Five hundred years later, Mexico

The dawn of August 13, 1521 -500 years ago- not only brought with it the first light for a world that was slowly dying out, but also illuminated the faith of the Mexican Tenochca and Tlatelolcas who honorably defended the imminent fall of their prodigious twin cities.

The bowstring had been stretched to the degree of its greatest resistance, since the first sightings of houseboats -perhaps a couple of years ago- raised by the natives of these lands in the eastern sea, on the coasts of the so-called Carolina (today Yucatan). News that came to the knowledge of Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba, who had sponsored exploration expeditions to continental lands since 1517, with Hernández de Córdoba's trip being the first and in 1518 the second, led by Juan de Grijalva, both without much success and on the contrary with many regrets, but with astonishing observations that aroused even more, not only the curiosity but also the ambition of the Castilians, who from the year 1492 populated the Antilles and the Caribbean.

In this intense search, a third expedition was carried out, which for Velázquez would mean another failure before his departure, since he had appointed Hernando Cortés (1485 - 1547) as captain, an Extremaduran from Medellín with a bold character and who in His eagerness to forge himself a glorious destiny, he rose up against his superior command to undertake the adventure on his own account, like a privateer, commanding a company of around 500 men of diverse stock, eager for fame, fortune and recognition.

While, in the interior of the continent, some 450 kilometers away, the clamor of an "amphibian metropolis", the most powerful in the region -centuries later called Mesoamerica in the basin of the central highlands of Mexico- celebrated its daily life between the bustle of its canals and streets with the wind music of ocarinas and conches, and the tolling of the teponaztlis and bells that buzzed in the air mixing with a multitude of different voices. Although in this hubbub the gloom of its elite was hidden because of the omens made reality before the arrival of foreigners to their land.

The news of this arrival, received in the navel of the moon, where the Cu resided as Axis Mundi, a double temple dedicated to its main deities, in which the axes of its survival were deposited: agriculture and war These being Tlaloc (god of rain) and Huitzilopotztli (god of war) the latter, patron and protective guide of the town that was built under his emblematic design of the golden eagle perched in the tunnel devouring a snake inside a western islet of the great lake bed made up of three important bodies of water known as: Lake Xaltocan-Zumpango to the north, Lake Mexico-Tetzcoco in the center, and to the south the lakes of Chalco-Xochimilco. This was the place indicated as a promised land to found their settlement and build their Templo Mayor with great artifice in the most beautiful twin city not seen before, named in their patriarchal Nahuatl language as: Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico Tlatelolco.

And that unexpected day came

This morning that dawned with dawn, she shuddered in the silence that flooded her. What once was the song of the plumaged birds in whose splendor of the iridescence of their emerald color, resided the power of the power of his lordship the Huey-Tlatoani (ruler) with whom he girded his hundreds in majestic headdress to symbolize his nobility; Those birds that once crossed the transparency of the sky waving the air with the beating of their wings, now flapped their feathers in combat, adorning with their portents and qualities the weapons of men-beasts (knights, eagles and ocelots) that in their quality of warriors They defended with honorable courage the worldview of their perishing world, offering the resistance of the spirit of their race, never bowed.

This great amphibious metropolis, after its foundation around 1428 and close to completing its first centenary, was erected as the political-economic-social and religious ruling nucleus, whose organization consisted of the formation of territorial alliances and matrimonial ties, to exercise its control through military coercion and the imposition of tribute. At the time of the meeting between the two cultures, the alliance - confederate and called "Triple Alliance": Mexica-Acolhua-Tepaneca - headed by generations of rulers of Aztec-Mexica lineage, had reached its zenith with the lordships of Axayacatl between 1469 -1481, and from Ahuizotl between 1486-1502, which was continued by his successor, Moutecuzoma II Xocoyotzin, who ruled from 1502 to 1520.

His unavoidable decline, announced just three years ago on the shores of the eastern peninsula - a signal that had reached the ears of Moutecuzoma- found him dealing with the growing discontent of the subordinate lordships of the provinces under his control and of his main rival, not subdued, of the Tlaxcalans.

During that day of Saint Hippolytus in the liturgical calendar of the company led by Cortés, who held the representation of the Holy Roman Empire and his Caesarean section Majesty the Emperor Carlos V of Germany and Carlos I of Spain, in whose His name took possession of the lands and everything that grew and inhabited them, subjugating caciques and lords with skillful dexterity through pacts that rewarded -in his way of seeing- not only with their protection, but also for the "liberation of the darkness of their idolatry through the imposition of baptism”. Cortés capitalized in his favor the local discontent driven by a desire for emancipation on the part of the subjugated peoples and enemies of the Aztec-Mexica power.

The strategy allowed Cortés not only to forge the appropriation of the twin city, but to obtain the capitulation of the most important tributary power in the territorial domination of this region of Mesoamerica. In this way he added a force of thousands of combatants and his incursion into the very center of power through occupation, siege and total war, culminated in the “incidental” capture of Cuauhtémoc (last Mexican ruler), on whom defense and resistance had fallen. final; capture occurred during his military withdrawal.

In the twilight of that fateful August 13, 1521, the metropolis of Mexico-Tenochtitlan - Mexico Tlatelolco lies in its ruins and in the air tainted by the putrefaction of bodies massacred in streets, canals, squares, temples, houses and on the lake. become in Cienega. Only heard in the collective voice of its flowery song already fragmented, the lament that evokes its former greatness, the abandonment of the gods and the cry of their children: women, men, the elderly and children who gave their blood to the earth that gave them life and that now they succumb to the siege of their enemies, bringing with them the sunset of the fifth sun.

