Monthly Archive for August, 2004

Duerme soñando

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 31, 2004
in Música
. 1 Comment
Duerme soñando,
Con tus ojos tan plenos, despiertos
Con tu corazon lleno y radiante
Alucinante, tan lleno de amor

La vida. La vida. La vida, que es la vida
En tratar de entenderla, se nos va la propia vida
Tan simple y tan fuerte, tan llana mente suerte
Lo que acontece, preparacion de la muerte

Pero es absurdo ocuparte de este estudio
Cada año,segundo a segundo
No es tan profundo, dormir soñando

Es la respuesta, tal vez es erronea
Tal vez es correcta, sueña a la par del presente y no del futuro
Porque de esto nunca estas tan seguro

Aca, tus enojos, existes y eres libre, afuera tus despojos
Llena tus maletas de responsabilidad
deja para mañana tu personalidad
Mas si tu sientes una contradiccion
que al dormir te despiertas, y al despertar te duermes
tal vez si lo dices no eres tan inteligente

La gente solo observa la ropa y los hechos
Mas nunca sienten lo que hay dentro de sus pechos
No existe entre ellos una real conexión
Pues creen tener siempre la razon?
La razon justa y procesadora
De lo correcto que se hace cada hora

Pero en este sueño tu estas sumergido
Mas no te sientas nunca afligido
Porque con en este sueño tu estas protegido
Y aunque te sientas un poco distante
Tu alma lo dice a cada instante

Duerme soñando con tus ojos tan plenos, despiertos
Con tu corazon lleno y radiante
Alucinante, tan lleno de amoooor
lleno de amor
lleno de amor
lleno de amooor
Hey!!!

la vida, la vida, la vida, que es la vida
En tratar de entenderla, se nos va la propia vida
la vida, la vida, la vida,que es la vida
En tratar de entenderla, se nos va la propia vida

No estoy tan convencido de vivir en esta vida
No estoy tan convencido de vivir en esta vida
No estoy tan convencido de vivir en esta vida

Bitter Taste in the Grape Fields

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 30, 2004
in Política and Raza
. Closed
Unlike many farm workers who come from Mexico to toil under the San Joaquin Valley sun, Luis Angel Valdivia wasn’t pushed north by desperation.He had a decent job back home and the comfort of a tight-knit family. But he was the youngest child, an adventurer from age 12, and so he handed $1,500 to a coyote last winter and headed to his “great vision” on this side of the border.What he regrets now is not the decision to come north but that his 53-year-old father followed in his path, tracing his footsteps from Jalisco to Pixley and then shadowing his son into the Kern County grape fields last month.Five days later, the father was dead, the victim of heatstroke after working a 10-hour day picking grapes in the 100-degree sun. These fields during harvest are mostly off limits to the outside world, but the July 28 death of Asuncion Valdivia has forced the nation’s biggest table grape grower, a privately held company not accustomed to answering questions, to explain a tragedy that farm worker advocates say was avoidable.The death not only offers a peek into a hidden zone that produces nearly all of the nation’s sweet table grapes, but it has underscored the hazards of what many here regard as one of the most brutal jobs in America. That father and son were here illegally and presented fake documents to the grower, Giumarra Vineyards, has only complicated the picture.For the 21-year-old son, who sent his father’s body back to Mexico to be buried and then returned to work last week in these same fields — for the same grower — the taste is a bitter one. Just after the stricken man collapsed, a Giumarra employee called 911 to request paramedics but was unable to provide the vineyard’s location, county records show. As a result, no ambulance ever responded. He died in the car as his son tried frantically to reach a hospital.”I watched my father die, and he didn’t have to,” Valdivia said. “Yes, I blame the grower, and each day I walk into that field the bitterness comes back.” Valdivia said he tolerates his bitterness because he needs the job to survive here.John Giumarra, the company’s vice president, called the death a “super-aberration. We’ve been growing grapes for 75 years, and we’ve never had someone die in the fields. We have 4,000 workers harvesting for four months, and this just doesn’t happen.”Giumarra acknowledged that the work was backbreaking, especially during the months of July and August when the temperature here can reach 110. “We give them a break in the morning and a break in the afternoon and half-hour lunch in between. We make ice water available right there. We do everything within our power to make sure the work environment is safe.”Farm workers succumbing to heatstroke in California may be unusual, but it isn’t rare. In 2002, , three farm workers died of heatstroke, and in 1998, four fatalities were tied to the heat, state statistics show. But because state and federal monitoring of field-related deaths and illnesses is plagued by holes, government statisticians say the real numbers aren’t known. No records, for instance, are kept in years when farm worker deaths from heatstroke number fewer than three. But grape growers say that even the handful of heat-related deaths each year must be put into context. From June to November, more than 40,000 pickers and packers harvest 700,000 tons of table grapes — red flames and green Thompsons and crimson seedless — across 110,000 acres.”When you consider that tens of thousands of employees work millions of hours each year preparing and harvesting California’s fruit, nut and vegetable crops, the incidence of heat-related reactions is extremely low,” said Barry Bedwell, president of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League, a trade association that recently called on farmers to review procedures to safeguard against heatstroke.But the United Farm Workers is demanding that growers do more, such as providing salt tablets to workers and training crew bosses to better recognize and treat heatstroke.”Foremen and supervisors should be properly trained in identifying and treating symptoms and knowing when to call for help and where to send it,” said Arturo Rodriguez, the UFW president. “If that had happened when Asuncion Valdivia was stricken, he might not have died.”Growing up in the countryside of Jalisco, the younger Valdivia was not yet a teenager when he began plotting ways to get to the U.S. “It seemed like an adventure to me,” he said last week, giving an account in Spanish inside a wooden shack in Pixley. “I just had to know the United States. I just had to come.”He dropped out of school in the ninth grade and became a driver for a mattress company, earning more than $2 an hour, a wage he considered ample for hardly breaking a sweat. He could have easily made a life for himself in Mexico, he said. But he had watched his mother die young and his two sisters and a brother settle for less. He vowed to save enough cash for the trip north.In January, he said goodbye to the family and boarded a plane to Tijuana. He spent two weeks there taking in the scenes and securing a coyote. On Jan. 25, he crossed the border near Tecate by foot and waited for the coyote to pick him up. A half-day later, he reached the wooden shack in Pixley where his father’s fiancée had arrived a few months earlier. She took him in as one of her children. He had no trouble securing a phony green card and Social Security number as he waited for the grapes to ripen. In June, he signed on with a crew at Giumarra Vineyards, a fourth-generation grape-growing family with a reputation as one of the industry’s leading innovators. The Giumarras may rank as the biggest table grape grower in the world, with more than 5,000 acres, but they don’t consider themselves absentee landlords.”We’re not corporate farmers farming out of New York City,” John Giumarra said. “Our family members are out under those same vines. We’ve got dirt on our Levis.”The reality of these fields is that crops would not be harvested without undocumented workers. Farmers don’t like to talk about it in public, but they acknowledge in private that illegal migrants constitute more and more of the work force. Some farmers estimate that more than 70% of the grape pickers are illegal migrants.”What is a farmer to do?” Giumarra asked. “The workers show us a green card and Social Security number, and how do we know if it’s legitimate or fraudulent? We’re not policemen.”Those first days in the fields, working from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., the younger Valdivia had a hard time keeping up. He said he couldn’t get used to the heat. The fields felt like an oven as he worked his way down the long rows on his hands and knees, gnats flying in his face, sulfur dust choking his lungs.”The heat,” he said, “I wasn’t prepared for the heat.”Giumarra Vineyards demanded that a minimum of 15 boxes of grapes be picked before the first break at 9:30 a.m., he said. At first, he was picking fewer than seven boxes. “Each day, I got a little better. It took me eight days to catch up. If you don’t learn, you’re out.”By doubling his speed, Valdivia was able to earn a piece-rate bonus on top of the minimum wage, bringing home $75 a day, or $7.50 an hour. It was enough to persuade his father to give it a try as well.He was a small, thin man, but he could work like an ox, his son said. “He had a job in a tile factory in Mexico. He was used to hard work.”The father began in mid-July. He was picking four rows down from his son. Even though the work overwhelmed him, he was a quiet man not given to complaining. At lunch, the father would sit in the shade of the vines and gobble down an egg-and-bean burrito, too tired to share a word.”We’d leave the house at 4 in the morning and get back at 6 at night,” the son said. “I drove and he slept.”July 28, he recalled, was in the midst of a particularly hot week, with temperatures as high as 104 degrees. At the end of the 10-hour shift, he heard a lady scream that his father had collapsed. Workers were putting water on his forehead and fanning him when the crew boss’ daughter called 911. A tape of that call and two others that quickly followed — provided to The Times by Kern County fire officials — reveals confusion on the part of the Giumarra crew boss and his daughter. Deep in the vineyards near the small town of Arvin, they could not provide the dispatcher with a location to send an ambulance.At some point, the cellphone disconnects, and the dispatcher calls back to determine the location again. “Where are you?” the dispatcher can be heard asking. After five minutes of struggling to come up with an answer, the crew boss’ daughter tells the dispatcher that Valdivia now appears OK.”They already took him to the nearest hospital,” she says on the tape.But the son said his father wasn’t OK. He had regained consciousness but was still struggling to walk when the crew boss told his daughter to cancel the ambulance. The crew boss “told me to drive him home and give him something to eat. He said he ‘just fainted.’ ”The car, sitting in the sun all day, was even hotter than the fields. About 15 minutes into the drive, he said, his father began foaming at the mouth and then went limp. He said he turned around on Highway 99 and began driving in the opposite direction to the closest hospital.”I was driving 95 miles an hour, but it took me about 20 minutes to get there,” he said. “By the time I got there, his chest wasn’t breathing anymore.”Giumarra calls it a tragedy but says his employees did the best they could under the circumstances. “The father seemed to be feeling better when maybe someone said, ‘Take him home.’ We think we’ve done everything according to the books.”The son says Giumarra has yet to call or send a letter of condolence. He said he is still waiting for the company to send a check to cover the days that his father worked as a trainee.

