Thread: The Civil War Inside Mexico’s Soul

The Civil War Inside Mexico’s Soul
Jack Wheeler
Saturday, July 26, 2003

I am currently engaged in writing a screen treatment for a motion picture to be made by a Hollywood producer friend of mine. The movie’s working title is "La Malinche" (lah-mah-lin’-chay) and is the true story about one of history’s most remarkable and heroic women.

Her name was Malinali. She was born a princess. When her father, the king, died, her mother remarried and had a son. Since she was now a threat to her step-brother’s inheriting the throne, her mother sold her into slavery.

Beautiful and smart, Malinali became the favorite slave girl of a local chieftain. When powerful strangers came from an unknown land, the chief made a present of the slave girl to their leader. The year was 1519, and the strangers’ leader was named Hernando Cortez.

Speaking several local languages, she quickly learned Spanish and became Cortez’s translator. Christened as Doña Marina, she soon became invaluable to Cortez, who naturally fell in love with her.

Marina taught him that the Aztecs ruled a colonial empire of conquered kingdoms and tribes. The monstrous evil of Aztec rule was epitomized by the continual sacrifice of human beings – up to sixteen per day – their backs broken on the altar and their hearts cut out of their chests while they were still alive, in the temple of Huichilpotztli (the Aztec sun god) in Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital, now Mexico City). Without the sacrificial hearts, the Aztecs believed, the sun would not rise.

Marina saw Cortez as a liberator who could free subjugated people from Aztec tyranny, and together they came up with the brilliant strategy of organizing a tax revolt. “Join and fight with me,” Cortez told the colonized tribes, “and you won’t have to pay any more taxes to your Aztec rulers, nor send any more of your sons to be sacrificed to the Aztec gods.”

They did, and that is how Cortez and his tiny band of 400 Spaniards defeated an empire ruling millions of subjects. It is one of the great epics of history, and it was made possible by a woman whom the Indians of Mexico came to revere and worship as their savior, whom they called La Malinche. The title meant Malinali was “Master of Herself,” for the Indians’ (including the Aztecs) name for Cortez was Malinche, meaning “Master of Malinali.”

Yet among Mexicans today, particularly the intelligentsia, the memory of La Malinche is despised – in fact, a common term for “traitor” in Mexico is malinchista. This means there is a civil war being fought within the modern Mexican soul.

The vast majority of Mexico’s 90 million people are of mixed (in varying degrees) Indian/Spanish ancestry. The Indian part of that soul has sided with his ancestors’ oppressors (the Aztecs were an elite minority; most Indians in Cortez’s time were non-Aztec) and hates the Spanish part, an ineradicable part of his fundamental self-identity. For “malinchista” to mean “traitor” means Mexicans are traitors to themselves. This is a national psyche in deep turmoil.

The problem is that a growing number of Mexicans are deciding to take it out on America. The civil war in the Mexican soul may be a few short years away from morphing into an actual civil war, with guns and battles, armies and terrorists, and vast urban rioting, between Hispanic and Anglo Americans.

I received a number of thoughtful responses to my “America’s Curse” article, and among them was from a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles whose son is on a local Little League team. Here’s his story regarding a game his son’s team recently played against another team in a predominantly Hispanic area of the San Fernando Valley:

"The coaches of the other team spoke to their boys exclusively in Spanish, and to the umpire as well. At the beginning of the 5th inning we were ahead by 3 runs. The umpire started to purposely throw the game. All of a sudden there was no strike zone and every pitch was a ball. The other team’s parents in the stands started to chant viva la raza (long live our race), and batir muchachos blancos (beat the white boys).

"They loaded the bases, and the 4th batter hit a ball into center field. Three runs scored, our catcher was waiting for the throw, the winning run hadn't even rounded 3rd, and as the throw was coming home, their coach stepped in front of our catcher and took the ball, at which point the Ump called game, without the winning run ever touching home plate.

"Well, to say the least, the parents on my son’s team were livid, but what could we do but file a protest? The La Raza crowd kept up with their chants, and we left in disgust. A kids’ ball game turned into a cheap La Raza rally. What are they teaching their children? That it is OK to lie and cheat to get what they want?

"My son asked me, 'Dad, why do they hate us so much? Aren't they happy to be in this country?' I told my son that he had just experienced racism first hand, a twisted form of Mexican nationalism that views Anglo (white) Americans as oppressors. There are two Hispanic boys on my son’s team. They and their parents told us how disgusted they were at the other team and wanted to assure us how much they rejected anti-Anglo racism."

This example is well on its way to becoming the norm rather than the exception in Los Angeles and Southern California. For the reverse to be true, Mexican-Americans must embrace as a term of honor the insult La Raza racists hurl at all those who cooperate with Anglos: "malinchistas" (for example, their labeling as such columnist Linda Chavez: http://www.aztlan.net/cuacua11.htm).

After Cortez’s victory and the liberation of Mexico, Malinali – now a devout Christian – performed the penultimate Christian act. She visited her family’s kingdom and had her mother brought before her. She could, with a nod of her head or wave of her hand, have ordered the execution of the person who had sold her into slavery. Instead, she embraced her trembling mother, and told her that she loved and forgave her.

The time has come for Mexicans to practice such Christian forgiveness upon themselves. Only by embracing the memory and achievement of La Malinche – liberation from Aztec imperialism and depravity – can Mexicans liberate their own souls.

[Ps: We want Antonio Banderas to play Cortez. But what actress could best play La Malinche? Any suggestions?]

Jack Wheeler is Editor of ToThePoint™, a geopolitical intelligence service at www.tothepointnews.com.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Immigration/Borders
http://www.newsmax.com/hottopics/Immigr ... ders.shtml


Latin America
http://www.newsmax.com/hottopics/Latin_America.shtml



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The time has come for Mexicans to practice such Christian forgiveness upon themselves. Only by embracing the memory and achievement of La Malinche – liberation from Aztec imperialism and depravity – can Mexicans liberate their own souls.

When they can achieve this, then maybe they will recognize the need to reconstruct their own country while not blaming us for their troubles.

what I can't figure is they keep calling Americans lazy . . . if the Americans are so lazy, why is it that the United States is more prosperous than Mexico.

And why is it the American's were'n't too lazy to fight for their freedom? American's built this country, not Mexicans

Originally Posted by Mamie

what I can't figure is they keep calling Americans lazy . . . if the Americans are so lazy, why is it that the United States is more prosperous than Mexico.

Do not worry many people in here ar lazy more that you think and i hate lazy people and negative too.

Well i think for that reason (States are more prosperous than Mexico) allowes or permmits to have many free time to spend doing nothing and get paid by the goverment.
Mexicans are conformists with their own life and that not happens with me and my friends.
I think conformism just hit the poor and ignorant people (people with out education) in my country otherwise they will not need to cross and work in USA as illegal.
It is just my opinion.

selma hyek would be nice. Or you could just find another latin girl... make sure she has a sexy booty, and give her a start in hollywood.

I would say that this "identity crisis" as you put it could best be explained by twisted forms of education many recieve in mexico. I remember when I was a child I was told that the mexicans defeated the spanish and drove them out. That the aztecs were martyrs etc... the spanish were not reveared as liberators, but as conquistadors. In a sort of way American history teaches us the same thing.

p.s. I have a million movie ideas. we should talk (i got one that will hopefully blow your mind)