Translation:True History of the Profound Mexico/21
20. A HISTORY OWN-OURS.
We are entering a new century and many mexicans disagree with what is happening in the country. The values and principles that have always held to the society are washing off. The neo-liberal economic model and the docility to the above financial institutions have limited the ability of the State. Injustice and poverty advance furiously on broad sectors of society. Public and social institutions are fracturing alarmingly. The destruction and pollution of the natural heritage is reaching unsustainable levels. The political system has entered into decomposition. The drugs-politics and organized crime are gaining many power spaces in national life. Mexican society becomes increasingly violent and going crazy.
Mexicans believed that the change of the political party in power was the solution to all evils of the nation. In little time it was found that the corrupt system changed colors, but that corruption not only remains, but it has increased its tentacles. It seems that each the future is darker and uncertain.
How is it that we got here?
Cultural Colonialism.
From the 16th century, Europeans invaded America, Africa, Asia and Australia. With eastern technology but with european warrior ideology, trade and the cult of technology. The Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, among others, sailed the seas to "discover", conquer, exploit and extract natural resources for the development of the merchants who lived in Europe. To do this they argued a supposed racial, religious and cultural superiority that allowed them to take from men and the lands be invaded all they wished. Hegel[1] asserted that "America belongs to the future, and therefore lacks history. The universal history begins in Asia, but only in Europe acquires spiritual plenitude". Hegel denies the millenary history of America, but also awards the future to europeans. The concept of european culture "universality" has been one of the colonizers subjection arguments. Indeed, the european peoples have developed a syncretism from Judeo-Christian culture, the Greco-Roman culture and Germanic culture. The iron domination and exploitation will to which all peoples of the world and their natural resources have been subjected to, has sunken humanity in one of the most severe crises of planetary history. Aristotle pillar of western thought points out in his work, the Policy that:
"war... is, in a sense, a natural means of acquiring, as it comprises the hunting of wild animals and those men who were born to obey, refuse to submit, is a war that nature itself has made legitimate. Aristotle also stated that "the defeated are subject to the victors" this he called "legal right" and asserted that "the defeated must be moved to servile labor, and this is fair according to nature". (Aristotle)
The conquerors in Mexico imposed the colonial system, which involves the inhumane exploitation of the defeated and the plundering of their natural resources and the destruction of their culture, in favor of the winners. To achieve this, immediately submitted the defeated to the loss of: "language, historical memory, knowledge and technology, physical and sacred spaces and finally the loss of their religion. The last space of their existence, to leave them completely helpless and thereby prevent, that at the bottom of their hearts was born the aspiration, not to free themselves from the invader—exploiter, but to be exactly like him, to become another conqueror—exploiter.
During five centuries we were forced to forget everything that we were and is our pride; we were perfectly taught with the utmost perfection to despise our own and to exalt the foreign. We have lived these five centuries in a "labyrinth of solitude", always looking for our face, our ideas, our heart, in foreign places. For three centuries it was a spanish model, the model was later french during the 19th century and in the 20th century, the model is northamerican. To keep the inhumane exploitation of our peoples and the irrational plundering of our natural resources "for centuries and centuries" in favor of our colonizers, it is necessary that the people lose their Cultural identity and historical memory.
To not recognize oneself, self-denial, and despising one-self. When these five cultural elements are amputated from people, they remain silent, amnesiac, ignorant, helpless and insensitive and cultural colonialism is achieved, the essential foundation of economic colonialism. The colonized people will not desire to eject and break free from their colonizer. Instead, will want to become another colonizer of his own people.
The spaniards instead, suffered an arab invasion during eight hundred years, but their culture was never destroyed. On the contrary, during this period, Spain lived an enriching cultural diversity. Arabs, jews and spanish lived in harmony and carried out over the centuries, a great cultural exchange. The spaniards remained spanish through their culture and, when they managed to expel the arabs eight centuries later, they remained spanish and do not see on the arabs "the Muslim motherland", although many of the customs, traditions, words, cuisine and art, is intimately linked with the muslim culture. The arabs did not removed the spanish language, historical memory, knowledge and technologies, spaces and their religion, thus they only invaded, but did not colonize.