read / The Los Angeles Times

Billionaires for Bush

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 30, 2004
in Política
. Closed

Billionaires for BUSH! Live from the NYC Republican Convention.

La Reconquista

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 30, 2004
in Writings
. Closed

The Reconquista was a lengthy process, what some would call a religious crusade, that spanned several centuries and whose purpose was to unite the Iberian Peninsula under the rule of European kings and Catholicism. The consolidation of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon gave birth to two monarchs that reigned with the cross and the sword. The Catholic Monarchs were the force that united the Iberian Peninsula under the banner of Catholicism, when they militarily defeated the Muslim kingdom of Granada. Religion played a dominant force in the creation of the political state known as Spain, but the Christian religion never managed to bring uniformity to the peninsula, because its Islamic and Jewish heritage is inseparable from its identity.
At the dawn of the sixteenth century, what was to become one day the Spanish state, was on the verge of becoming a world power. In several kingdoms, carved from centuries of reconquering the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims, this movement to reconquer lands that were once Christian lands was of great importance for economic and religious reasons. Two of the peninsula’s many small Christian kingdoms gradually emerged as leaders of the reconquest. The most important by far was centrally located Castile, whose dominions eventually engulfed much of Iberia, and when united with the kingdoms of Aragon, Leon, and Navarre, laid the political basis for modern Spain (Ramsey, 110). On the Atlantic coast, the king of Portugal also led a southward advance taking back land that the Muslims had taken initially in the year 711. Portugal was to be the first Iberian kingdom to complete its reconquest, reaching the southern coast of Iberia in the mid 1200s and in the process avoided becoming a part of what would become Spain. On the Spanish side, the Moorish kingdom of Granada held out for four more centuries before finally succumbing to Castilian military strength in 1492 (Read, 45). The Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula powerfully shaped the institutions and mentality of the Spanish and Portuguese. The movement to expel their neighbors to the south spanned over thirty generations. In the process the ‘reconquering’ (which in reality was simply territorial expansion) Christians founded new urban centers as strongholds from where to lead future expeditions (Cook, 43). The Christians conquerors (or is it conquistadors, as they were to be known in the New World) were also responsible for bringing the one true faith (Christianity, specifically Catholicism) to the infidels or heathens (Johnson, 23). Similar to how the conquistadors treated the natives in the New World, in the Old World the conquerors earned the right to receive tribute and labor from their newly acquired subjects (Johnson, 24). In essence what was in reality several kingdoms of Iberia invading another, has been labeled as a reconquest. Although the territory that the Christians were acquiring was once possessed by Christians, the reality is that hundreds of years had passed and that the land they were acquiring was completely different from what it was once was. Americo Castro dispels the myth that Muslims had “invaded and destroyed” a preexisting ‘Spain’, which after the reconquest returned to it “pristine state” after expelling the Muslims, by arguing that that interpretation is incorrect due to the fact that the political entity of ‘Spain’ did not exist yet and the evidence of Islamic cultural dominance in the regions that were acquired by the Christians (Castro, 119). What is true though, is that the reconquest “laid the foundation for the first modern political state through its attempt and success in its unification program” (Castro, 118). The reality was that the Christian invaders were attempting to conquer a now foreign land, a land that was greatly dominated my Muslims and Muslim influence. This particular conquest was just the latest conquering of territory, following in the steps of the Romans, and the Visigoths. In no shape or form was the newly acquired territory the same as it once was in the 711, the year that the Muslims invaded from Northern Africa (Kennedy, 15).
The Visigoth presence in Spain began when the Suevi, Alans and Vandals crossed the Pyrenees in 409. These overcame the Romans with relative ease, since the empire was deteriorating. As Roman influence waned, the Visigoths became the dominant culture, establishing their capitol at Toledo. The Visigoth kingdom experienced considerable strife throughout the 7th century. By the year 705 Muslims had conquered north western Africa. In the year 711, Muslims from Northern Africa, who were referred to as Moors, began to cross heading north and conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula from its Christian kings. The moors quickly swept through a ‘Spain’ that was in political disarray, finding little resistance from the vast native populace that felt little loyalty to their Visigoth overlords. The road system that the Romans had created made travel through the Peninsula rather easy. The Muslim army that quickly conquered Spain is estimated at no more than twenty-thousand. The Moors were a nomadic people from North Africa. With the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, they also brought their Islamic religion and culture, overwhelming the Visigoths. Although Arabs were to exert an enormous influence on Spain for the next eight centuries, it is worth mentioning that no more than fifty-thousand Arabs immigrants to the Iberian Peninsula during their reign. This small number of Moors, however, successfully dominated the four-million or so native Iberians of the region (Castro, 14).
The enculturation that took place is very interesting, because although the invaders were Islamic, they allowed the conquered peoples to retain their religion, culture, for the most part. There were though, many Christian converts to Islam. Christians that converted to Islam were known as Muwallads (collectively all Muslims were known as Mudejars). Other Christians preferred to retain their religion but adopted Arabic as their language. Arabic speaking Christians were known as Mozarabs (Kennedy 42).
The Moors never established centralized rule, and instead several dominant Islamic cities such as Toledo, Granada, and Seville were the rule. The height of Muslim civilization in the Iberian Peninsula was established by the Caliphate of Cordoba. Muslims there made many important discoveries in mathematics, medicine, astronomy, optics, and philosophy (Kennedy, 15).
In the 11th century Moorish Spain was subjected to several military campaigns by their Christian neighbors to the north. In 1085, Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile, captured the city of Toledo. The city of Cordoba fell in 1236, and one by one, the Moorish strongholds surrendered. The last Moorish kingdom of Granada was captured by Ferdinand and Isabel in 1492 (Kennedy, 17).
The reconquest reestablished Christian culture and society behind a frontier that consistently pushed southward towards the Straits of Gibraltar (Kamen, 13). Religion, the hunger for land and booty, were the principal forces. According to Benjamin the reconquest is characterized by a series of pushes southward followed by periods of relative peace and coexistence. Expansion was largely determined by population pressure and the hunger for land and booty which were then followed by surges toward the south. Following expansion, a period of “territorial digestion” set in, during which the newly acquired territory was populated and settled and the expansionist cycle did not commence again until population pressure demanded it (Benjamin, 50).

