Mexico Dialogues

7 November 2025

On 6 November 2025, The Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (Comexi) hosted an online dialogue with SFG President Sundeep Waslekar. It was chaired by Comexi President Professor Hector Cardenas. The dialogue covered a wide range of issues drawing from ‘Un Mundo sin Guerra’, authored by Sundeep Waslekar. It primarily revolved around the theory in the book that war is a matter of choice. What is the contribution of the collapse of complexity? What did Einstein and Freud discuss in their exchange of letters on the causes of war? What is the role of neutrality? Can women leaders make a difference? Was NATO a force of peace and stability or the source of current conflicts?

There are two difficult questions to which there are no easy answers. First, in a world where many political leaders fuel wars and conflicts driven by emotions which appear irrational to others, can there be any rational ways of preventing wars? Second, in a world where some countries are democracies and some autocracies, how to resolve conflicts between democracies and autocracies if both are big powers?

In October, the Mexican edition of the book was launched at Monterrey International Book Fair in Mexico. Tec de Monterrey hosted book discussions at its campus in Monterrey and Mexico City with students.

Students in Monterrey said they knew little about Gaza but the thought of mothers being separated from children in wars in the name of national interest hurt them personally. In Mexico City students asked if all this national interest was euphemism for business interests of political leaders and their corporate friends.

But what can we do, they asked. There are exams to pass and a job to seek. How is that someone with skills and resources is always able to organise and lead drug cartels in Mexico, terrorist groups in the Middle East, religious right and ultra nationalist parties in many countries. But there is no leader providing organisation to the voice of reason, spirit of decency and just peaceful coexistence.

David a student in Mexico City had a new idea. Since politicians excel in cognitive wars creating silos with social media algorithms, destroying complexity and reducing everything to simplistic slogans of hatred and enmity, art which touches the heart rather than brain can bring about the paradigm shift. Remember The Day After movie, transforming music, poetry, paintings. Perhaps we should look beyond the stereotypes of UN SC reform type solutions and listen to the heart of Gen Zee who grieve for a peacock chick and the lost childhood in war zones.