To maintain a permanent system of wealth extraction from the people, it is required to destroy their culture and their historical memory. The element so that people don't think about ending exploitation and becoming themselves exploiters in favor of their colonizer, is colonizing the people culturally. Achieve that the colonized people ignore and despise their culture. The education given in Mexico, at home, at school and in society, is a colonized education. It does not seek that our children and young people are educated to free their people, but on the contrary, are educated to subjugate, dispose of and exploit the weakest. To succeed in a colonized society involves becoming a ruthless exploiter of their own brothers.
The sons of the sons of the ancient grandparents.
The descendants of the ancient Mexicans are all of us. We are the children of the sons of the old grandparents. It is however true that we have a western heritage, but we have to analyze that, on the one hand we have a "Mother Culture", the indigenous or anahuaca; it gave us a way of feeling and interacting with human beings, nature, the universe and the divine and sacred. Also gave us food, family ethical and moral values. That we are not "conscious" of it does not mean it does not exist. We have been educated for five centuries to not see, value, and despise the best of ourselves.
On the other hand we have a "Father Culture”, that gave us the language, religion and a material existence sense and a supposed "belonging" to western culture. However, Europe and United States have always devalued and marginalized us. We are the product of a mixture of cultures. We cannot deny and must promote it. We have parts of one and the other, we are mestizos. However, must take into account that the Anahuac civilization is alive, present and existing, in every one of us and that it represents the "only own ours". That is the stronger and more solid part of our culture, although it is now very difficult to recognize, flourish it and make it conscious. Hence we cannot reach plenitude by denying a half of our Being, whichever of two parts, either the western or the anahuaca.
The profound Mexico.
A Mexican intellectual, Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, points that symbolically there are two Mexico’s. One profound, rooted in an ancient civilization, which has given an own face and a real heart to our people, in a definitive and indelible way.
And that there is another Mexico, that Bonfil calls imaginary. Bonfil notes that this statement, is not because it does not exist, but because its project is imaginary, as it is inspired on distant lands, with different cultures, all alien and foreign to ours.
"The recent history of Mexico, of the last 500 years, is a permanent confrontation history between those who seek to harness the country in the project of the western civilization and those who resist rooted in Mesoamerican lineage forms of life." [Guillermo Bonfil Batalla. 1987].
Another element of the imaginary Mexico is that while it tries to rescue, christianize, civilize, modernize, industrialize and globalize the profound Mexico since 1521; has never taken it in consideration. The imaginary Mexico has systematically denied the Anahuaca civilization from the conquest to the present day, but paradoxically has always tried to rescue it. The Profound Mexico and imaginary have been in permanent struggle for more than five hundred years, sometimes violently and explosively, other times quietly, resisting silently but vigorously. This grueling fight also occurs in the hearts and minds of all Mexicans, most of the times unconsciously, plunging us into the dark swamps of our solitude labyrinth.
"The peoples of the profound Mexico create and continually recreate their culture, adjust it to the changing pressures, reinforce their own and private environment, make cultural elements of others their own for their benefit, cyclically reiterate the collective acts which are a way of expressing and renew their own identity; keep quiet or rebel, according to a strategy tuned by centuries of resistance." (Guillermo Bonfil Batalla. 1987)
It is necessary to recognize the denied part of our being and assume us as first class Mexicans and not, as third world gringos or as second class spaniards. Appropriating all technologies and all the world modern ideas, but using them for our own project and civilizing development. It is not a matter of living in a "museum", nor in the past; on the contrary, the challenge is to remain traditional and faithful to our identity, but at the same time, spearhead modernity and progress, as does Japan or England. Build the future with the foundations of the past. There is no future possibility, without the full awareness of the past.
The de-indianized indians.[2]
Without the prodigious mother language, only with limited "dialects". Without historical memory, only with confusing dubious myths and legends. Without the millennial knowledge, in the midst of ignorance, only with the perverse witchcraft and sordid backwardness. Without physical, social and sacred, spaces; only criminal deserts, desolated mountains or pauper belts of misery. Without an artistic language, only with negligible crafts. Without the ancient religion, in the midst of a confused religious syncretism managed by the dominator. Without an "own face and a true heart", only as "uneducated foreigners in their own land". Despising the own and exalting the foreign. Without the glorious memory of our ancestors, wanting to be "a colonized colonizer", just a western hybrid of the third world, a third class gringo. Insecure, violent and fearful.