According to Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz:
The lands along the frontier offered the common people an opportunity for enrichment and social betterment and thus there triumphed an economy of looting, linked to military initiative, to daring to royal favor, and to admission into royal service (Halperin, 28).
Contrary to what many historian assert, Elliot states that Ferdinand and Isabel did not create a united ‘Spain,’ since in the fifteenth century the word ‘Spain’ referred to the “association of all the peoples in the peninsula, and had no specific political meaning. Hence, to call the Iberian Peninsula a united Spain is an anachronism since that wasn’t applicable at the time (Elliot, 10). Interestingly, historians tend to refer to the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula as Spaniards, when in reality they were Castilians, Leonese, etc; together they were called Christians. Christianity would prove to be the bond that led to the consolidation of a Spanish state (Castro, 120).
Convivencia is the term that is used to describe the relative peaceful interaction between the three different cultures of Iberia. Although, the reconquest had been initiated since the Moors invaded the peninsula, that didn’t stop Christians, Muslims, and Jews from interacting and dealing with each other. This included, interaction between Muslims, Jews and Christians within the same kingdom, or transactions occurring between Christian kingdoms and Muslim kingdoms. These periods of convivencia provided for peaceful commerce, institutional borrowing, and more importantly provided for cultural exchange (Halperin, 16). For example, according to Eslava Galvan, it was very common for kingdoms to exchange prisoners with the use of an official mediator (Eslava Galvan, 87).
Of the “three great faiths” the Jews were the smallest group and consequently the most vulnerable. The Jews came to be prosecuted by both Christians and Muslims. Although, for the most part, before the reconquest regained strength, the three existed in “conditions of relative tolerance” (Elliot, 38). That was to change with the marriage of Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragan.
Isabel and Ferdinand were married 18 October 1469, in the city of Valladolid in a celebration that was “furtively arranged and incongruously celebrated (Elliot, 11).” Juan II of the kingdom of Aragon died in January of 1479, and Ferdinand succeeded as king. The death of Henry IV of the kingdom of Castile, crowned Isabel queen of Castile in the city of Segovia 13 December 1474 (Elliot, 13). This was in fact a usurpation of power according to Isabel’s sister, who was the preferential daughter of Henry IV, and who also vied for possession of the Castilian crown. Isabel and Ferdinand began to govern jointly, under the same dynasty, the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile (1479-1504) (Connelly Ullman, 18).
Castile consisted of eighty percent of the population that constituted Iberia. The total population of Castile was under seven million in 1530 (Elliot, 10). The kingdom that Isabel received was the richest and most populated of the Iberian kingdoms (Eslava Galan, 83).
In the 1470s it was a prevalent belief in the second coming of the Messiah within the coming years. This mysticism helped created favorable attitudes towards the Catholic monarchs, for they were seen as the saviors of the Iberian Peninsula. According to Hillgarth, many believed that Isabel was “created miraculously, for the redemption of the lost kingdoms.” Fray Iñigo de Mendoza believed that Isabel was in fact a second Virgin Mary, one that would do away with the “sin” of Eve (Hillgarth, 363). The belief in the second coming of Christ thus greatly influenced the movement for a consolidated Christian Iberia. Another strong belief was that after the unification of the peninsula, the world would be unified under the yoke of Christianity and Jerusalem would be liberated (Elliot, 59).
With the consolidation of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile, Isabel and Ferdinand focused their attention on the Moorish kingdom of Granada which lay in the most southern part of the peninsula. Moors had seized the frontier town of Zahara, in December of 1481, providing an excuse for which to commence hostilities with the invading Muslims. In February of 1482, Christian forces of the city of Andalucia captured the town of Alhama (Elliot, 33). This counterattack led to a large scale conflict between the Christians and Muslims which culminated with the fall of Granada in 1492 (Elliot, 34). Ferdinand was in charge of the military command while Isabel was concerned with other affairs of the crown. The conflict roused tremendous support for the Catholic Kings, and was widely supported by other Christians throughout Europe. The Pope elevated the status of this campaign to that of a European crusade, blessed the Christians, and more importantly granted funds to support the campaign, and even provided Ferdinand with a huge silver cross that was carried before the troops and adored at the surrender of each town (Elliot, 34). It is at this point that Ferdinand declared that his aim was to “expel from all Spain the enemies of the Catholic faith and dedicate Spain to the service of God” (Elliot, 35).
Castilian nobles were “the sacrosanct in their privileged political positions and landholdings.” The nobility was able to be the dominating force through their lands and privileges (encomiendas, señorios, and latifundia), which were reinforced by continuous grants of the title of Grandee, by distribution of lands (in the kingdom of Granada) and by the establishment of mayorazgos (entailed estates). The Catholic Monarchs were able to exert their power with the nobility, as can be seen with various policies that were implemented to curtail the power of the nobility. The first was the cooperation with the powerful nobles, the Grandees in Castile. These nobles had gained large estates known as latifundios, for their contributions to the reconquest. In an effort to reduce noble-power and hence strengthen the crown’s position, decreed that the nobles return the lands gained during the reconquest, but were allowed to keep any land that they previously owned before the reconquest (before this particular campaign). Important coastal towns were returned to the crown and the nobles in turn were compensated with lands to be conquered in Granada and with the ownership of other towns. Most of the nobles kept the majority of their estates hence there was little resentment against the crown for demanding the land back. In fact, Ferdinand and Isabel restricted the nobles’ influence to “strictly prescribed duties,” yet they continued to support the monarchs in their crusades in Granada (and later in the New World). In attempts to assert the Crowns authority, Ferdinand and Isabella also disposed of nobles who were causes of many civil disputes and forbade them to engage in private wars and to build new castles. The success of the crown in exerting control over the influential nobles however was not emulated to Aragon where the Grandees were much more powerful and the laws were protected by a justicia which even Ferdinand could not remove. Hence, crown authority was weak in Aragon, undermined primarily by the powerful Spanish nobles (Reilly, 154).
Much of the power of the crown was due to the phasing out of the Cortes of Castile. In Castile, the Cortes’ as a parliament body was only to petition and not to legislate; hence it was only summoned when needed and unless a new law contradicted an old one, it could be passed without the Cortes. The taxes imposed by the Cortes did not extend to nobles and the church and thus nobles began not to attend the Cortes, diminishing the power of that body. Isabel did not rely much on the Cortes for a majority of her revenue came from the Alcabala, or sales tax. Moreover, Isabel exerted control via the Council of Castile and did not need the Cortes. Gradually, the Cortes lost to crown authority and became a useless instrument. In Aragon however, the Cortes were formidable and Ferdinand depended on it to provide revenue and it often overshadowed crown authority. Even the implementation of the Council of Aragon in 1494 in no way decreased the Cortes’ influence. Thus, crown authority again proved weak and Ferdinand was unsuccessful in Aragon (Hamilton, 157).
The administration of justice was one way which Isabella executed her royal powers. Holding her own audencia every week, courts were established in various towns such as Valladolid and Santiago. The crown also took measures to control the various organizations which were dominant features in the Castilian political scene. Various military orders, which were brotherhoods of knights, played important roles in the reconquest and were soon engaged in feuds and civil wars when the fervor for the reconquest died down. Gradually, through the years, Ferdinand became the leading figure of all the orders (Edwards, 190).
Control of towns was also deemed crucial to consolidating Ferdinand and Isabel’s rule. Initially, Ferdinand’s brother Alfonso de Aragon headed the Santa Hermandad, an organization consisting of various Hermandads, or military brotherhoods from each town. The role was to offer protection and to act as a police force, as well as exert judicial control. This system kept order in towns, but was eventually eradicated in 1494 when signs of failure were visible. The Hermandad was then reduced to a humble police force (Edwards, 192).
Isabel exerted royal authority mainly trough placing corregidores, or court officials, to exert control over the regidores or mayors of the towns, who were subsequently reduced in power. As such, the crown successfully exerted its power and put order into the towns, which gladly accepted the new found order. Smaller towns felt protected from nobles and gladly allowed the crown to control them. No such system either of the corregidores or the Hermandad can be seen in Aragon, once again signaling the failure of the crown to assert its power in this particular kingdom (Edwards, 194).
After the nobility, the Church was the most powerful institution not only because if its wealth, but also for the influence it had on Christian society. Much of the church’s wealth was derived from limosnas and diezmos. Other Christians, fearful of eternal damnation, left in their wills generous donations, rentas and fincas. This continuous flow of income assured the Church’s economic stability. The nobility and the Church also had a close relationship. Since the family assured solely for the primogenitor’s (first born) future, many of the younger siblings (excluding the daughters of course) were established in the church where they became priests, or filled other religious positions (others became lawyers, etc.; all in the name of protecting the interests of the family. In a slight digression, the daughters whose parents could not afford the proper dowry were relegated to becoming nuns, and thus marrying God. For this reason there was a strong connection, and interests that lay between the nobility and the church. Both had common interests and common goals (Eslava Galan, 87). The great majority of Ferdinand and Isabella’s bishops came from the service of the Royal Court, whether lay, as the sons of officials or themselves officials of the chancery, or else clerical, as chaplains, diplomats or inquisitors. A significant number of bishops came from professional chairs in the universities or from teaching posts in graduate colleges (colegios mayors) (Edwards, 208). The lack of subsequent interest in Rome might appear to suggest that these Spanish bishops gave higher priority to their sovereign’s wills.
In 1480 the inquisition was established in Castile in order to investigate the religious loyalty of the people and in the process create religious unity. Centuries of reconquest had created a true “crusading mentality,” and consequently the church and the crown were one. The inquisition under Isabella and Cisneros, the Archbishop of Toledo, both reformed and rejuvenated the Catholic Church. Its main goal, of course, was religious unity. This policy was independent of Rome and Isabella further demonstrated her authority by setting up a Council of Supreme Inquisition later to oversee its implementation (Kamen, 176).
Throughout European history, Popes were willing to go to war to defend their earthly interests, but never to the extent of that of the Iberian Christians. Americo Castro argues that unlike those that held the position of God’s representative on earth, whom felt that religion was a “worldly and political business, an intelligent bureaucracy, a subtle dogmatism without warmth of heart, and a marvelous secularism,” the Christians at times ruined and depopulated their states by spending their energy fighting heretics and infidels (Castro, 286).
Since the institution of the first Inquisition, an aggressive Christian ideology like that which was preached by the Catholic Monarchs had not existed. The ensuing Christian warfare was more destructive and more repressive. After the fall of Malaga in 1487, the entire population of fifteen-thousand was enslaved and put to serve their Christian overseers (Elliot, 33). Such actions were justified by the development of the idea of a Holy War, or crusade. This deep belief held that God was on their side and that the actions they were committing were in the name of God. This is a harsh contrast between the methods that were employed by King James I who expelled the Moors from Valencia in the thirteenth century. King James employed tactics such as guaranteeing the political autonomy of the conquered, and protecting their religious, and socioeconomic rights, in order to induce the conquered into submission or surrender. The Christians hence were “able to retain the topography of existing cities and villages, provincial divisions, the irrigation system, housing and dwellings. Moorish taxes, including everything from licensing fees, rents and monopolies, to currencies, continued enforced.” To keep records, Moors were employed. In order to persuade the conquered to convert to the “one true faith” Missionary campaigns were also established in Valencia. Many of the conquered Muslims converted not for genuine religious sentiment (as is usually the case) but rather for material advancement and or to avoid criminal punishment (Halperin, 16).
The resurgence of the Inquisition was derived directly from those of its medieval predecessor which was established at the end of the thirteenth century. The latest Inquisition was modified with new papal and royal legislation such as the two manuals of procedure, the Manual of the Inquisitor (Practice of the Office of the Inquisition of heretical depravity) and the Inquisitor Directory. The aim of these mixtures between “legal texts and commentary” was to identify the dangers of Muslims, and Jews to Christian society. According to Edwards, the Inquisition had become by the late 15th century and awkward mixture of law court and confessional (Edwards, 94). Individuals brought before the Inquisition were required to confess their own failings, and those of their neighbors. In fact, individuals were told that if they failed to reveal the heresy of others, their immortal souls would be in peril. The consequences for those who dared to oppose the status quo and arrested and or convicted were severe in both economic and social terms. Not only were they chastised by their community but they’re status in society was relegated to that of an outsider (Edwards, 95).
Ramsey states that the Catholic Monarchs failed to distinguish between political or religious institutions. In fact, the Inquisition was both a religious and political institution and the two aspects were intertwined and complemented each other. The religious aspect provided a power greater that the church itself which could be used to maintain ecclesiastical discipline, purity of dogma, and religious unity. Being completely under the auspice of the crown, it represented a method through which the crown could achieve goals that were at times as much political as religious. The inquisition hence provided the means to influence the entire Peninsula (except for the kingdom of Portugal) and also superseding local rights and privileges (Ramsey, 210).
Papal Bulls were issued conceding the indulgences of a crusade and other taxes on the clergy which not only financed the war but gave it some of its character (Hillgarth, 372). In fact, the total cost of the war met primarily by papal aids (Hillgarth, 380).
The Catholic Monarchs applied to Rome for a bull, granted by Sixtus IV in November 1478, establishing an Inquisition into heresy. The inquisition had existed in the kingdom of Aragon in the thirteenth century but was inactive. The kingdom of Castile had never had one. Sanctioned by Rome and staffed by the clergy, it was ecclesiastical body; but all powers overseeing it, such as appointments and finance, were vested in the crown, making it in practice a secular institution. The inquisition investigated the religious orthodoxy of converses which were recent converts. The inquisition had no authority over un-baptized Christians, and consequently could not touch the Jews. Its goal was to eliminate the Semitic culture from official Catholicism. One of the favorite tools of the inquisition was the autos de fe, which were burnings at the stake tribunals (Hillgarth, 382).
In 1479 Pope Sixtus IV issued a Bull of Crusade which contained a plenary indulgence for those taking part in, or contributing financially in the conquest of Granada. In 1482 Sixtus began to levy a tax of a tenth (la decimal) on the revenues of the clergy of Castile, Aragon, and Sicily. A third of the revenues collected were to be eventually spent on a war with the Turks, which of course never came to be (Hillgarth, 380). In the same year (1482) Sixtus IV issued a bull of crusade (cruzada), granting special spiritual favors to those who contributed to or took part in the Granada campaign. The cost of the war could never have been borne by the crown alone and to exemplify this, the total income from the papal grants was enormous, some 800 million maravedis between the years of 1484 and 1492 (Elliot, 35).
Towns that were erected in the wake of the reconquista, became military and religious centers, not places of trade; and the quick profits that could be had from raids across the frontier led the Christian population instead to despise industry, commerce, and manual labor. These were looked upon as inferior occupations and best suited to the Muslims and Jews who could not take part in the military activities (Benjamin, 9)
The final success of Ferdinand’s reconquest army, argues Ladero-Quesada, is derived from three factors: the great size of the standing force of sixty thousand men; “the primacy of infantry force and tactics,” and finally the “reliance on artillery in campaigns of methodic sieges” in place of “lightning raids” (Cook, 31). Christians were also better able to mobilize a higher proportion of their populations for warfare, in royal armies of the military orders and tin armies of towns (Kennedy, 308). It is clear that the Castilian armies were larger that that of the Muslims and were also deployed with persistence and determination (Kennedy, 301).
Al-Maqqari noted the shock in Granada’s capital at the unforeseen endurance of Spain’s encirclement in 1491:

