Posted on 08/25/2009 3:02:48 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Primary schoolchildren are set to learn about Mexico up to the 1500s
A row has erupted in Mexico after the government distributed a history textbook to primary schools which makes no mention of the Spanish conquest.
The chronology of the text neatly avoids the issue by ending before the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s.
Some opposition figures have seized on what they see as a calculated omission.
The arrival of the conquistadors resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people and the colonisation of Mexico.
On Monday, as 25 million children started the new school term, the government has found itself in the middle of a controversy it apparently did not see coming, says the BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Mexico City.
The new history textbook, published and distributed free by the education ministry, omits what historians agree was one of the most important eras in the country's history - the arrival of the Spanish led by Hernan Cortes in 1519 that led ultimately to colonisation until Mexico gained independence in 1821.
Some opposition politicians have accused the conservative government of President Felipe Calderon of deliberately discouraging a critical analysis of the conquest.
The government is even accused of being closer to the Spanish conquerors than to Mexico's indigenous population.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
A quien importa?
How about reparations?
Please. Racism is alive and well south of the border. The lighter skinned and more Spanish looking you are the better you are treated. The darker and more “el Indio” you look, the worse you are treated.
There is a reason for why Mexico has the vast majority of its citizens living in poverty while it also has the worlds most wealthy individual.
It is a sick society, being brought to us piecemeal one illegal at a time.
After their civilization was nearly destroyed by a comet nearly 10,000 years ago, the illegal alien settlers then moving down the coast from Siberia killed and ate many of the survivors, and upon being refreshed, moved on into the rest of the Americas slaughtering all the big game and setting fire to the pristine Amazon jungle.
(Something like that).
The Aztecs butchered 70,000 of their captors in one massive orgy of human sacrifice, the biggest on record but by no means the only such display of violence.
Find me something comparable in scale and cruelty in European history.
Nobility comes cheap.
Perhaps because the curriculum has a sequence, and in the elementary level they are to learn pre-colonial history first, and in middle school they would study the colonial period?
I know exactly what is going on here. The left has been trying to stimulate the Indians to demand “Indigenous rights”, favoring Indians over Mexicans.
The background to this goes way back. It used to be that Mexicans claimed close to pure Castilian Spanish blood, to put on airs above the Indians. Practically speaking, until the 1940s, the legal difference between Mexicans and Indians was that “Mexicans wore shoes.”
Then the Mexican government devised one of the more complex means of distinguishing between races and mixed raced peoples this side of South Africa. Even mixes like Indian-Black-Asian were included.
But that, too, has kind of fallen by the wayside. So it comes back to “Mexicans ruling over Indians”.
The left hopes to take advantage of this long held grudge, and not just in Mexico, but in similar situations all over central and South America. To the effect of “Support indigenous rights! Take money from the rich people and give it to the Indians!”
So you can see why the Mexican government is keen to avoid this crapola.
The corrupt Spanish conquistadors are still in power in Mexico city and they want everyone in Mexico to think that has always been the case.
The people who run Mexico are all of White Spanish Descent, they tell the Chicano population that their problems are with the people who live in the USA of White European descent.
So you have a real case of Whitey in Mexico City playing race games with the populace of Mexico so they can stay in power by telling them to blame Whitey in the USA.
^ And the left is silent on this as well.
Tidbit: Did you know that the human sacrifices were referred to by the Aztecs as . . .
"tortillas of the gods?"
See And Edible History of Humanity.
Yep. Ironically the wealthiest man in Mexico (and the world) Carlos Salim, is the son of Lebanese Catholic immigrants. I remember awhile back some (Chicano) fool on Craig’s List was bragging about a Mexican now being the wealthiest man in the world, and I had to explain to him that Salim would probably call security if he couldn’t produce evidence that he was there to clean the toilets/mow the lawn.
Take a look at the government bigwigs, captains of industry, talking heads, and weather bimbos on Mexican TV. (Twice, in the case of the weather bimbos. Hubba hubba.) Then take a look at the Indios that are working illegally for your local landscaper up here north of the Rio Grande. Not hard to figure why the “Spanish” are down there and the Indios are taking advantage of our open borders to come up here...institutionalized racism, five hundred years’ worth. And they refuse to acknowledge it.
}:-)4
And then there was the racist comment Vicente Fox made about blacks and his own people, which was ignored after he paid hush money to Jesse Jackson.
And yes, those Telemundo babes are definitely worth a second look; yet not one is “el Indio”.