"The presence of the indian culture is, in some aspects, so daily and omnipresent, that rarely its deep meaning is considered and in the long historical process which made its presence possible in social sectors that today assume a non-indian identity."
"...traditional peasants no longer recognize themselves as indians, although they live a predominantly indian culture; alternate urban groups are not culturally homogenous: some maintain as cultural reference their original communities, indian or peasant; others, have formed a urban popular culture of indian characteristics..."
"Because what we here call advanced, modern and urban, is not the spearhead of an own internal development, but the result of the western civilization introduction from the top; and what we call backward, traditional and rural, is not the starting point of that effort, but the indian result of mesoamerican civilization." (Guillermo Bonfil Batalla. 1987)
Mexicans despite everything, of our ignorance and orphanhood of ourselves, are the sons of the sons of the old grandparents, who patiently wait the time of luminous consciousness and the potential re-encounter. We are a mestizo people; we must strive to be worthy heirs of Miguel de Cervantes and at the same time of Netzahualcoyotl. We need to know the two parts that make us up. We cannot and we must not, belittle any one of the civilizations that make us up.
Mexicans are: indigenous inside (in the spiritual, mystical and ontological) with western features outside; but we will never be western inside, with indigenous features on the outside. That everyone wants to hide.
An Own Face and a True Heart.
Ever since 1521 when Hernán Cortés ordered the stone by stone destruction of the great Tenochtitlan; a metropolis that was far ahead of any European city of the time. The entire inheritance of seven and a half thousand years of civilization of the old grandparents was denied and condemned for being, according to the conquerors, primitive and diabolical. Nothing having to do with the wisdom of the old grandparents could be part of the european civilizing project, to create "The New Spain" in the conquered lands.
Since 1521 Mexicans have been instilled to feel contempt and pity for the cultural heritage of the old grandparents. Each mexican to "progress economically" or "improve socially” has to stay away as much as possible from his roots and deny their —mother culture—. The way is to speak, dress, eat, work, eat, consume; in short, be as the conquerors. Take on the face of the colonizer and put make up on the millennial face of our own culture, until it is apparently erased. Dye the hair, whiten skin, straighten the hair, assign english names to their children. Negate one self and feel ashamed of the own phenotype.
The alleged problem is that mexicans, to be "modern", must cease being "traditional". To be "modern" implies, being as the foreign colonizer; being "traditional" means to be as the colonized indigenous. The foreign exaltation and the contempt for the national, was not only for products and fashion, but even more harmful; assuming the heart and feelings, imposing on our own face, the face of the conqueror—colonizer.
Mexicans can be extremely traditional and maintain a deep and lively pride of our culture, our past and our Cultural Heritage; and at the same time, be chillingly modern. As the Japanese people do nowadays, who are proud advocates of traditions and at the same time, spearhead global technology. Mexicans need to develop "an own face and a real heart" in the 21st century, which at the same time is modern, but based in our millenary tradition. We must stop being "uneducated foreigners in our own land"; and we must strive to be first class Mexicans and not, westerners of the third world. The Mexico of the twenty-first century would necessarily have to be built with our mother culture, not against it.
The Toltec Heritage in the Matria.
What today conforms the national territory was the cradle of the Anahuac civilization. The mexican nation has a history of approximately 8 thousand years, of which, the first 7,500 were exclusively built with the stamp of the Anahuac civilization.
The deepest roots and essence of our “being”, was been given to us by the “mother culture”. Only five hundred years ago, this immense cultural structure was enriched by several civilizations, from Europe, Asia and Africa, and today, as all peoples of the world, has suffered an intense crossbreeding, that has made it richer, stronger and varied, but never has lost its original roots and essence. The problem is that colonization prevents us from seeing, feeling and dimensioning it in our everyday life. But above all, it prevents us from recurring to this immeasurable heritage to construct a fair and appropriate future as individuals and as a country.