The [townsman in 1491] thought and expected, with winter approaching, the Christians would raise the siege and retire to their country. Our hopes were dashed. They built a town in front of our city and pressed the siege closer than ever (Cook, 33).

In the course of eleven years of “crude warfare,” the Castilian army conquered the Nasrid dynasty’s territory of Granada. In 1492 the city of Granada capitulated. On 2 January 1492, the Catholic Kings, Isabelle and Ferdinand, captured Granada. The last surviving Muslim kingdom in Iberia had fallen to the Christian forces. The reconquest was now complete and the centuries-old struggle to end Muslim hegemony on the peninsula was finished (Cook, 45).
The “problem” of the converses who had “infiltrated the executive branch” of the nation instigated the establishment of the Inquisition during the first years of the Catholic Monarchs reign and, subsequently, the decree expelling the Jews from the Christian kingdoms on 30 March 1492. Some historians argue that in the process of expelling the Muslims and Jews, the Catholic Monarchs also happened to expel the only groups that might have responded to the “stimulus of insipient capitalism” which had the “effect of undermining the prosperous economies of many municipalities.” An enormous quantity of wealth was also mobilized in the process, much of it dissipated in the hands of the aristocrats and functionaries who were in charge of the embargo on the goods of those who fled or were expelled (Kamen, 32).
Moors who had accepted Christian rule, Jews who had lived in Iberia for close to a thousand years, anyone suspected of religious infidelity found themselves objects of a purge. Moors and Jews were forced to convert or emigrate. In the very year of the surrender of Granada, Isabel expelled tens of thousands of people from ‘Spain’ because they refused to renounce the Jewish faith and Moors and Jews who did not convert remained subject to discrimination as “New Christians” (Johnson, 123).
The “minorities” that chose to stay were forced to contribute to the costs of undertaking the war. From 1482 to 1491 Jews paid some 58 million in special taxes. To another extent the war was able to finance itself through the sale of slaves. For example, in Malaga the sale of slave realized over 56 million for the crown (Elliot, 35). “After so much trivial, expense, death and bloodshed, this kingdom of Granada, which after 780 years was occupied by infidels, has been won to the glory of God, the exaltation of our Holy Catholic Faith, and the honor of the Apostolic See” (Elliot, 35).
Of the original half million Moors that occupied the area, one hundred thousand had died or been enslaved, two hundred thousand emigrated, and two hundred thousand remained as the residual population (Elliot, 36).
According to Pulgar, over four thousand converse families fled from Andalucia in the autumn of 1480, and since the absence of these people depopulated a large part of the country “the queen was informed that commerce was declining but setting little importance on the decline in her revenue, she said that the essential thing was to cleanse the country of the sin of heresy” (Elliot, 39).
Jews who refused to convert were also permitted by royal license to take their movable goods out of Spain. They were not allowed though, to take with them commodities which might not be normally be exported (cosas vedadas), such as horses and mules, bullion, and Spanish coins. Any Christian who dared assist a Jew to break the terms of the relevant edict was to lose his own property, as well as other royal favors (Edwards, 229).
The convivencia that once had characterized the relationship between the three cultures in Iberia still survived in some parts of ‘Spain,’ but officially policy seemed to discourage it (Elliot, 41). In the late Middle Ages some three hundred thousand Muslims continued to live the precarious life in Granada. Roughly another six hundred thousand spent their lives more peacefully as subjects of the various Christian monarchs of the peninsula. For example, Valencia was the home to as many as two hundred and fifty thousand Muslims or Mudejars (Reilly, 195). Jews on the other hand did not make up more than fifty thousand in inhabitants of the peninsula (Reilly, 199).
Muslims, who at one point inhabited a larger part of the peninsula, converted to Christianity of their own free will, for their only options were conversion or expulsion (Kennedy, 305).
The Christian majority among the population of the Spanish kingdoms defined its own identity in terms of opposition to the “enemies of Christ,” among who their Christian neighbors were included (Edwards, 194). Castilian documents explicitly stated that the spiritual and social state of converses, and hence the kingdom as a whole, was threatened by the continuing links between new Christians and Jews (232).
An artificial unity was created, although the forced conversion of the Moors and Jews, led to doubts over the sincerity of their conversions. The inquisition, quite successful in Castile, gained limited success in Aragon due to the strong resistance from the powerful Aragonese Cortes (Hillgarth, 198).
The agenda of the government of Castile was primarily religious (Edwards, 283). Jews were not to be persecuted to death, but rather detained and held in a subservient state, as a “warning to Christians of the consequences of failure to believe in Christ, until they eventually converted in the last days of the world” (Edwards, 72).
The movement of the Iberian peoples against the Muslims, it must be remembered, was not only an “affair of booty and conquest,” but it was also a “movement of peoples, an affair of internal colonization which constituted an admirable preparation for what was to come after 1492” (Ramsey, 83).
The eventual conquest of Granada was not intended to be the end of the reconquest, but rather the springboard into a new area; the beaches of North Africa. These had to be secured in order to protect the ‘Spanish’ coasts, prevent possible invasions, and provide the basis for further advance into the interior (Ramsey, 213).