Knew a woman from Panama, she was the most beautiful lady, very Indian. In Mexico they would think she was a dog because of her Indian features and dark skin. Foolish.
Each Latin American country adopted different racial classification systems depending on the sociopolitical climate of the nation. Puerto Rico classifies anyone with white ancestry as "white" even though most folks on PR are mulatto to high-yellow (only about 1/3 can really pass as "white" per my last visit to the island). Likewise Costa Rica reclassified mestizos as "white" in order to attract more European settlers in the late 19th/early 20th century.
After the Mexican revolution "indigenismo" became the rage among the intellectual and governing elite. A noted sociologist named Jose Vasconcelos even created a ruling racial ideology based on "La Raza Cosmica" whereby the Mexicans were glorified as having the best of the Amerindian and the European in their bloodlines.
>> Yep. Ironically the wealthiest man in Mexico (and the world) Carlos Salim, is the son of Lebanese Catholic immigrants. I remember awhile back some (Chicano) fool on Craig’s List was bragging about a Mexican now being the wealthiest man in the world, and I had to explain to him that Salim would probably call security if he couldn’t produce evidence that he was there to clean the toilets/mow the lawn. <<
The people in charge in Mexico City ARE racists slimebags.
The people in DC look in envy at those in power in Mexico City.
This troubles me greatly.
which makes no mention of the Spanish conquest.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The slaves suffering under Montezuma would have called it LIBERATION!!!
Yep, usually with (bleached) blond hair.
Quite so. But the various tensions in Mexico threaten to bust open in *some* direction, who knows what. Vincente Fox’s PPP has probably created the greatest internal migration Mexico has seen since the Yaqui deportation.
I was surprised that the last presidential election didn’t bust open in the city, after the leftist loser decided to call for a soft revolution. More than anything else, this is the good news that the Mexican people are themselves worried, and don’t want to lose a good thing. But out of the city, there are too many unknowns.
Another one I’m concerned about is the Santa Muerte cult, which just needs a charismatic leader to become a major pain. Then there is that little pig down in Venezuela who would love nothing more than to see Mexico go up in a sheet of flame.
And no matter what, the drug families willing to fund it.
I think the Brits torched at least that many people in Hamburg, Bremerhaven and a couple of other places IN ONE EVENING'S BOMBING.
Telemundo Television Studios 7355 NW 41st Miami Florida 33166 ~ Yup, they are ALL Yankee Pigs ~ shake it baby shake it!
I see no problem with this format as long as there is a part II at some point in the students’ futures; in fact, it is probably a sensible place to separate their history (as we have history classes from the native Americans through colonial America, for instance).
It could be worse for Mexico; they could have been the Belgian Congo...
Mexico was probably the only Western Hemisphere independence movement (outside of Haiti) where true “natives” played a major role, unlike ours and the other countries of the western hemisphere born afterwards(European settlers versus European Government).
There are documented cases of folks during the French revolution being torn limb from limb and fed to animals, and one notorious case of the leader of a demonstration tearing open the chest of an aristo and taking a bite out of their heart. I wonder if that's where Spielberg got the idea for a certain scene in "Temple of Doom."
Strikes me that's a matter of opinion.
Another opportunity for the Marxists to warp young minds lost.
Well played, sir.
Thank you for posting that picture in answer to the question.
And let’s not forget Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge,
I just finished reading "The Monster of Florence" today and there's a story the author tells about a Neapolitan gang boss named Catapano. In prison, he learns that the man who killed his brother is in the same prison, a man whose heart and liver Catapano has sworn to eat. The authorities try to keep them separated at opposite ends of the institution, but when Catapano learns that his enemy is in the prison infirmary, he uses a sharped spoon, takes guards hostage, and eventually gets into the infirmary. After killing the other man, he demands the doctor give him a quick anatomy lesson and show him the heart and liver. Catapano pulls them out, one in each hand, and takes a bite of each.
Apparently he became quite the hero around Naples for that exploit.
It's all a matter of perspective...
And hey, that stuff they still have going on in Congo beats the heck out of what the Aztecs were doing.
For the most part the Revolutionary leadership was made up of native born Americans. In fact, when it came to the Oneida ally, they'd been here a good 15,000 years!
That’s ok. IIRC, I heard that Bullhead City,AZ had a history book teaching the US started WWII when we attacked the Japs at Pearl.
And oh, what butchery was accomplished.
“Apparently he became quite the hero around Naples for that exploit.”
Yeah, but I bet his breath was horrific. ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.