However, in the “cultural information genetic bank” each person has, there is a wisdom and human experiences treasure, which has been created and treasured for generations. Just as every human cell has the genetic information that can duplicate the individual, it belongs to, the same way, each person has the cultural information of the entire civilization they belong to. The challenge is to activate the “cultural information genetic bank” that exists on every mexican, to maintain the continuity in the “social purpose”, that because of colonization, has temporarily been lost, during the last five centuries.
For the persons, families and communities “spiritually descending” from the Mother civilization, the future is in the complete and conscious recuperation of their past. As such, the task to recover the historical memory, the language, knowledge, spaces and the spiritual and sacred sense of the world and life, turns into a challenge that cannot be delayed nor renounced, because; as person, family or community “we are what we remember” .
We can no longer stubbornly renounce to the most valuable of our cultural heritage. We must no turn our back and live in orphanage of our mother culture. We can no longer deny and ignore the largest part of our past, where one of the most ancient experiences of the world’s human development are deposited, full of wisdom. Self-condemning ourselves to live as “uncultivated foreigners in our own land”. Always violently despising the own and indignantly exalting the foreign. Lost in a “desolation labyrinth”. Always insecure, violent, fearful, frustrated, facing a very poor self-esteem.
Mexicans have a patria that was only born in 1821, with the consummation of the National Independence. It has successively changed its face, values and priorities. Also, we have a “Matria”[3] that was born approximately 8000 years ago and that its essence was maintained without changes during the first 7,500 years and that in the last five centuries has “crouched” down and gone “undercover” in a marvelous and incredible “resistance culture”, to continue present today.
The Patria has been directed by a handful of people. Born from overseas ideas and imposed by political interests and pressures, ideological, economic and military. It materializes through: the territory, the national emblem, the constitution, the flag, and the national anthem. It has had different projects, and those who direct it, many times have entered in severe conflicts and struggles, that were resolved by political violence, social, economic and military. In general, the “patria” has favored small elites.
The Matria, on the contrary, is millenary, abstract and manifests itself from ancestral feelings, attitudes, traditions, festivities, uses and costumes. It was born as a human development project, endogenous and autonomous. It is profoundly associated to spirituality; its creation is anonymous, autonomous and historical. In general “the Matria” has always protected all her children in her amorous bosom.
As of the Cultural Control Theory, “of the own and the foreign” of Dr. Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, we can define: The “Patria” is foreign. The “Matria” is our own. The first is directed and governed by political and economic elite. The second is conformed and lived by the people. For common citizens, the “control” of the “patria” is foreign. On the other hand, the “control” of the “Matria” is by the individual self. Decisions over the “Patria” are foreign; decisions over the “Matria” are ours. The “Patria” is an imposed “cultural phenomenon”. The “Matria” is an “autonomous culture” phenomenon.
The “Patria” comes from Greco-Latin world inspiration and materializes with the creation of the first country in the world, United States of America, in 1776 and subsequently the French Revolution. The “Matria” on the other hand, is born in our land and with our people, approximately 8 millennia ago and is one of the six oldest civilizations, with autonomous origins, in mankind history. It possesses a millenary wisdom, in food, health, education, organization and maintained for thousands of years, the same “social purpose” directed to the sacred and divine of the world and life.
Has had existence spiritual transcendence in its development pyramid upper vertex. Its social purpose was conceived by communities. The human being is a child of earth and earth is understood as a live and sacred entity. The human being has as superior responsibility, to polish his spiritual energy and cooperate to maintain the planet and the mysterious forces of the universe in equilibrium.
The “Matria” bases its sustaining forces in the spiritual consciousness of the individual, family unity in values and ancestral attitudes, absolute respect to nature. Community cohesion and community life, hence it rejects private property, the use of weapons and violence, as well as the use of currency, hoarding and exploitation. Its organization and directions are based in “community service”, through “governing by obeying”.
The “Matria” has bequeathed four attitudes before life and the world: the pure values that make up family and community. A tireless constructor spirit. Love and respect for nature; a mystical and spiritual vision for the world and life.
A total quality millenarian Culture.