Isabel’s will contained a clause addressing her religious expansionist desires:

I beg my daughter and her husband (Joanna the Mad and Phillip the Handsome) that they will devote themselves unremittingly to the conquest of Africa and to the war for the faith against the Moors (Ramsey, 213).

In the end, the discovery of America distracted the crown from its ‘African dreams’ where interests with Portugal would possibly have collided (Eslava Galan, 191). In the year 1486 the Monarchs were confronted by Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, anxious to explain his projects for exploration. After repeated refusals, Columbus was promised financial support from officials of the crown of Aragon, and on 17 April 1492, received a commission from Ferdinand and Isabel (Elliot, 3) When Isabel decided to bankroll the explorations of Christopher Columbus in the 1490’s, she did so with the intention or hopes of enriching her kingdom. By sailing west, Columbus proposed to outflank a profitable Venetian-Arab monopoly on trade routed to Asia. Overseas exploration had also taken on religious significance. The earlier Christian reconquest in Portugal allowed the Portuguese to extend their crusading activities into Africa ahead of Spain. As Portuguese ships edged down the coast of Africa during the 1400s, bringing back precious metals and slaves, they found religious justification in tales of a lost Christian kingdom that supposedly lay beyond the Sahara waiting to be reunited with the rest of Christendom. Isabel’s decision to fund the voyages of Columbus was Spain’s bid to catch up with Portugal. Thus, the two Iberian monarchies, strengthened politically by the reconquest, became the first in Europe to sponsor major overseas exploration, and they arrived in the Western Hemisphere one behind the other (Eslava Galan, 200).
In a letter written by Christopher Columbus to the crown he states the following:

I conclude here that through the divine grace of Him who is the origin of all good and virtuous things, who favors and gives victory to all those who walk in His path, in seven years from today I will be able to pay Your Highness for five thousand cavalry and fifty thousand foot soldiers for the war and conquest of Jerusalem, for which purpose this enterprise was undertaken.

Columbus referred to his own long standing campaign for the recapture from Muslim control of the ‘Holy House’ in Jerusalem. This undoubtedly influenced him greatly (Edwards, 224).
Jerusalem and Mount Zion are to be rebuilt by Christian hands and God through the mouth of the prophet in the fourteenth psalm said so. The abbot Joachim said that this man was to come from Spain (Edwards, 225).

Although the Catholic Monarchs did not establish a genuinely united Spain, Ferdinand and Isabel laid the foundation for the creation of an “embryonic union that would gradually take shape over the centuries.” However, one should also consider that the “unity of their persons transcended the divisions of their realm,” thus enabling Spain, “despite a lack of genuine unity to be at least perceived in terms of a unity in Europe after their union” (Elliot, 200). It can be said that it was in the religious sphere that the Catholic Kings created genuine unity. Their successful reconquest of Granada from the Moors in 1492, as well as their expulsion of the Jews in the same year, created a religious uniformity, especially with the forced conversion of the Moors. Ferdinand believed until his dying day that he would not die until he had personally conquered Jerusalem, thus not only avenging the defeat of the crusaders in the thirteenth century by “restoring the third Muslim holy place to Christendom,” but also “demonstrate the folly and impotence of Judaism” (Edwards, 223).
Since the Catholic Monarchs, Spain has identified with Castile. The lasting legacy of the Catholic Monarchs is seen to this day. The language that Spaniards (and most of Latin America) speak is not “Spanish” but rather castellano, the language that was spoken in the kingdom of Castile. The traditions, the culture, the religion, of the Catholic Monarchs did not only unify the Iberian Peninsula, but it also made its impact in the New World where Spain dominated most of the Americas, and enriched itself with the raw materials, and precious metals that were extracted from the virgin land. The unity of the Iberian Peninsula is evident, but the diversity that exists is incredible, from the architecture, to the different languages, to the diversity in the people themselves; each region of Spain is characterized by its own uniqueness and that is a result of the mixture of diverse people, and diverse cultures, hence creating a European country that is drastically different from its neighbors to the north.

Castro, Americo. Los Españoles: Como Llegaron A Serlo. Madrid: Taurus Ediciones, 1965.
Castro, Americo. The Spaniards: Introduction to Their History. Berkeley: UC Press, 1971.
Castro, Americo. The Structure of Spanish History. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1954.
Cook, Weston F. “The Cannon Conquest of Nasrid Spain and the End of the Reconquista.” The Journal of Military History, V. 57, 1993.
Edwards, John. The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474-1520. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
Eslava Galan, Juan. La Vida y Epoca de Los Reyes Catolicos. Barcelona: Planeta, 1996.
Halperin, Charles J. “The Ideology of Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval Religious Frontier.” Comparitive Studies in Society and History, V. 26, 1984.
Hamilton, Earl. “The Decline of Spain” The Economic History Review, V.8, 1938.
Highfield, Roger. Spain in the 15th Century: 1369-1516. London: Macmillan Press, 1972.
Hillgarth, J.N. The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250-1516. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Johnson, H.B. From Reconquest to Empire. New York: Knopf, 1970.
Kamen, Henry. Spain, 1469-1714: A Society of Conflict. London: Longman, 1983.
Kamen, Henry. “Confiscations in the Economy of the Spanish
Inquisition.” The Economic History Review, V. 18, 1965
Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain: A Political History of Al- Andalus. London: Longman, 1996.
Ramsey, John F. Spain: The Rise of the First World Power. New York: UA Press, 1973.
Read, Jan. The Moors in Spain and Portugal. London: Faber & Faber, 1974.
Reilly, Bernard. The Medieval Spains. Cambridge: University Press, 1993.

Affirmative Action for the Rich?

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 27, 2004
in Education
. Closed

There are always those that claim that minorities and disadvantaged students receive an unfair advantage through affirmative action programs that are used at many universities across the country. The university system in California has been one that has constantly been attacked by conservative groups. Here is some interesting data on the rich and their acceptance rates into the UC system. I wonder how many Dubya’s attend these rich elite schools.

UC

Economics, Colonialism, and Racism in Africa

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 27, 2004
in Writings
. Closed

“This is the land where men are children. A land lying beyond the daylight of self-conscience history and enveloped in the black color of the night. At this point, let us forget Africa and never mention it again for Africa is no historical part of the world.”
-Friererich Hegel

