APRIL 19, 2012
\nby Sara Morano ’14, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
Standing six-foot-five, Vicente Fox has the distinction of being the tallest president in Mexican history.<\/p>\n
Height, coupled with the booming baritone voice with which Fox alternated between English and Spanish, gave the former head of state a formidable stage presence that filled McAlister Auditorium last night when he spoke in front of a crowd of about 1,400.<\/p>\n
Students in the Hispanic Organization of Learning and Awareness, College Democrats, College Republicans, The Cicero Society, FUSAB, SGA, Department of Political Science, and the Riley Institute\u00a0worked together to arrange and fund the historic visit. It was the ex-president\u2019s first to the state of South Carolina.<\/p>\n
Junior Raul Rodriquez joined Furman president Rod Smolla, who in a rare moment, spoke Spanish to make introductions.<\/p>\n
Promised was a lecture from one of the most \u201cinteresting and cosmopolitan\u201d figures of \u201cuniversal admiration,\u201d and the hour-long event did not disappoint. It also didn\u2019t shy away from controversial issues.<\/p>\n
Just in introducing himself, Fox offered comment on the perennially contentious issue of migrant workers. He effectively used his personal history as a fifth-generation Mexican citizen whose grandfather came from Ohio to Guanajuato, \u201clooking for the American dream in Mexico,\u201d to characterize migration as a \u201ctwo-way street.\u201d<\/p>\n
A large portion of his lecture was then devoted to commenting\u00a0on America\u2019s \u201cWar on Drugs.\u201d According to Fox, these policies are an ineffective attempt to curb domestic consumption of drugs with adverse consequences for Mexico.<\/p>\n
An astounding 50 billion U.S. dollars were cited as the size of the illegal drug trade each year that flows from South America to the United States and Canada by way of violent gangs and cartels.<\/p>\n
Mexico, says its former president,\u00a0produces less marijuana than is smoked in the state of California each year and consumes even less. It \u201cdoesn\u2019t deserve\u201d the violence and political disruption that happen when it is caught in the middle of the illegal flow. The \u201cWar on Drugs,\u201d by focusing on the seizure of drugs within the United States\u00a0and at the border, has done little to address the international nature of the\u00a0problem.<\/p>\n
Education and leadership were emphasized as broad goals capable of alleviating the problems Fox\u2019s lecture candidly addressed. He emphasized\u00a0\u201cbuilding bridges, not walls\u201d and quoted Cicero in praising the rejuvenating spirit present at universities like Furman. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was also hailed as a specific tool for building these metaphorical bridges.<\/p>\n
Questions for Fox on these positions showed that his\u00a0words inspired initiative: \u201cWhat can we do to help stem the violence, especially as it affects children, in Mexico?\u201d They also sparked\u00a0skepticism: \u201cWhat is your response to widespread criticisms of NAFTA\u2019s adverse impact on the natural environment and climate change?\u201d<\/p>\n
During a protracted Q-and-A, students, lining the aisles 5 and 10 deep, waited eagerly to pose questions to Fox long after the program’s end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
APRIL 19, 2012
\nby Sara Morano ’14, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
Standing six-foot-five, Vicente Fox has the distinction of being the tallest president in Mexican history. Height, coupled with the booming baritone voice with which Fox alternated between English and Spanish, gave the former head of state a formidable stage presence that filled McAlister Auditorium last night when he spoke in front of a crowd of about 1,400.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17,35,29,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administrative","category-centers-and-institutes","category-parent-news","category-riley-institute","category-student-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}