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| TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY |
by Prof. German Estrada
January 24th, 2004 |
Having finished with the theme
of "The Profile
of the Indigenous People of Mexico", and following
with my objective of letting the readers of the pvmirror
know a little bit more of Mexico and its History,
I have obtained the authorization from the author
of the book "Triumphs and Tragedy, A History of the
Mexican people", señor Ramón Eduardo
Ruíz, one of the most distinguished Mexicanists,
to use it as the source for the next articles. One
of the reviewers who wrote about this book, wrote "..this
epic history of Mexico tells the story of that country's
tumultuous origin and development - from its Olmec,
Aztec, and Mayan heritage to its present day incarnation
as a dependent, struggling, and economically unstable
modern country.." And another wrote.."An excellent
book that will set a new standard for general histories
of Mexico. Hard-hitting without being doctrinaire,
this vastly illuminating people's history gives value
to the collective trauma of a nation decimated by
Spanish colonial rule, betrayed by corrupt politicos
and incompetent army chiefs, then manipulated into
servile dependence of its neighbor to the north.
Señor Ruiz has also added a quote from
José Clemente Orozco, that giant of the Mexican
Muralism, who wrote: "Why must we be eternally on
our knees before the Kants and Hugos? All praise
to the masters indeed, but we too could produce a
Kant or a Hugo. We too could wrest iron from the
bowels of the earth and fashion it into ships and
machines. We could raise prodigious cities and create
nations, and explore the universe. Was not from a
mixture of two races that the Titans sprang?"
I sincerely hope that you
will enjoy his writing as much as I have. I would
only add, that I personally share the views on our
history that señor
Ruiz writes about in his splendid book. And for those
of you who would not have the patience of reading
this transcription week after week, well, I'm sure
that you can always find it in most libraries in
your hometown.
TRIUMPHS AND TRAGEDY
A HISTORY OF
THE MEXICAN PEOPLE
FOREWORD
"Nothing is as it was," insisted Ramon del
Valle Inclán, the Spanish intellectual, "merely
as it is remembered." What Valle Inclán meant
was that history is what actually occurs, but something
else when historians recall it. Valle Inclán
wisdom, which deem indisputable, flies in the face
of Leopold von Ranke's hoary cry for objective history,
the need, as he put it, to "simple show how it really
was," a call to arms answered by three generations
of German, British, and French historians of the
ninth century and, also true, by a legion of American
scholars and not a few Mexicans.
But, from the hindsight of
today, that aphorism looks profoundly shallow if
not downright impossible because what historians
refer to as "facts" are a
strange phenomenon. The empirical theory of knowledge
to the contrary, there is not complete separation
between subject and object. "Facts," to quote Edward
Hallett Carr, one of the fine historians of our age, "like
sense-impressions, impinge on the observer from outside,
and are independent of his consciousness." For better
or worse, written "history consist of a corpus of
ascertained facts." The historian, after he has pieced
them together, "takes them home, and cooks and serves
them in whatever style appeals to him." Facts never
speak for themselves, but "only when the historian
calls on them; it is he who decides to which facts
to give the floor, and in what order or context." That
a core of "historical facts" lies "objectively and
independently of the interpretation of the historian
is a preposterous fallacy" because the "historian
is neither the humble slave, nor the tyrannical master,
of his facts." When Carr writes that the "function
of the historian is neither to love the past nor
to emancipate himself from the past, but to master
it and understand it as the key to the understanding
of the present," I am in total agreement with him.
That, in a nutshell, is what underlines my interpretation
of Mexico's history. I have endeavored to be "objective," but,
I must confess, I have a point of view which has
colored my assessment of the "facts."
This interpretation of Mexican
history has two themes, as different in scope as
the mastodonic figures and Homeric themes of José Clemente
Orozco, one of the Promethean Mexican muralists,
are from the delicate blue fishes of the Russian
Marc Chagall. The triumphs of the Mexican people
in the arts and literature and, from time to time,
in the realm of the social conscience are numerous
and wonderful. How many people, to quote chapter
and verse, can lay claim to a Lázaro Cárdenas,
the radical reformer and doer of the 1930s, or to
a Benito Juárez, a politico from a tiny Indian
pueblo in Oaxaca who, against overwhelming odds,
held his country together at the middle of the nineteenth
century against the perfidy of disloyal Mexicans
and the military fury of French imperialist troops?
Then there is Emiliano Zapata, a dirt farmer from
Anenecuilco, a hamlet in Morelos, who, notwithstanding
bribes of sundry sorts tendered to him to lay down
his arms, died defending the rights of campesinos
to a parcel of land and the plea of industrial workers
for a decent wage.
Despite this parade of triumphs <and they
are mighty indeed> the history of Mexico, if the
happiness and welfare of the underdog is our barometer
for judgment, is mostly a tragedy. From the Spanish
Conquest on, when the cross and the sword of the
Europeans bent ancient Anahuac to their will, the
poor, usually bronze of skin and racially more Indian
than Spanish, have carried the burdens of Mexico,
victims of man's inhumanity to man. Thus, the title,
the triumphs of some juxtaposed to the never-ending
tragedy, the dogged struggle to keep body and soul
alive. Warts and all, just the same, it is an epic
saga, of a mestizo people, partly Spanish and partly
Indian, trying to forge a culture and a nationality,
made all the more difficult by the omnipotent presence
of the United States, the neighbor next door.
Source: From the book Triumphs
and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his
author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization.
( . (W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London).
Next week: The Triumphs and
Tragedies of the Mexican People", 1st chapter "The
Forefathers"
gestrada@pvnet.com.mx
Prof. Germán
Estrada is the author of the best selling book,
"México
Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know
About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto
Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books,
Books as well as directly from the author by internet.
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