Our culture has always been of TOTAL QUALITY. Proof of this is that our pyramids, temples, monuments, etc., have survived over time and museums are full of objects, because were well made and have an excellent aesthetic quality, they have been able to survive the time. This Total quality in our family and spiritual structure, have enabled us to venture across these five centuries of denial. All of this, as a whole, has led it to be recognized as WORLD CULTURAL HERITAGE.
We are people with a strong culture, which has managed to transcend its historical death. The conquest, the encomienda, progress, modernity, development, neoliberalism and globalization, have not been able in these five centuries of denial, to erase the "own face and the true heart" from the culture of our old grandparents.
Mexicans as worthy heirs of the Cultural Heritage of the Ancient Mexico, we must know and be aware of these values, to transform our reality, with the same passion to "be and transcend", as our wise ancestors did. Excellence in our performance, whatever it is, must be based on the passion that our ancestors had to create one of the six oldest and most important civilizations of the world civilizations. This is our best legacy.
Excellence cannot emerge by decree, mandate or imported fashion. Excellence comes from the consciousness of what we have been and we are both as individuals and as a people. Excellence is one of the most valuable cultural heritages that we have. Excellence is a cultural heritage that necessarily, as all heritages, must be recuperated by studying it, recognition and providing new significance to the values that conform our original civilization.
The XXI Century Mexico.
Mexicans are heirs of one of the oldest civilizations in the world, which remains alive, present and vibrant in every one of us, "The children of the sons of the old grandparents". Since the Toltec teachers left, and the aztecs first and then the spaniards, destroyed our ancient institutions, laws and authorities; we have lived in an orphanage of ourselves. Both transgreded the essence our civilization, to dominate and exploit, both human and natural resources. To do this, the colonizers have pretended that the children of the sons of the old grandparents lose their language, historical memory, knowledge, spaces and the profound spirituality of life. In short, any link to the past before the invasion.
These last five centuries, of the more than eight thousand years of existence of our civilization, are just a long and dark night. Mexicans have five strengths to build the Mexico that we all want: "the spiritual sense for life, moral and ethical values surrounding family, our harmonious relationship with nature, our continuing optimism for life, despite the most terrible adversities and our tireless constructor spirit".
But fundamentally we have alive, in the depths of our mysterious interior, the philosophical spirit, which governed the development of the Cem Anahuac civilization. In our "gene bank" our "historical memory", in our more alive traditions, uses and customs, the potential to build a nation is kept, in which no longer exist winners and losers anymore, in where the five hundred years of savage and inhumane colonization are closed, where the two civilizations of which we are part are harmoniously amalgamated. The Mexico of the 21st century, will have to be built with the best ideas and the most sophisticated technologies of Mexico and the world, but its selection must be based on our own principles and criteria, based on what we have been and we really are, but fundamentally, agree on what we want to be as individuals and as a nation.
The sovereign Mexico, fair, free and humane, that we all want to build for our children and our children's children, will have to consider the wisdom of our old grandparents.
The Anahuac Future is its Past.
- ↑ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German pronunciation: [ˈɡeɔʁk ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈheːɡəl]) (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.
- ↑ Concept used by Dr. Guillermo Bonfil, in his book "Mexico profundo", to refer to the indigenous peoples who have voluntarily lost their Mother culture, traditions, uses and customs.
- ↑ The term Matria, used by writers such as Virginia Woolf, Isabel Allende and Krista Wolf, represents the reconstruction of the term patria. This term was also used by Miguel of Unamuno and mentioned a couple of times by Jorge Luis Borges. Jules Michelet also uses the term matria: the homeland (la matria, as said the dorianos, is the love of love...) in his book: "The People" in the footer, page 240. Michelet, Jules. "The people" [1846]. Trad. Odile Guilpain. Mexico: FCE, 2005 (1991) In classical antiquity, it was used to refer to the birth and feeling homeland. Over time is maintained by the literary tradition and poetic, mainly in Galician and Portuguese languages. Edgar Morin used it when referring to the matria Europe, while Miguel de Unamuno used it to refer to the Basque matria. Julia Kristeva identifies this term with "other space" that has nothing to do with the birth land, or the legitimacy of any State, but with a single place to create an "own room".