Mexico's Buy-Centennial 'Grito'
Can a new revolution be far behind?
By John Ross
The Rag Blog : September 8, 2010
MEXICO CITY -- The clocks are literally ticking as Mexico starts the final
leg of the countdown to the 200th anniversary of its independence from
Spain. Dozens of huge, solar-powered timepieces have been installed in this
monster city's great Zocalo plaza and 31 state capitols to mark the minutes
until the Bicentennial celebration kicks in this September 15th-16th.
At 2.8 million pesos each, the price of the clocks is a mere drop in the
bucket compared to what President Felipe Calderon is lavishing on the actual
festivities.
Mexico has budgeted 3 billion pesos for the nation's birthday fete but costs
will surely exceed that modest allocation. In a country where 70% of the
population lives in and around the poverty line, 50% of Mexican families
cannot afford the basic food basket, and 13 million children go to bed
without supper each night, Bicentennial bread and circuses will not staunch
the hunger that stalks the land
How much of this multi-billion peso boodle will be pilfered, embezzled,
subcontracted out to dubious friends of the house, or otherwise flushed down
the drain, remains to be calculated.
Mexico is one of eight Latin American republics that will celebrate the
200th anniversary of their separation from a debilitated Spain back in 1810
this year -- but it is the only country on the continent that will also
commemorate the centennial of a landmark revolution that toppled an
entrenched oligarchy.
The numerical coincidences between the catastrophic conflict that began in
1810 (500,000 were dead before the war of liberation was concluded in 1821)
and the revolution of 1910 (a million killed) have given rise to the thesis
that every hundred years, on the tenth year of the century, this distant
neighbor nation explodes in lethal social upheaval.
In Mexico 2010, with an economy in free fall, unemployment at record levels,
and 28,000 citizens slaughtered in Calderon's uncalled-for war on the drug
cartels, this timetable for renewed revolution is not an unlikely
projection.
But aside from revolutionary numerology, there is an historical connection
that explains the reoccurrence of social rebellion here in 1810 and 1910.
1910 was an election year and the dictator Porfirio Diaz, who had governed
the country with an iron fist for 34 years, stealing election after
election, was determined to maintain power despite his increasing
unpopularity. Clapping his chief rival, the liberal Francisco Madero, in
jail weeks before the balloting, the 83 year-old Don Porfirio once again
crowned himself top dog -- like Diaz, current president Felipe Calderon is
often accused of having stolen the 2006 election.
Then as now in 2010, deep recession was on the land and Porfirio Diaz
quashed social discontent by calling out the army to restore order (Calderon
has 50,000 troops in the field.) Faced with disintegrating governability,
the dictator moved to soothe the restive masses by throwing a big party to
celebrate the Centennial of the nation's independence.
Monuments and statues were erected throughout the capitol, most prominently
the gilded Angel of Independence that still rises above the Paseo de La
Reforma, the city's most traveled thoroughfare. Indeed, the dictator
invested millions in refurbishing the avenue and transforming it into a sort
of Mexican Champs D'Elysie.
Borrowing a page from Don Porfi's playbook, Calderon last spring laid the
cornerstone for a multi-million-peso "Bicentennial Tower of Light" at the
foot of Reforma Boulevard. Cost overruns on the monument have already
doubled and the Tower will not be open for business until late 2011, if
ever, due to engineering snafus.
A hundred years ago, among other Centennial projects, Porfirio Diaz cut the
ribbon at the site of a new headquarters for the Congress of the country but
two months later, revolution washed over the land and the dome-like
structure was left unfinished -- after the conclusion of hostilities, the
dome was converted into the Monument of the Revolution.
Similarly, Calderon's list of Bicentennial projects includes new quarters
for the Mexican Senate -- weeks before the big fiesta that building too
remains unfinished.
One hundred years ago, commemorative events and glittering banquets and
balls filled the dictator's days and nights. Showers of fireworks lit up the
skies. New pants were distributed to the poor although they were discouraged
from attending the festivities. As is standard operating procedure in this
ultra-centralized nation, the fiesta was confined to the capitol and the
provincials uninvited, further ratcheting up tensions between the
countryside and the big city.
