Diplomacy cannot be transformed with officials trained in the old paradigm, accustomed to bureaucratic obedience and empty rhetoric. A new diplomatic school is required, based on ethics, critical thinking, communication theory, political economy, Latin American history, media analysis, political philosophy, and emancipatory pedagogy.
The entire field of international political economy is one where a revolution of consciousness must intervene. Mexico cannot limit itself to negotiating trade agreements under the logic of the free market. A radical rethinking of the notion of international cooperation is required, moving toward a model that prioritizes food, energy, technological, and communications sovereignty. Agreements must be geared toward building regional value chains, protecting natural resources as common goods, regulating speculative capital, and defending decent work. Transformative diplomacy does not bow to financial ratings or the blackmail of private interests disguised as multilateral organizations. An economic internationalism is needed that puts life above profit and builds alternatives to predatory extractivism.
Our revolution of consciousness in diplomacy also demands a radical critique of cultural colonialism. The international system has imposed its linguistic hierarchies, its forms of knowledge, its political trends, and its rituals of authority. Mexico must reclaim its linguistic plurality, its Indigenous worldview, and its history of resistance—not as folklore, but as a living contribution to a world that needs new forms of relationship, new ontologies and epistemologies that transcend the predatory logic of capitalism. Transformative diplomacy can learn from Indigenous communities practices of dialogue, care, balance with nature, and collective conflict resolution. This knowledge is not “alternative”: it is indispensable for confronting the global civilizational crisis.
José Carlos Mariátegui
In this revolutionary task, the training of diplomatic cadres is crucial. Diplomacy cannot be transformed with officials trained in the old paradigm, accustomed to bureaucratic obedience and empty rhetoric. A new diplomatic school is required, based on ethics, critical thinking, communication theory, political economy, Latin American history, media analysis, political philosophy, and emancipatory pedagogy. The revolution of consciousness must translate into curricula that train diplomats capable of engaging in dialogue with the people, not just elites; capable of reading a trade agreement and interpreting a balance of power; capable of speaking indigenous languages as well as technical jargon; and capable of articulating historical memory with geopolitical strategy. A revolutionary diplomacy needs organic intellectuals, not technocrats.
Thus, a revolutionary program of diplomacy must be geared toward building a new international architecture based on justice, genuine cooperation, and the democracy of the people. It is not enough to criticize the neoliberal order: it is necessary to propose new institutions, new forms of regional integration, new mechanisms for dispute resolution, and new platforms for scientific and technological cooperation. Mexico can play a central role in creating a Latin American community of public communication, in establishing a regional agency for strategic research, in founding a continental mechanism for humanitarian solidarity, and in promoting an alliance for energy sovereignty. The revolution of consciousness is not a slogan: it is the conviction that another world is possible, but also the responsibility to build it with rigor, discipline, and political imagination.
A diplomacy of the Fourth Transformation—if it truly aspires to be transformative—must break down the symbolic barriers that limit critical thinking, challenge the powers that profit from ignorance and disengagement, and embrace communication as a battleground and solidarity as its guiding principle. The revolution of consciousness is, ultimately, a collective process of emancipation that demands courage, political clarity, and an uncompromising ethic. Mexico has a historic opportunity to demonstrate that diplomacy can also be a revolution: a peaceful, profound, humanist, and radically democratic revolution. A revolution waged not with weapons, but with ideas, truth, organization, and the moral strength of peoples who are no longer willing to accept a world based on lies, exploitation, and dispossession. A revolution that sows hope, raises awareness, and paves the way for a more just humanity.
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The pending task is to build a revolutionary international diplomacy that breaks with neoliberal inertia, imperialist interference, and is far from silent obedience to organizations captured by private interests, and the reproduction of a geopolitics based on dispossession, lies, and the systemic violence of transnational capital.
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