Tag Archives: history

in english

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day

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That’s September 16th.  I assume it’s celebrated in the United States for two reasons:

  1. It was a victory over the French and we all know how some sectors of the American public love to hate the French
  2. General Ignacio Zaragoza, who led the Mexican troops at that battle, was born in what is now Texas when it was still part of Mexico, so its background resounds with Mexican-Americans.

Although it is certainly celebrated in some parts of Mexico, the whole brouhaha they make north of the border as “Mexican heritage day” is as alien to most Mexicans as hard-shelled tacos.

in english

Life photo archive

I came accross this archive of Life magazine photos.  I became a fan in my childhood since my parents had one or two books with pictures from the magazine (I was especially a fan of this one by Robert Capa).

I immediately made two searches: Mexico & Finland, naturally.  Most pictures of Mexico are of the 60’s, around the time of the 1968 Olympics, whereas most pictures of Finland are of the 40’s, especially of the Winter War.

One of the images that impacted me the most, however, was of Viipuri, which back then looked just like any other Finnish city.  I’ve been there a few years ago on my way to St. Petersburg, and let’s say that there have been a few changes after it became part of Russia.

in english

Tampere, industrial city


Tampere, industrial city

Originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado

A couple of good friends live in Tampere, and we visit them every once in a while. We were there just a few days ago, and enjoyed as usual.

Tampere is called the “Manchester of Finland” and pictures like this of downtown make it quite obvious. I didn’t know that the city, given its industrial past, has been an important part of Finnish history and site of key events in the Finnish Civil War.

in english

Recommended book: Empires of the Word

I picked up this book on Amazon and also read it during January.  I have to admit that, given that it touches on two of my favourite subjects: history and languages, I absolutely loved it.  The insight it gave on the history of the speakers of languages such as Chinese, Dutch or Akkadian was totally riveting, and it was written in such an amenable way I couldn't put it down.  The text examples of each language in the beginning of the appropriate chapter was a great technique for introducing them and the author shows he definitely knows what he's writing about.

The only thing that put me off a little bit was its slight English-language bias, which is anyway not unexpected given that the writer is a native English speaker, and the book is written in English.  Regardless, one of the best books I've read in a long, long time.

in english

Mexicans can’t let go of the past


México espectacular
Originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado

We visited Xcaret during our trip to Cancún, and attended their evening show. In general it was very well made, and for example it is the first time I have seen the mesoamerican ball game being played live (no human sacrifice, though).

There was, however, one thing that bothered me in the show, but it wasn’t about the quality or anything like that. It was a segment where they had somebody singing “Mi México de Ayer” by Chava Flores. I actually have one of his CDs and think his music is quite good, but at the moment I was really annoyed by one very simple fact: Mexicans can’t let go of the past. This is also reflected in the way we are taught about own own history, where everything was better before than it is now and whatever comes from abroad is a threat.

We can’t start building a future if we keep on looking at the past.

No podemos construir un futuro si seguimos enfocándonos en el pasado.

en español

Recommended book: Bound Together

The subtitle of this book, "How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors shaped Globalization" explains very well what is it all about: a historical recounting of the processes throughout history that have shaped our societies to reach the level of interconnectedness where we currently are.  As such, it is a great description, but the casual reader will not find recipes for solving the world's ills here.

Nevertheless, it is a very well written, enthralling book.  If you want to have an idea about how we got where we are since the appearance of the modern Homo sapiens in Africa eons ago and what are the current challenges facing our world, grab this tome.  Its examples and anecdotes give colour to the epic tale of the human race, and its last three chapters explain how much of a crossroads are we actually at.  As he says, calls to shut down globalization are pointless because there's no one in charge, but we have the power and the responsibility to steer our world in the right direction.

This pale blue dot is the only home we have.  We better learn to live together.

in english

Gilberto Bosques, Mexican hero

You probably already know about Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who saved thousands of Jews from certain death during World War II.  He was not the only one.  Other famous and not so famous individuals involved were Raoul Wallenberg, Algoth Niska, Chiune Sugihara, Traian Popovici or Gilberto Bosques.

A veteran of the Mexican Revolution, before the beginning of the war he worked as General Consul at the Mexican Embassy in Paris.  When Hitler conquered Paris, the Embassy was moved to Marseille, and Bosques was left in charge.  He gave thousands of visas to Jews, resistance fighters and Spanish Civil War refugees to escape to Mexico, and even went as far as organising lodging for thousands of them in two castles near the city of Marseille.

Eventually, however, he was imprisoned by Nazi Germany for a year with the rest of the Latin American diplomatic corps at Bad Godesberg, not only for helping "enemies of the regime" but also because by that time Mexico was also at war with the Axis.  He was freed in an exchange of prisoners between Mexico and Germany before the end of the war.

Why aren't these kind of heroes remembered at school, instead of more dubious individuals such as Pancho Villa?

More information here.

in english

Mexico-Germany relations

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One of the things that I discussed with the guys mentioned in this post was the reasons behind such a strong relationship between Mexico and Germany.  The largest Deutsche Schule outside of Germany operates in Mexico City, and there are many Germans in Mexico and Mexicans in Germany, due to the strong FDI by companies like Volkswagen and student exchange ties. according to an article I read in the Reforma newspaper a couple of years back, there were more Mexicans registered in the embassy in Germany than in Spain!).  Why is it so?

 

  • Alexander von Humboldt, German scholar, visited Mexico at the beginning of the 19th century during his research trip through Latin America.  That gave the country some visibility in the illustrated circles of the time.
  • The Hanseatic and Prussian states were some of the first European countries that recognised Mexican independence.
  • During the 19th century, Germany was the only great power that didn't try to conquer Mexico after its independence.  Spain tried, France did for a while, the UK harassed the country a couple of times (and helped it a couple too), and of course we know about the results of the Mexican-American war.
  • Furthermore, during the Great War, Germany even tried to convince Mexico to enter on their side, with the ruse of offering support in the reconquest of lost territories.  However, Mexico was in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, and to make matters worse, when the proposal, known as the Zimmermann note, reached U.S. hands, they declared war on Germany.

For more information, you might want to check this note here.

in english

Living history

We never notice it, but one way or another we live thorugh history, we are making history ourselves. I started thinking about it when, in a class about Political Environment of Business, I sat next to a Polish exchange student. We talked a little bit about his childhood experiences “behind the iron curtain” and it all was a little eery. I’ve had that discussion before with friends from Latvia, Germany and Estonia.

Then we come to family history. My family has witnessed first hand such events in Mexican history such as the Revolution, the Cristero War, hyperinflation and devaluations and the 2000 and 2006 presidential elections.

We don’t truly notice what is going on until it is past behind us.