European countries sought to conquer Africa to control its land, resources and people under the banner of Progress. The Europeans came to create a myth of the African, one that degraded their civilization and questioned their humanity. The African was considered sub-human, or naturally inferior. This type of racist ideology was fueled in great part as a consequence of the discovery of the “new world” and the ensuing trans-Atlantic slave trade which provided the labor for the capitalists in the “newly discovered” land (Shillington, 174). Europeans invaded Africa in order to further their own economic interests. To better understand the rationale of the conquering European, we must better understand the context surrounding Europe at the time. Europeans were looking for markets. The rise of capitalism meant that the European had to look for markets to sell their products and also places to which to trade with. For example in the fifteenth century the Portuguese, recently consolidated from their re-conquest from the moors in Iberia, were in search of a better route to Asia, for the betterment of trade. The Portuguese soon made their way around the cape of Africa, and in the process found an interest in the African continent which was rich in resources, such as precious metals (Shillington, 170).
Justification was needed to explain their violent use of force and consequent occupation of this foreign land (Not only Portugal, but all of Europe). In many instances the sword was accompanied by the cross. Religion was also used as a justification. Bringing God to the heathens was a reason to be able to exploit the African for labor and tribute as was also the case in the Americas (Shillington, 134).
The twentieth century American historian J.W. Burgess stated that “A black skin means membership in a race of men who have never successfully subjected passion to reason and therefore have never created any civilization of any kind (Trotter, 286).” To the contrary Africa has been the site of many advanced civilizations. Perhaps, these civilizations were not comparable, in the eyes of the Europeans, to their so-called “western civilization,” but the reality is that Africa contained tremendously advanced societies that disprove the myth that no civilization was born there. Much like in the “New World,” where complex civilizations like the Inca, Aztec, and Maya dominated, so too in Africa, where the civilizations of Egypt, Nubia, and the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, and the Swahili city- states ruled.
Ancient Egypt was created by several agricultural communities along the Nile River. These communities adapted to the great Nile and its annual floods which produced a uniquely characteristic irrigated agriculture. What is most astounding about this development is the arid conditions of this area of Africa. The agriculturists learned the cycle of the Nile and eventually learned to live off the flooding of the area which was made rich in minerals by the flooding. These communities soon developed into various local states, eventually consolidating and creating the foundation for the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. These two separately ruled kingdoms were eventually unified under the rule of one king. Ancient Egyptian civilization was strong during a span of three-thousand years. The Egyptian empire was able to spread out, conquering neighboring territories through military expansion. Ancient Egypt is characterized by important developments in religion, culture and science. The ancient Egyptians are credited with creating the first twelve month, 365 day, year. Important architectural techniques were also developed as is apparent with the pyramids that characterize Egypt even to this day. More importantly the Egyptians created one of the earliest examples of a written history. The development of a writing technique was crucial in recording the history of Egypt, and consequently for later generations to decipher that history. Hieroglyphs were used to record the important aspects of Egyptian civilization including the reigns of the pharaohs and their names, and also the name of their deities. Many tombs are adorned with hieroglyphs that describe the life of a particular member of the elite in the Egyptian society. Metal- working was also prevalent in Ancient Egypt. This is apparent in much of the artisan work completed, and or adorning the tombs of pharaohs. Clearly, Ancient Egypt was an important African civilization, although it has been treated as not being inherently African, but rather of the Middle East (Shillington, 18).
The development of Nubia is closely tied to that of Egypt. Egypt and Nubia were connected through trade and conquest. The Egyptians expanded into Nubia and consequently Nubia is influenced greatly by Egyptian culture. Nubians adopted many aspects of Egyptian culture (language, religion and writing). The kingdoms of Napata and Merowe were important centers of Nubian civilization. After the year 1000 BCE, the Nubians were able to develop their own state, known to Egyptians as Kush. The economy of Meroe, an important center of consolidated Nubia, was characterized by a mixed farming economy, mining, hunting and trade. Iron-smelting was also an important aspect of the Nubian economy. Trade networks included commerce with India, Greece, China, Rome, and West Africa. Eventually the development of Meroitic language came to replace the Egyptian language that was spoken in Nubia. Interestingly, Nubia also came to conquer Egypt at one point (Shillington, 39).
The kingdom of Ancient Ghana was important in that it brought iron working, which created larger settled communities. The trans-Saharan trade played an important role in strengthening the kingdom, especially the gold- trade. Ghana was viewed an important destination by the Arabic visitors that came to visit and also wrote about it. The rise of Ghana is attributed to the rise of the trans-Saharan trade (Shillington, 81).
The Empire of Mali was an important center in which the gold trade was an important economic activity. Agricultural production of the rural areas also was crucial to the economic stability of this area. Timbuktu was the major center of administration, trade, and learning. Timbuktu is the site of the creation of one of the most important universities (in Africa!), to which scholars from all over the Islamic world came to. Interestingly, books accounted for a major import. Mali, also had diplomatic ties with Europe (O’Brien, handouts).
The Swahili city- states were largely coastal societies, and dependent on coastal trading. Islamic religion and culture was prevalent, but more importantly were primarily African in language and personnel. Important cultural aspects of the Swahili city-states include poetry and the development of the architecture characteristic of the area (Shillington, 94).
The kingdom of Kongo is an interesting example of the negative effects that the Europeans had on the development of Africa. The arrival of the Portuguese in the 1480’s completely disrupted the indigenous development of the Kongo kingdom due to the demand for a trade in slaves an in the process stunted its growth (Shillington, 144).
According to William Loren Katz the assertion that the African has no history worth mentioning is basic to the theory that he has no humanity worth defending (Loren Katz, 6). The underlying reasoning of the European was not based on an actual science (although Social Darwinists also created scientific racism) but rather simply as justification to exploit and destroy the existing African societies, cultures, and economies, so that they may better serve the interests of the Europeans. If an African was made to seem as though he was something other than human, perhaps it would be easier to enslave him and use him/her, to turn the wheels of the capitalist machine. To say that African civilizations did not exist, or that the inhabitants of Africa were savages or barbarians, goes against every type of evidence that was present then and present now.
III
According to Basil Davidson, European kings regarded their African counterparts in the early stages of direct contact either as “brothers-in-arms” or as enemies to be fought, much as they regarded other European rulers. Interestingly, the African kingdoms were seen as fellow kingdoms (Davidson, film). A European map of Africa illustrates the king of Mali with a gold- nugget in his hand, in the process showing respect and relegating importance to this particular king, by the Europeans (Shillington, 101). Eventually racist attitudes came to replace these views simply due to a matter of economics. Racist attitudes have not always existed. Racism is a fairly recent phenomenon that has been used to classify a person by their color of his/her skin as being inferior. This has been done to justify their exploitation at the hands of Europeans. According to Richard Burton, and English explorer “The study of the Negro is a study of man’s rudimentary mind. He would appear rather degeneracy from the civilized man that a salvage rising to the first step were it not for his total incapacity for improvement. He has not the ring of true metal. There is no rich nature for education to cultivate. He seems to belong to one of those childish races never rising to man’s estate who fall like worn out links from the great chain of animated nature. (Davidson, film)”
In the Americas indentured servitude was present long before the first African slaves arrived at Jamestown. With the arrival of African slaves, white and black indentured servants still endured the same fate. In the Americas anyways, it was eventually perceived as a dangerous thing for white and black indentured servants to intermingle, for in the process they may plot insurrection. This was a very likely concern since the indentured servants/slaves far outnumbered the other colonists. A simple method of social control was used to stop this, and that was by alienating the white indentured servant from the black. By giving the white more social mobility he would be less likely to create insurrection and since the white indentured servant looked like the white master there was more of a common bond, than that held with the black slave/indentured servant. The white lower class worker could thus strive to be like the master class, while helping in keeping the African slave down. Racism was created to justify the exploitation of the black slave and at the same time create a class division between the lower class black and lower class white who was no longer relegated to indentured servitude. This is a more contemporaneous example of racism and economics. In the case of the kings of Europe, when it was no longer feasible to have cordial relations with the kings of Africa, then other methods were employed to better serve the needs of European kings, countries (Trotter, 60).
Magnificent kingdoms and empires arose and thrived in Africa similar to how they existed in Medieval Europe. In Medieval times people of all different races were seen as “different but equal.” An example of this is the statue of a black saint adorning a German church. Davidson argues that contrary to the “harmony” that existed, the onslaught of the trans-Atlantic slave trade changed the perception that Europeans had towards Africans. No longer were they seen as equals, but rather they were seen as inferior. During the period of the Renaissance, Africans were viewed equals to whites.
Davidson states that when the slave trade began there was not a great difference in power between the leading European and African states. ‘The Europeans held certain advantages in the technical and scientific areas, but they still had to treat African states with respect. Power was still fairly even divided or balanced (Davidson, film).”
Conclusion
It is apparent that racism was used to fuel the exploitation of the “dark continent.” Evidence shows that diplomatic relations between African kingdoms and European kings existed as far back as the 14th century. The Christian Ethiopian kingdom even took part in the crusades. How is it possible that through the years Europe lost its sense of memory and created a false identity of Africa, which was able to last into the 20th century? It is mainly through economics, and the development of capitalism which helped annihilate the development of an entire continent and in the process enslave the minds of much of the world, which was made to believe that Africa had no history worth mentioning…

Davidson, Basil Davidson. (Films).
O’Brien, Jay. (Lectures and handouts).
Loren Katz, William. Teachers Guide to American Negro History.
Shillington, Kevin. 1995. History of Africa. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Trotter, Joe William, Jr. 2001. The African American Experience. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

State Terrorists, False Revolutionaries, and True Reactionaries?

