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Textbook sparks furore in Mexico
BBC ^ | August 25,2009

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Mexico; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: hispanics; loco; mexico; spain
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¿Qué?
1 posted on 08/25/2009 3:02:48 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
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To: SwinneySwitch

A quien importa?


2 posted on 08/25/2009 3:08:27 PM PDT by Wage Slave (Good fences make good neighbors. -- Robert Frost)
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To: SwinneySwitch

How about reparations?


3 posted on 08/25/2009 3:08:43 PM PDT by Dallas59
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To: SwinneySwitch
Accused of it?

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.

4 posted on 08/25/2009 3:09:05 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?)
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To: SwinneySwitch
The Mexican government is also neatly averting engagement with the Ice Age settlement of much of Mexican territory by European settlers.

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).

5 posted on 08/25/2009 3:09:56 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Dallas59
The arrival of the conquistadors resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people and the colonisation of Mexico.

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.

6 posted on 08/25/2009 3:14:53 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Are there any men left in Washington? Or, are there only cowards? Ahmad Shah Massoud)
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To: SwinneySwitch
So because they sacrificed each other and ate dogs they are noble?

Nobility comes cheap.

7 posted on 08/25/2009 3:20:29 PM PDT by humblegunner
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To: SwinneySwitch

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?


8 posted on 08/25/2009 3:25:03 PM PDT by paudio (Road to hell is paved by unintended consequences of good intentions)
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Few historians put Aztec victims at less than 20,000 per year and 50,000 per year is considered the most likely number. In 1486, 70,000 were killed to celebrate the dedication of one Aztec temple. As cruel as the Spanish Conquistadors may have been, their wanton slaughter did not approach this level of violence.
9 posted on 08/25/2009 3:25:25 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Are there any men left in Washington? Or, are there only cowards? Ahmad Shah Massoud)
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To: SwinneySwitch

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.


10 posted on 08/25/2009 3:29:32 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: Vigilanteman

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.


11 posted on 08/25/2009 3:30:19 PM PDT by GraceG
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To: GraceG

^ And the left is silent on this as well.


12 posted on 08/25/2009 3:30:43 PM PDT by GraceG
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To: SwinneySwitch
Those nasty Spanish, forcing all those Indian tribes to stop supplying human victims to Aztec sacrifices.

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.

13 posted on 08/25/2009 3:31:18 PM PDT by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." (Hendrix))
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To: GraceG

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.


14 posted on 08/25/2009 3:32:27 PM PDT by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: allmendream

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


15 posted on 08/25/2009 3:32:56 PM PDT by Moose4 (I took my car in for an alignment. Now my front end is chaotic evil.)
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To: Moose4

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.


16 posted on 08/25/2009 3:36:19 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: Vigilanteman
Find me something comparable in scale and cruelty in European history.


17 posted on 08/25/2009 3:36:28 PM PDT by NativeNewYorker (Freepin' Jew Boy)
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To: Moose4
Yeppers! You hit the nail on the head.

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.

18 posted on 08/25/2009 3:37:17 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Mexico is about 65% Mestizo (mixed) 30% Amerindian (most of whom can speak an indigenous language other than Spanish) and 5% white, Asian and Middle Eastern. Unlike several countries in South America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay), they never were able to attract European immigrants in large numbers.

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.

19 posted on 08/25/2009 3:37:57 PM PDT by Clemenza (Remember our Korean War Veterans)
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To: Clemenza

>> 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.


20 posted on 08/25/2009 3:38:33 PM PDT by GraceG
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