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Forjando Patria
Pro-Nacionalismo (Forging A Nation)
By Manuel Gamio, Fernando Armstrong-Fumero University Press of Colorado
Copyright © 2010 University Press of Colorado
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87081-966-7
CHAPTER 1
Forjando Patria
In the great forge of America, on the anvil of the Andes, the bronze and iron of virile races have been alloyed for centuries and centuries.
When the task of mixing and blending peoples came to the brown arms of Atahualpa and Moctezuma, a miraculous tie was consummated. The same blood swelled the veins of the Americans, and their intellectuality flowed through the same paths. There were small patrias: the Aztec, the Maya-Kiché, the Inca ... that would later perhaps have grouped together and melded into great indigenous patrias, as the patrias of China and Japan were in the same age. But it could not be thus. When other men, another blood, other ideas arrived with Columbus, the crucible that unified the race was tragically overturned and the mold in which the Nationality was created and the Patria crystallized fell to pieces.
During the colonial centuries, the first forges of noble nationalist impulses also burned, only the Pizarros and Ávilas just intended to build incomplete patrias, since they valued only the steel of the Latin race, leaving the crude indigenous bronze on the slag heap.
Later on, imitating the most brilliant of previous centuries, Olympic men took up the epic and sonorous hammer, clothed themselves with the glorious smith's apron. They were Bolívar, Morelos, Hidalgo, San Martín, Sucre ... they went to scale the mountain, to strike the divine anvil, to forge with blood and gunpowder, with muscles and ideas, with hope and disenchantment, a peregrine statue made of the metals that are all of the races of America. For various decades, a thunderous hammering that made the high mountain ranges tremble could be heard, stirring virgin fronds of new life and making the twilight red, as if blood splattered even the heavens. In Panama, where oceans and continents kiss, the marvelous image of the great American Patria was glimpsed as if in an epic poem. Single and great, serene and majestic like the Andean mountain chain.
But the time had not yet come. The miracle unmade itself. That sublime vision of patria was lost like sea-foam or the fog of the mountaintops. Those men who today are longed for, like Homeric demigods, passed on to a better life.
A new idea came later, during the independent life of those countries. No longer would there be a single gigantic patria that would bring all of the men of the continent together as one. Rather, looking to past tradition, powerful patrias would be formed that corresponded to colonial political divisions. Unfortunately, the nature of this task was not well understood by the forgers. There was an attempt to sculpt the statue of those patrias with Latin racial elements, leaving the indigenous race in a dangerous oblivion. If the indigenous race was remembered at all, in the name of mercy, a humble bronze pedestal was made with it. Ultimately, what must happen did. The statue, inconsistent and fragile, fell many times, while the pedestal grew. And that struggle, which has sustained itself in making a patria and nationality for more than a century, is at the root of our civil contentions.
It is now the task of the revolutionaries of Mexico to take up the hammer and tie on the apron of the forger to make a new patria of intermixed iron and bronze surge from the miraculous anvil. There is the iron. ... There is the bronze. ... Stir, brothers!
CHAPTER 2
Patrias and Nationalities of Latin America
With few exceptions, one does not find the characteristics that are inherent in a defined and integrated nationality in most Latin American countries. In these countries, there is neither a generalized idea nor a unanimous feeling of what a Patria is. Instead, there are small patrias and local nationalisms.
This state of affairs is evident at the occasional congresses that bring together the representatives of these countries. The Second Pan-American Scientific Conference and the XIX Congress of Americanists, held in Washington, D.C., last December and January, provided an interesting and ample field in which to observe this point. As a whole, the delegations attending both congresses represented the race, language, and culture of no more than 25 percent of the populations of their respective countries. They represented the Spanish and Portuguese languages and the race and civilization of European origin. The remaining 75 percent of those populations, composed of men of indigenous race, indigenous language, and indigenous civilization, was not represented. A few researchers at the conference mentioned this indigenous population, but only in ethnological terms, as the object of scholarly speculation. In a sense, the existence of these 75 million Americans goes unnoticed by all of the so-called civilized world. The languages that they speak are unknown; we are ignorant of their physical nature and of their ethical and religious ideas. Their habits and customs are unknown to us.
Can countries in which the two main components of the population are so different from each other in all respects, and are completely ignorant of each other, be considered patrias? To further develop these ideas and the conclusions that can be derived from them, we will summarize the characteristics of nationality and the conditions inherent in the concept of patria.