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 26, 2004
in El Mundo, Política and Writings
. Closed

Internal armed conflicts have created chaotic conditions in many Latin American countries in recent decades, and have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. In many Latin American countries the use of the military is relegated to suppressing suspected subversives, and to sustain the privileges of the elite. The rise of guerilla movements, have been a reaction to the exploitive economic systems, and the oppressive rule of the elite of Latin America. These conflicts, for the most part, remain partly hidden to the rest of the country, and the world. The conflict is a constant struggle between guerilla movements that are striving for social, economic, and political change, and the state army whose duty is to maintain the status quo. Unfortunately, the tragic victims of these ordeals are usually innocent bystanders. Some are killed by the guerillas for assisting the army, while others are killed for helping the guerillas. The practice is to kill those that help your enemy. Many deaths occur because of the false belief that you are a supporter of one or another of the warring factions. In the 1980’s, for example, many villages were completely destroyed in El Salvador, because the military believed that the inhabitants were conspiring, or assisting the guerillas. The most famous case is that of El Mozote, in which men, women and children were massacred.
An influential partner of the military has been the United States government who has given aid to many Latin American countries. During the Cold War, and the fervor of anti-communism, the belief was that if they funded these militaries, it would go to fight communism. Monetary aid along with the supplying of guns, helicopters, bullets, and other military equipment went to governments in Latin America to help fight “communism.” Training by U.S. advisors or at the U.S. military’s School of the Americas was also used to teach Latin American ejercitos the latest techniques in low intensity warfare (Chasteen, 277). It was the belief under U.S. National Security Doctrine that anti-communist alliances in the Americas were crucial to national security. The alliance, though, has resulted in devastation of the countryside as the military has turned their guns “inward,” against “potential subversives” such as student protestors, labor leaders, and peasant organizers. (Chasteen, 277).
Atrocities by the ejercitos are rampant. The devastation that the soldiers bring to the poor people they encounter is a horrendous reality of life. In the film Romero a young girl is beaten and raped, and left to die in a garbage dump simply because she helped the townspeople organize. In La Boca del Lobo, townspeople that are suspected of knowing information on the Sendero Luminoso are tortured, in one case an innocent man is beaten senselessly against a concrete wall, resulting in his death.
Other popular torture methods that were implemented to fight “rebellious groups,” included the repeated rape of women in captivity. Men were forced to endure electrical shocks to their testicles, while many others were made to suffer psychological torture, which include tactics such as being forced to watch the torture or death of a loved one (Chasteen, 275).
In the film The Official Story an Argentine woman recounts her experiences to her friend, Alicia, of her days in captivity as a desaparecida. Alicia listens in shock as her friend describes the torture that she had to endure. The weeping woman goes on to describe the situation of other incarcerated women who gave birth in prison. The women were killed and their newborns were given away to adoption, which causes Alicia to question the origins of her own adopted child (Stevens, 197).
According to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) about 340 of these prisons, or “concentration camps” existed. These “chupaderos” as they were referred to, subjected their prisoners to various forms of torture to produce confessions or to simply “terrorize them” (Navarro, 246).
In Argentina during the “terror phase” between 10,000 and 30, 000 people were murdered as a result of state terrorism. Many Argentine citizens refused to accept the reality that surrounded them. The refusal to accept reality was an underlying theme of the film The Official Story. Alicia, the middle class woman, is blind to the true nature of her government and instead has faith in the “official story” or the government version of the truth (Stevens, 195).
La Boca del Lobo deals with a Peruvian military unit that arrives in a town located in a Sendero Luminoso stronghold, in search of subversives. The Sendero Luminoso, led by Abimaiel Guzman, called for the total armed overthrow of the Peruvian government. This guerilla movement consisted of 6,000 full time militants creating such a tremendous burden on Peru that 40 percent of the national budget was used for defense and security (Guillermoprieto, 260). The Shining Path took part in such actions as the bombings of police headquarters, municipal offices, gas stations, middle-class apartment buildings, and even public schools. The Sendero Luminoso‘s violence was also directed at other leftist leaders, who didn’t agree with the ideology of Guzman (Guillermoprieto, 261).
In total, there have been approximately 25,000 deaths as a result of the conflict between the Peruvian military and the Sendero Luminoso. The author points out that both warring factions are responsible for half of the casualties. According to Guillermoprieto, entire villages were “emptied out” and the conflict also created the influx of Quechua-speaking campesinos to flee the provincial cities, and then on to Lima (Guillermoprieto, 273).
The film also deals with the transformation of Vitin Luna, from a soldier looking to move up the military hierarchy to one that rejects the tactics and aims of the institution. Incidents, such as his friend raping a young girl, infuriate him. What pushed Vitin to reject the system, though, was when the lieutenant gathered the townspeople, after a false report had been made stating that there existed subversives within that community. The people were marched to the outskirts of the town where they were lined up and shot. Vitin Luna refused to participate, not firing a single shot; his conscience reacting to the cold-blooded murder of innocent people.
A common theme that characterized Latin America, and was also evident in the film Romero, was that of the desaparecidos, or the “disappeared ones.” In a scene you see two young children scouring through a garbage dump, in the process ignoring a human skull, and a relatively recent dead body. It was as though the presence of death was another common feature of the garbage.
Various factions reacted to the excesses of the military. In El Salvador, for example, parish priests were influential in organizing their communities through organized protest, the creation of soup kitchens, and self-help groups. Many Salvadoran priests decided to take up liberation theology’s “preferential option for the poor” (Chasteen, 298).
In the film Romero one of the many incidents that forced Oscar Romero to condemn the horrible violence of the military was the cold-blooded murder, of his friend and fellow priest, Father Grande. Father Grande was targeted by the military because he preached “liberation rooted in faith.” Romero later went so far as to write to President Jimmy Carter, asking him to eliminate military aid to El Salvador (Blee, 64).
The liberation theology that many priests preached to their parishes was a method of liberating people, not in the afterworld, but now in this life. It was a method through which oppression could be fought. Consequently, many of the priests, including one of Romero’s fellow priests, were also members of the guerilla movement. This created, in great part, the conflictive relationship that existed between the church and the military. In many cases the slogan “Be a patriot, kill a priest,” was used to exemplify the relationship (Chasteen, 248).
An unforeseen consequence of the progressive movement of the church, under the guidance of Romero, was the division that was created by other conservative factions that felt that their duty was solely in spiritual matters (Blee, 65).
In the late 1970’s a reactionary movement of the most unlikely kind, arose to demand that the Argentine government, tell them where their desaparecidos were. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo organized originally as a small group aimed at exchanging information regarding their missing children. The women defiantly stood up to the mal gobierno and demanded to know where their children were. The women were unafraid and proclaimed “our desire to find our sons was greater than our fright” and because “thinking about our children we don’t think about our sufferings” (Navarro, 253). Every Thursday the group defied the Argentine government my marching, and holding signs. This movement was influential in appealing others to join the cause. The film The Official Story displays this when the main character joins the movement.
The films exemplify the power structure that exists in every country of Latin America. Those that have the guns have the power and those that have the wealth control the guns. The rich use the army to their advantage such as to suppress any type of class conflict or to push the Indians off the good land. Ultimately, “detention centers are clandestine; kidnappers cannot be identified; the courts are under military control; the press is censored…” (Navarro, 247). This is a convenient method for the elite to exert social control, not through legislation, but through brute force. The chaotic environment that exists, as a result, in the countryside is justified so long as the interests of the elite are upheld. Their lack of compassion for their surroundings is minimized because the death that is every where, is hidden from their sight. As the elite are able to become more powerful and amass the wealth of the nation, the poor continue to live a miserable existence. Although, the spark of resistance is within all of them, not through atrocious methods like those of the Sendero Luminoso, but through social protest and direct action.