When word got out that the dictator had spent Mexico's entire social budget
on the Centennial of Independence -- there was no money left over to even
pay the wages of teachers -- all hell broke lose. On November 20th, 1910 the
Mexican revolution erupted and Diaz was overthrown.
Felipe Calderon has been faithful to Don Porfi's scenario. Aside from the
Bicentennial Arch and the new Senate chambers, he has inaugurated a
multi-billion peso extravaganza, the "Expo Bicentenario," in Guanajuato (see
sidebar below); streets and schools all over the country have been renamed
for the "Heroes who gave us a Fatherland," and a Bicentennial park in the
north of Mexico City, constructed on the site of an abandoned refinery that
befouled the air of this megalopolis for decades, is open for business.
Toxicity levels are said to be still so high that just sitting on the grass
can be dangerous to one's health.
Calderon's management of the Bicentennial has been haphazard. Five
coordinators, starting with Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the son of a beloved
president, have signed on and then abruptly quit in the past six years, most
recently when Juan Manuel Villalpando, a right-wing historian, turned over
the reigns of the operation to Secretary of Public Education Alfonso
Lujambio, often cited as Calderon's successor in 2012.
With less than a month until the big birthday party, public buildings like
the National Palace, the Palace of Bellas Artes, and the Supreme Court are
being scrubbed down for the event. Miles of red, white, and green bunting --
the colors of the Mexican flag -- are being draped over downtown skyscrapers
such as the 84-story Torre Mayor, the tallest building in the nation.
The Bicentennial cultural calendar is packed. A magnum exposition of
patriotic icons, including the polished skull of Padre Miguel Hidalgo y
Costilla, the profligate priest who first gave voice to the struggle for
independence, and the mixed bones of either 12 or 14 other martyrs (it has
not yet been determined whose bones are whose) will be displayed in the
National Palace which the citizenry is cordially encouraged to visit (the
Palace is usually locked down and sealed by the military.)
Other commemorative offerings include the publication of a reedited official
edition of The History of Mexico issued by Lujambio's Public Education
Secretariat. The volume has been heavily critiqued by academics because
Calderon and his PAN party have imposed a right-wing spin on the nation's
biography. Much of the revised text appears to be the work of the
discredited Enrique Krauze, house historian for Televisa, the senior partner
in Mexico's two-headed television monopoly and a bosom buddy of Juan Manual
Villalpando.
The volume tilts towards a conservative interpretation of historical events
and tends to gloss over darker moments in the national narrative --there is
no mention of slavery and yet a third of the population at liberation was
Afro-Mexican. The sugarcoated treatment of Antonio Lopez y Santana, an
arch-villain who ceded half of Mexico's national territory to Washington, is
remarkable. The 1968 massacre of 300 striking students by the Mexican
military is described as "a large demonstration that was repressed" with no
attribution as to the repressors.
In a recent Proceso magazine interview, historian Victor Diaz Archiniaba
disses the revised "History of Mexico" as a history of the country's
politicos and not its people. The right-wing PAN, posits the popular
Autonomous Metropolitan University professor, is uncomfortable with
lionizing personages such as Hidalgo, his successor Jose Maria Morelos, and
revolutionary apostles Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa who defied the
Catholic Church, rose up against repressive regimes, and overthrew
conservative governments.
The Calderon government's plans for the twin centennials have favored the
200th anniversary of Independence over the 100th year Centennial of the
Mexican Revolution, an uprising of the poor with which the PANistas have
never been sympathetic.
Capitalism has bought up the franchise for the "Buy Centennial" -- as some
unpatriotic wags have dubbed the upcoming festivities. As every year during
September, "the patriotic month," vendors push handcarts through the city
streets laden with "tricolor" flags, plastic "coronetas"- a sort of Mexican
vuvuzela whose braying bleats add to the urban din -- and tons of patriotic
tchotchkes. To honor the Bicentennial, the mugs of Padre Hidalgo and his
coconspirators invite consumers to buy tee shirts, kids clothes, cigarette
lighters, milk cartons, and cans of beans, phone cards, and lottery tickets.