A. PATRIAS AND NATIONALITIES
If one observes countries that possess a defined and integrated nationality (Germany, France, Japan, and so forth), one finds the following conditions. First, there is the ethnic unity of the majority of the population. That is, the population is composed of individuals who belong to the same race or to ethnic types that are very closely related to each other. Second, the majority of each of these populations has and uses a common language, unprejudiced by the presence of secondary languages or dialects. Third, diverse elements, classes, or social groups in these countries manifest aspects of the same culture, however much these manifestations differ in their form or intensity depending on the economic conditions or the physical and intellectual development of said groups. In other words, the majority of the population has similar ideas, albeit with variations in form. They share similar sentiments and express similar aesthetic, moral, religious, and political ideals. Housing, eating habits, dress, and all customs in general are the same, with differences simply being an indicator of the better or worse economic conditions of different social classes. Finally, memory of the past — with all of its glories and tears — is treasured in the hearts of all like a holy relic. National traditions, that ancient pedestal on which the Patria rests, live vibrantly and vigorously in the minds of men, women, and children. They are shared by the wise and the ignorant, by the sons of the rabble and among the most refined, by the highest cultivators of art and the poor village storyteller. That kind of national tradition performs the miracle of transmuting itself into a thousand different faces, while always conserving its unity and typical character.
The Germans, the French, the Japanese, those who possess a true nationality, are children of one great family. When they travel through their respective countries, they find true brethren among men, women, and children. They rise to the solemn cry of the same blood, of the same flesh. That cry is the voice of life, the mysterious force that groups together matter and opposes its disintegration. In the souls of all of these people, one finds the same images that are in one's own soul. From their lips the words of a single language spill forth, aged like fine wine. When one lives in this way, one has a Patria.
We will now see if the countries that stretch from the Rio Bravo to the Straits of Magellan are patrias in the same way. Because the characteristics and general conditions of almost all of the Latin American countries are similar, we will focus on Mexico as a country that is representative of the others.
B. MEXICO AS A COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVE OF LATIN AMERICA
Before listing and considering the little patrias that exist within Mexico, we shall analyze their basic features.
1. Race, Language, and Civilization. Can 8 or 10 million individuals of indigenous race, language, and culture hold the same ideals and aspirations, have the same goals, revere the same patria, and treasure the same nationalistic sentiments as 4 or 6 million persons of European origin who inhabit the same territory but speak a different language, belong to a different race, and think in accordance with the teachings of a different culture or civilization? We think not. We find a certain similarity between this situation and that of the former South African republics. These were countries in which political franchise was always limited to the population of European origins and in which the indigenous peoples were relegated to servitude and passivity. There and in the other European colonies in Africa, European man and European civilization suffocate and will ultimately extinguish indigenous life in all of its manifestations.
The separation and divergence of our great social groups (indigenous and European) already existed during the Conquest and the Colonial age, but they are more profound in contemporary times. We can admit, casting aside hypocritical reservations, that our national independence was attained by the group of European origins. This group sought material and intellectual liberties and progress for itself, leaving the indigenous group to its own destiny. This happened in spite of the fact that the indigenous group is more numerous and probably possesses greater energies and physical endurance as a result of its particular forms of culture.
At first glance, the situation that we have described seems frightening. Those ill with "sociological myopia" might glimpse the beginnings of a fearful caste war in which the advantage would probably not go to the population of European origin. Such fears would be unfounded. Today, the indigenous population is divided into more or less numerous groups that constitute small patrias, much as they did at the time of the Conquest. These small patrias are bound together by race, language, and culture. Their mutual rivalries and indifference toward one another facilitated the Conquest during the sixteenth century and led to their cultural stagnation during the Colonial period and the present day.
The problem is not, then, to prevent an imaginary mass aggression by our indigenous groups, but to mobilize their disparate energies toward a common goal. Therefore, the task at hand is to bring these individuals closer to that social group whom they have always considered to be an enemy, to incorporate them into it, to blend them with it. Our end should be to make the national race homogeneous, unify the language, and make the different cultures that exist in our country converge into one.
It might be deduced from what we have argued above that we believe that the inhabitants of Mexico who possess race, language, and culture of European origin constitute a patria or nationality. However, this hypothesis is also untenable. Besides the anthropological factors discussed before, geography plays an important role in creating small patrias. The primary reason why Mexico lost the territory that is currently in the hands of the United States is that there is a vast geographic distance between said territory and the rest of the country. Along with this distance came divergence and even antagonism between the nationalist ideals of persons from different regions.