Here is the perspective of one more narrative, of an episode of our humanity, which is summarized in the annals of his History; here is the founding root of a "New World" that for three centuries to posterity will once again seek its emancipation, by consolidating its independence to reconfigure itself into nations throughout the continent from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere.

What happened in the period between November 8, 1519 (date of arrival in the city of the company of Cortés and its hosts of local allies) and August 13, 1521, has been known until now under the minimal expression of "Conquest" conditioning the dichotomous vision of its history, simplifying the observation of its events from the perspective of the victors and the vanquished - a novel concept introduced in the fifties of the twentieth century - which have constituted the universal story on which our history rests. shared collective imagination.

The story they tell us

In such a way that, we find ourselves before one of the most powerful and complex narratives that was conceived in the minds of its main protagonists in the figure of "conquerors" (the armed way) with socio-economic and religious political ends that, a few years later they will find an echo in other stories that, like these, will collect the testimonies and memories of what happened by their survivors, to contribute to the re-construction with an "anthropological" nature of the glorious past of the peoples subordinated to the new order, a task carried out by the "evangelizing friars” (the spiritual path) that make up the historiographic corpus of chronicles known as “primary sources” and enriched by the research work of many disciplines, thus constituting one of the Stories with the greatest documentary richness.

From the dispatch of the first overseas document from this mainland to the court, until today, the narrative of the "conquest" configured the purpose of honoring events through the Eurocentric ideological construction of glorifying the past and greatness. of its protagonists, to claim compensation, gifts and privileges.

This reading of History has overshadowed the substantial components that far exceed the most recognized episodes based on a methodical repetition from its origin until today, such as: “the encounter with Malinche”, “the Tlaxcala betrayal”, "The massacres in Cholula and the Mexica Mayor Temple", "the captivity and the mysterious death of Moutecuzoma", "the defeat in the flight of the Castilian hosts in the sad night" -today of the victory- in charge of Cuitláhuac and his death by smallpox, “the siege of the city and its resistance”, and the “capture of Cuauhtémoc that will mean the end”.

Therefore, on the occasion of commemorating the 500 years since the fall of the great metropolis Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico Tlatelolco, we give birth to those components that escape us due to the force of tradition: the so-called meeting of two worlds is the confrontation direct of two constructions of the universe, on the one hand the Western European and on the other the Mesoamerican, which are in their diametrically opposite cosmogony, which gives it its transcendental complexity.

These components have been identified by various authors, among which are at least four substantial aspects: 1) The psychological, which for the European contingent we can point out as the ideological load sustained in the Catholic religion (Judeo-Christian) and in a system monarchical-imperial politician; an imaginary affirmed in the weight of its own history and popular tradition fed by romances and chivalric literature that describe great feats such as the Amadís de Gaula or a Tirant lo Blanch. In what corresponds to Mesoamerica: a polytheistic pantheon and a military and tributary political system, and a structure based on myths and tradition that feeds the imaginary of the peoples in a cyclical evolution of their history.

In both cultures there are the conventions of human nature that generate their internal stress such as: uncertainty and fear, which give way to superstition (bad omens) and divine protection (The Apostle Santiago) to mention the clearest examples.

2) The economic that is shared by both, a common interest in taking over territories and the exploitation of resources (natural assets) through expansion and coercive dominance.

3) The warlike-military in which we will find substantial conceptual, strategic and technological differences, which give rise to intimidation through the show of force, repression, isolation and annihilation.

So far these components display various manifestations that we can characterize as: espionage, diplomacy to dissuade, intrigues, the formation of alliances with their own and different interests, the imposition of vassalage and religion.

Before concluding, we highlight a last component, as important as the previous ones: 4) We can describe it in terms of health with the arrival of exogenous epidemics, smallpox being a decisive factor in precipitating the inevitable cultural destruction of the Amerindian peoples, as well as the spread of diseases of all kinds triggered and spread by invasion and war.

Thus, the value judgments that arise between the different forms of thought and ideologies, justify, validate and legitimize the various positions - for better or for worse - that are made by bringing to memory stories from the past to signify their relevance in the future. time, as it happens before the occasion of commemorating the 500 years of the capitulation of the great metropolis of Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico Tlatelolco.

What happened in our past has given rise to processes of cultural transformation and reconfiguration with syncretism, through which the original identities of peoples were merged to generate others and give rise to political and ideological integration in a new order. This process had implicit, diverse and intricate impacts of environmental and demographic devastation, which required adaptation by both parties to configure new models expressed by a new people with their own characteristics, which today is the Mexican nation.

These facts conscientiously registered by different mentalities of exceptional men and women in their disciplines, allow us to elucidate that the so-called “conquest of the new world” is nothing more than a series of facts with discrepancies and coincidences, sometimes contradictory among themselves, that lead to the inevitable paradox of its History, such as the great conflagration of a considerable number of subject peoples who sought their liberation by casting their fate upon fate, by collaborating with the exogenous force embodied by the Castilians of the old world to free themselves from their oppressors, and who, once their end has been achieved, will repeat the same subjugation scheme for these peoples, giving rise to a permanent resistance in search of equality, respect and recognition.