Mexico; by James Michener.

October 15, 2008
This is temporary I hope - I haven't finished this yet, partly due to an unwillingness to go on to watch a bullfight even on paper, what with the very evocative writings of this author.

He truly brings alive the history of the continent, of the indigenous and their encounters with the invading marauders who assumed supremacy due to colour and size, the change over from a once flourishing civilization that not much is known now about, to one in constant state of flux with various military and other regimes and neighbours looking down on the nation that was once great in various achievements.

But reading this made one aware of much of the world that one is generally unlikely to know about, and the history is sometimes - often more often than not so, amazing; and then again a little off-putting in the concepts about bloodshed.

And then the fights themselves, while reading this I found an unasked question being answered, though it was not mentioned here - not as far as I read.

One always wonders why torture an innocent animal like this, one that can be far more useful and friendly too, unlike dangerous ones that can turn into human-hunters, although mostly even they do so usually by accident.

And I wondered if it was not a necessity of food, and the difficulty of killing a bull in prime without a fight, that began as a needful activity and turned into a spectator sport. Else it makes very little sense really.

Various people that go throwing paint on fur coats have not paid attention to this and other cruelty to animals on everyday basis is also due to this - it is easy to shout against a luxury of a few that kills a few animals, but difficult to protest against food of many. This is all the more so, especially when huge financial interests are involved, the butchers (who have taken to call themselves farmers, as if they and not the animals are responsible for the cattle reproduction, which is not a sowing and harvest, it is a mammal reproduction of the species) and the markets that sell and the chains that serve it.

So the protest against mink coats that makes no sense to a vegetarian might be really a token by an awakening mind and consciousness that nevertheless weighs carefully the consequences - if you protest against any chains serving burgers, you might be thrown in jail or worse, asylum; while throwing paint on a coat you couldn't afford anyway is treated lightly, the rich one might be induced to buy another one after all!

It is a fight they pick carefully, and do not even protest the leather shoes or bags or briefcases when those have become unnecessary. And of course those are the least of it all - if you are going to eat a huge quantity of animals in a culture what do you do with the leftovers? The least is leather goods manufacture, which in fact can be done even without the eating part - after all the animals are going to die one day, on their own.

It is far easier to protest killing of foxes in distant regions where their roaming is not a threat to your children and your pets and your barn animals.

October 15, 2008
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December 9, 2010.

Finally one gets over the reluctance to go through a gory death or two, certainly of the innocent animals involved who are bred and brought up only so that they can be murdered for sport, never mind the honour of being mounted on walls of owners and breeders with pride about how they fought well, but also of the men involved in the killing of the animals, occasionally - after all it is an honourable way to kill the poor animals tricked into the arena to be killed, only with swords and other similar weapons rather than with a bullet at a distance safe enough for the killer.

Having sealed oneself to any sensibility of the gore involved, one proceeds to go through the rest of the book and it proves more rewarding with a history of Mexico along with the related parts of history of Spain, US, church, and so forth. It is a letdown to accidentally read the acknowledgement at the end to find that a good deal of it is "fiction" as stated by the writer, but then again, that is about specific people and names mentioned, including that of city of Toledo in Mexico. Other parts however are perfectly true, such as inquisition in Europe in general and Spain in particular. Palafoxes might be fiction, but burning of dissenters by church is as real and historical as bullfights or civil war of US.

That being the case, the initial uncanny feeling one gets while reading the history of Mexico, (with the history of its primitive and beastly nomadic tribals from northern parts creeping closer to and overtaking the far superior civilisation of the Builders who have grown too peaceful to resist the vicious onslaught due precisely to the vastly superior civilisation they have achieved - they have built, are peaceful, have civil administration, and other amenities and achievements more than comparable to any other of the period in the world - and the subsequent subjugation and massacre of the superior civilisation by the wilder tribes from north before the wild tribes settle down, adopt ways of the subjugated ones and absorb their culture and achievements and proceed to be civilised and build on top of the ruins they brought about), that it is all too similar enough to history of Asia (what with tribes of Mongolia and central Asia descending on India and reigning havoc with destruction and massacres before settling down and adopting much of Indian culture including superior buildings albeit built over the destroyed older ones), is all too easily explained after all. It is perhaps an coincidence of history after all, with similar events occurring clear across the world, but it is just as likely a history of another land written by someone more familiar with the more famous history of a much older civilisation overrun by tribes of Mongolia, central Asia, Arabia and then Europe, just as it happened perhaps in Mexico. The Goddess described by Michener with revulsion might be a fact of Mexican history, and then again his description might just be the reaction of Europe to images of Kaalie the Mother Goddess worshiped in India, a reaction that stems through a total absence of perception and comprehension. Certainly the description and the reaction is all too similar, with the difference of the thought that all such images stem from imagination rather than a greater perception of reality, for how could anyone with a more than feeble colour of visage and less than totally vicious lack of regard for others have any superiority of mind and spirit, goes the reasoning.

All this from a source that has historically brutal massacres of any dissenters merely for the reason of dissent, massacres held valid while dissent held abominable even now with usage of words and terminology describing the inquisition, the burning at stakes, the subjugation and conversion of other people, and so forth including enslaving of almost three continents and looting of their wealth while sneering at the people empoverished thereby. It is almost a vicious satire on the thinking of the dominant races that preach of their supposedly superior idols and the murders, massacres and slavery of others in the name of a philosophy of love and kindness, all the while boasting of their horror at idols of others who in fact are far more of the civilised and achieved people in terms of mind and spirit.
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Europe had gunpowder - from China - while Mexico and southern civilisations had astronomy, architecture, and much more; the meeting of the two civilisations resulted in havoc reigned on the latter by the former. Admission of all this is covered with equivocation by the descriptions of human sacrifices by a fictional tribe in a fictional city and building of structures of civil society over an already established city while stealing its valuable minerals - silver in this case - in the book; much of the fiction is only fiction re specific names, while the general history is all too real, only taken from various sources in Mexico and perhaps subconsciously from Asia as well.

The greatest virtue of the book is in the fact that one wishes to go on reading about the history of Mexico and various other parts of the continent of what is so falsely termed "New World" - twenty thousand years of life in the continent, including nearly a millennia of familiarity to Nordic Europe what with Viking settlements in Canada and as far south as Boston, is hardly what one would call "new", unless compared to far more ancient civilisations of Asia such as India or China - and this even apart from the dismay at the discovery of the author's declaration that the specifics herein are "fiction". So next one finishes the other book, not declared fiction by the author of that one but on the contrary one that questions the popular and assiduously propagated versions of history, by Hancock.

One nice point is the beginning of a consciousness in humans of the brains of cattle with the fast learning ability, all too similar to humans; another is about the genealogical relationship of qualities received from the parents - physical abilities from father, courage from mother. Put the two together, it is not difficult to understand how those that live with cattle in harmony rather than a relationship of slavery have a regard for the cattle, brought about by the perceived and understood qualities of gentle and yet strong, courageous species with an ability to understand, an ability to learn and love and more, all too like humans. And if this perception is allowed to filter through the ego it has to lead to the destruction of misogyny - for a clear evidence of qualities of cows compared with bulls has to lead anyone not too stupid to question if the inferiority of the human female is not an invention of male institutions of church and other sort to subjugate and enslave half of humanity for selfish purposes rather than an actual perception of qualities and differences thereof.