The Wal-Mart Effect

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 26, 2004
in Central Valley and Política
. Closed

Walter “The General” Brooks stood amid the vacant buildings of a former Reyerson Steel plant on Chicago’s South Side, the projected site of a shopping center anchored by a Wal-Mart discount store. “We need jobs,” exclaimed Brooks, owner of a nearby fried chicken restaurant. “There are no industrial jobs around. They’re all overseas.”
But Wal-Mart may not be the answer to his prayers.
In late May the Chicago City Council narrowly turned down plans for a Wal-Mart at this site, while approving a Wal-Mart in another largely black neighborhood on the city’s West Side at another closed factory site. Wal-Mart and its supporters, including local aldermen and some clergy and community leaders, said that its two stores would bring nearly 500 jobs to neighborhoods with high unemployment, sparking much-needed economic development. But labor unions and other community groups argued that Wal-Mart offers poorly paid jobs with limited benefits, destroys other local businesses and costs the public treasury dearly.
“The lowest price is great,” said Alderman Joe Moore, a leading council opponent of Wal-Mart. “But you need standards in place that benefit everyone.” Rather than simply oppose the new stores, the labor-community coalition demanded that Wal-Mart sign a “community benefits agreement” promising good corporate behavior, including local hiring, living wages, comprehensive health benefits, neutrality toward union organizing, nondiscrimination in employment and avoidance of predatory pricing. But everyone knew Wal-Mart would never agree.
A Model on the March
As the world’s largest corporation and the nation’s leading retailer rapidly expands into core urban areas from its original base in small Southern and Midwestern towns, Wal-Mart stores (especially its huge Supercenters with grocery departments) face many objections. Their size destroys community character (the National Trust for Historic Preservation recently said superstores threatened the entire state of Vermont); they create traffic problems and urban sprawl, and they leave behind ugly, unused hulks as business strategies shift (371 Wal-Marts currently stand empty).
But the central fight is over the corporation’s economic effects on workers and communities.
The colossus from Bentonville, Arkansas, is becoming the template for contemporary American capitalism, says historian Nelson Lichtenstein, much as the Pennsylvania Railroad, General Motors or Microsoft were before it. The company’s impact reaches far beyond local communities, where more than 220 “site fights” have successfully blocked Wal-Mart — as local residents did recently in Inglewood and Santa Rosa in southern California — but not slowed the company’s growth to 3,500 stores and 1.2 million employees in the United States alone. Wal-Mart’s low-road labor strategy drives countless other companies to cut wages and benefits of both retail and manufacturing workers and to buy more products from lowest-wage producers overseas, leading to what critics call the “Walmartization” of America.
Low Prices Cost Workers
To local politicians, opening a “big box” store like Wal-Mart seems a clear benefit — new jobs, more sales taxes, happy shoppers buying bargains. But it mainly reallocates where existing income is spent.
And while Wal-Mart competition does lower prices, it also depresses wages and eliminates jobs. One 1999 study reported that 1.5 jobs had been lost for every job that Wal-Mart created. A recent projection by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development concluded that the proposed West-Side Chicago store likely would yield a net decrease of about 65 jobs after that Wal-Mart opens, as other retailers in the same shopping area lose business. A study cited in Business Week as showing modest retail gains after Wal-Marts open actually reported net job losses counting effects on warehousing and surrounding counties.
Wages are low at notoriously anti-union Wal-Mart — averaging about $9 an hour for full-time workers, around $8 for the roughly 45 percent of “associates” working less than 45 weeks a year. But Wal-Mart also helps hold down wages throughout the retail industry, with a few exceptions like the partly-unionized Costco (where wages average $16 an hour) or more heavily unionized grocery stores. A 1999 study for the Orange County Business Council forecast that the entry of grocery supercenters such as Wal-Mart operates could cost southern California $2.8 billion in lost wages and benefits each year as grocers cut the jobs or wages and benefits of a quarter million largely unionized grocery workers.
But “Walmartization of America has a broader impact than just retail workers,” says Greg Denier, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents grocery workers. “Wal-Mart probably has had more negative impact on manufacturing than on other jobs in the United States.” Wal-Mart also squeezes American consumer goods producers, forcing them to cut labor costs, move overseas or be replaced by foreign suppliers. Accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. imports from China in 2002, the corporation even pressures wages downward in poor countries, from El Salvador to Bangladesh. It also drives competitors to import more, pushing the True Value hardware store cooperative to boost imports from less than 1 percent of its products to 18 percent.
Big Boxes Pick Taxpayer Pockets
Wal-Mart sells cheaply and uses fewer workers partly because it is a technological and organizational innovator, but its success depends even more on its relentless pressure on workers and suppliers, and its extraordinary market power is by far the dominant retailer of many goods. The corporation is likely to control 35 percent of all U.S. food and drug sales by 2007.
Wal-Mart also shifts many of its costs to taxpayers (or other businesses that indirectly pay costs of Wal-Mart’s underinsured employees). A recent study by Good Jobs First, an organization that monitors economic development policies, found that state and local governments had given at least $1 billion in subsidies to stores and distribution centers. Wal-Mart also pays so little that many of its workers rely on state healthcare subsidies, food stamps, housing vouchers and other public aid. According to a recent study by the University of California at Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, California alone spends $10 billion annually to subsidize Wal-Mart and similar low-wage employers. Congressional Democratic staff calculates that federal taxpayers pay $2,103 per year in subsidies for the average Wal-Mart worker.
Wider Net Needed to Win
Taming the Wal-Mart beast will require a massive, broad-based crusade. Organizing unions against such a huge, implacable corporation is daunting without a commitment of the entire labor movement, perhaps starting in Canada (where there is the possibility of a small breakthrough), focusing first on distribution centers or organizing a union that functions without a majority of workers, as advocated by Wade Rathke, chief organizer of the community organization, ACORN, and a Service Employees International Union local.
Fighting Wal-Mart one store at a time often makes sense locally and educates the public, but it also risks antagonizing consumers looking for bargains or residents of poor neighborhoods, especially if labor and community opponents can’t offer better development options, argues local labor leader John Dalrymple, a key figure in a narrowly defeated effort to block Wal-Mart in Contra Costa County, California. There’s a need for a broader strategy to hold Wal-Mart accountable and to promote the “high road” alternative of skilled, well-paid retail work advocated in Chicago by the nonprofit Center for Labor and Community Research.
For example, newly proposed legislation in Los Angeles would make approval of a big box store depend on the city government’s evaluation of its economic impact. A 2003 California law — contested in an upcoming fall referendum partly financed by Wal-Mart — would require big employers to provide affordable health insurance for all employees. Wal-Mart faces hundreds of legal challenges, including the largest class action suit for discrimination against female employees, and some strategists are considering anti-trust action to curb Wal-Mart’s economic and political power.
“We want development but development that contributes to building community,” argues Madeline Janis-Aparicio, director of Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. “If Wal-Mart wants to come on those terms, they have a place.”

read / In These Times June 14, 2004

Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Struggle for Self Determination

Published
by
Gustavo
on August 24, 2004
in El Mundo, Política and Writings
. Closed

The struggle for self determination has been a long and arduous struggle for Puerto Ricans and Cubans. From their initial conquest by the Spanish crown, to the usurpation of power by the North Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans have been denied the right to govern themselves. The War of 1898 was basically a coup d’état, the elite that was in power was replaced by another, just as was the case with Cuba. The Cubans had already been fighting a liberation struggle against the Spanish crown for years, to the point that the Iberian imperialists were at the point of collapse. At that point, the influence of “yellow journalism,” and dreams of manifest destiny, urged the Americans to intervene in the more correctly named Cuban War for Independence. The powerful Americans of the north easily defeated the debilitated Spaniards, expelling them from the Americas. The Americans were so bogged down in their racist ideas that they prohibited the Cuban liberation leaders in the city where the peace negotiations were taking place, for fear that these “half-breed savages” would massacre the Spaniards that lived in the city! Imagine that! The Cuban liberation leaders were forbidden to take part in the settlement process after the efforts they had made to free themselves from the Spanish crown. The true intentions of the Americans were made evident by these negotiations which limited the sovereignty of the newly liberated Cubans (Platt Amendment). The journalists, such as Hearst, stressed the idea that Uncle Sam’s purpose in the war was to liberate an oppressed country, and bring freedom to the island of Cuba. Economic interests were the goal then and unfortunately are still true today (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.)
The Cubans were eventually liberated through violent revolution, with the Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara led revolution of 1959. Puerto Rico, on the other hand, is still under the “guidance” of the United States. Puerto Rico is one of several U.S. territories that serve as maquiladora islands. As is prevalent throughout Latin America, Puerto Rico is just another “Third World” country; a country whose sole purpose is to serve the metropolis with cheap labor and raw materials. It is very easy to understand why the United States despises Cuba: it is one of the few countries that is not under the direct domination of the U.S. Although, the U.S. is still able to negate Cubans the ability to prosper, with an economic stranglehold that keeps the majority of Cubans from the ability to purchase medicines, medical equipment, and other necessities due to an economic embargo that makes no sense whatsoever. We trade with China, the largest Communist country in the world, and we cannot trade with a small insignificant island in the Caribbean due to fears that they are a national security threat? As a Mexican president once told the American government when refusing to condemn Cuba, “if I told the Mexican people that Cuba was a national security threat, A million Mexicans would die laughing.” It is time for Cuba to be left alone. If the Cuban people are satisfied with a communist government, then that’s their choice.
Puerto Rico still has a lot of revolution to create (not necessarily violent, but making the last first, and the first last). The liberation movement that influenced Puerto Rican freedom-fighters to fire guns inside the U.S. Congress needs to grow and develop and find other viable solutions. Violent revolution is really not an option with such a small island. The ballot should be the main weapon of the Puerto Ricans. Through education, the Puerto Rican population will understand that their needs are not being met under the guidance of the U.S. It is necessary for the Puerto Ricans to understand that statehood for Puerto Rico is a fantasy, and therefore the best route is independence. Only through independence will the Puerto Rican people create a government that will serve the needs of the Boriquas, and not of foreign corporations.