Twenty years ago in the state of Chiapas — before the construction of the Pan-American Railway — the population of white race tended to have a stronger sense of national affiliation with Central America than with Mexico. Habits, customs, commercial relations, intellectual culture — almost everything — bore the stamp of those other countries, especially of Guatemala. Could the inhabitants of Baja California, particularly the northern part, have the same sense of patriotism as those of us who live in the rest of the country? Do they not see themselves forced to cross into foreign territory more often than they set foot in the continental part of their own patria? What stamp do commerce, intellectuality, dress, and all the activities of life have in this northern state? It must be confessed that the resident of Mexico City would find these regions to be absolutely exotic, Yankee-ized.
2. The Economic Aspect. For a family to live in harmonious unity, all of its members must enjoy economic resources that can provide them with physical and intellectual well-being. For a group of families to form a harmonic whole, to constitute a nationality, it is essential that all enjoy the well-being that can only be obtained through an equitable economic situation. As always happens in Mexico, some few families live amidst abundance and most others suffer the torment of hunger, nakedness, and intellectual abandon. In this situation, an artificial union of different groups would not result in a harmonic whole. A nationality cannot surge in a country where the idea of personal preservation has prevailed above any sense of having a patria.
3. The Political System. It is said that independent Mexico is ruled by a representative democracy. This is not so in reality, because the indigenous classes have been forced to live under the rule of laws that are not derived from their necessities, but from those of the population of European origin, whose necessities are very different.
C. THE SMALL PATRIAS OF MEXICO
If a person from the capital who possesses language, race, and culture of European origin goes to Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, or to the lands of the Yaqui and the Huichol, he finds himself in an environment that is stranger to him than that of some European countries. Language, physical appearance, habits, customs, ideals, aspirations, hopes, and entertainments are all different. These small patrias can be divided into two groups: those whose population is exclusively indigenous and others whose populations show the harmonic fusion of the indigenous race and the race of European origin.
1. Patrias of Indigenous Population. One can mention those already cited: the Maya, Yaqui, and Huichol. These are groups that possess a nationality that is clearly marked by their respective languages and by their cultural and physical natures. Their natures are and have always been unknown to groups of European origin, with the exception of a very small number of Mexican and foreign anthropologists. This ignorance is an unpardonable crime against Mexican nationhood. Without knowing the characteristics and needs of those groups, it is impossible to seek their incorporation into a national culture.
2. Yucatán, a Type of Patria of Mixed Population. A few months ago, after having toured that state, I stayed awhile in Mérida. On one occasion, when I was having lunch at a restaurant in the city center, it occurred to me to order a bottle of beer.
I was asked, "Domestic or foreign?"
"Foreign," I answered, imagining that I would be served a German or American beer. A few instants later, the waiter returned, bringing on a bright tray a bottle of XX of Orizaba.
"I had said foreign!" I exclaimed, a bit annoyed.
The dark-skinned waiter looked at me with good-natured surprise and replied: "It is the only foreign beer we have. If you want a domestic one, I will bring you a Yucatecan beer."
Nationalist in the extreme and at times patriotic to the point of aggression, I could not help but inform my interlocutor of two or three politico-geographic facts about Yucatán and Mexico, and four or five about the lack of sense that he seemed to suffer from. To the shame of my metropolitan pride, that poor waiter gave me so many and such justified reasons that in the end I understood — for all that I did not approve of it — why the beer of Orizaba was considered foreign in Yucatán.
I will now demonstrate why Yucatán is one of our small patrias and why it possesses its own nationalist sensibility. In the Yucatecan territory, the conquered indigenous race and the invading Spanish race have mixed more harmoniously and deeply than in any other region of the republic. Although there are some people of pure Indian or European blood, enough of a social majority is of mixed race to make this the dominant group. The distinctiveness is so evident that even when a Yucatecan does not state the place of his provenience, this can be deduced by simply hearing his voice. The pronounced brachycephaly of the cranium, like the peculiar phoneticism of his pronunciation, loudly proclaims his Yucatecan origins. This racial homogeneity, this unification of physical type, this advanced and happy fusion of the races, constitutes the primary and solid base of Yucatecan nationalism.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Forjando Patria by Manuel Gamio, Fernando Armstrong-Fumero. Copyright © 2010 University Press of Colorado. Excerpted by permission of University Press of Colorado.
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