A cartoon version of the struggle for independence, True Heroes, is about to
roll. Creator Carlos Kuri concedes his film is a "lite" version of Mexico's
oft-violent history. Hidalgo, Morelos et al more resemble "Batman,
Spiderman, and Indiana Jones" than their original role models, he says --
Morelos's voiceover was dubbed by "Brozo," the green-haired "scary clown"
AKA Victor Trujillo, a Televisa warhorse. True Heroes action figures are
being heavily marketed.
Other Buy Centennial specials include a Bicentennial lottery
("Bicentenario"), a Bicentennial bike race ("Bicenton"), a time capsule to
be opened a hundred years hence if in fact Mexico survives until then, the
issuance of various postage stamps, a youth parliament, a racquetball
championship, an international regatta, and an NBA exhibition game between
the San Antonio Spurs and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Although the list of international dignitaries who are invited to the
Bicentennial hijinks is closely held, the buzz is that Spain's Prince Felipe
and his princesa Dona Leticia will be on hand when Calderon pronounces the
immortal "Grito de Independencia" from the presidential balcony overlooking
the Zocalo on September 15th. Given the presence of the royals, the "Grito,"
as first sounded by Father Hidalgo -- "Viva Mexico! Let's Go Kill Some
Gachupines" (Spaniards) -- will have to be modified for the occasion.
Calderon's September 15th "Grito" will be preceded and followed by multiple
military parades -- foreign contingents, including one from the United
States whose troops have invaded Mexico five times, will pad out the
processions. Nearly half the Mexican army is currently in the field waging
the President's bloody drug war.
To top off the fiesta, the heavens over Mexico City will be illuminated by
world-class pyrotechnics organized by Australian Ric Burch whose SpecTak
Productions staged the opening pageant at the Beijing Olympics. Burch, who
will be paid a million Yanqui dollars for the fireworks display, has
promised to learn Spanish for the Bicentennial.
September 15th, traditionally "La Noche Mexicana" when the natives don
floppy sombreros, tank up on rotgut tequila, yowl nostalgic mariachi tunes,
and shoot off their pistolas like "real Mexicanos," is always a blast but
this year should be a lollapalooza. In 2008, purported narcos tossed a bomb
into a crowd celebrating "La Noche Mexicana" in Morelia, Michoacan, killing
eight party-goers and tens of thousands of Mexico City and federal police
will be assigned to the Zocalo to keep the crowds from killing each other.
After an all-night fandango, Calderon will be helicoptered to Dolores
Guanajuato where Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a survivor of a failed
conspiracy to overthrow the Spanish rulers, uttered the original "Grito,"
the one about killing the Gachupines.
As legend has it, once the good padre had bellowed his murderous oath, he
strode across the town plaza and threw open the doors of the local
jailhouse. Hundreds of Indians and Afro-Mexicans who had been forced to
slave in the silver mines (Mexico produced a third of the world's currency
in 1810) surged out, picked up machetes and torches, and marched on the
nearby silver capitol of Guanajuato City where they rounded up the white
elites in the grain house or Alhondiga and set it ablaze.
The fire is said to have been ignited by a disaffected miner whose nickname
"El Pipila" now graces taco stands and other purveyors of roasting meats
throughout Mexico.
On the morning of September 16th to conclude Bicentennial activities in
Guanajuato, Felipe Calderon will host a gala breakfast for local elites at
the Alhondiga, a structure from which the captured Padre Hidalgo's head once
swung.
Given the repression, economic devastation, hunger, corruption, and violence
that blankets the land in this centennial year, many Mexicans are wondering
if, much as in Porfirio Diaz's day, a new revolution can be far behind?
[John Ross, author of El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City, is
currently in San Francisco for medical treatment.]
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