The Best of Both Worlds

Today, November 20th, is the official day of remembrance for the Mexican revolution.  In the US people are perhaps aware of the war for independence from Spain, but not so many know about the equally important revolution that took place at the beginning of the 20th century.  This is probably due to the fact that Americans are proud of their own fight for independence from Britain, and have a shared point of reference with Mexico.  For Americans, the revolutionary war was the necessary break from the past that allowed the US to go on to be the land of the free, and great country that it is today.  All that was needed was to get rid of the British tyranny, and once that was thrown off freedom would take over and lead the country where it needed to go. 

But in Mexico, independence didn’t lead to much of a change in the social fabric of the country (you could argue that the same thing for the U.S. as well).  The people were still stuck in a static class structure, with the few wealthy land owners and the Catholic church holding most of the power and riches.  The Revolution changed all of that.  It was a decidedly leftist movement to redistribute land to the peasants and break up the power of the oligarchies, large land owners, and the church.  This was not something the U.S. would support, and in fact was the basis for an invasion at the port of Veracruz. 

So with all this in mind, my school had its Revolution remembrance celebration this morning.  I find it hard to relate to the Mexican revolution, but I respect it as an important event for the country, of which people are extremely proud.  It led to a stronger state, and the initiation of numerous laws to regulate the work place, and other facets of daily life.  I for instance receive 5 days of vacation a year, as mandated by the government.  When I was first told this by my school, I didn’t really understand how it affected me.  No matter what the government said, I was going to my days of vacation from my employer.  I wouldn’t have taken the job otherwise.  But the people at my school told me about my five days off, full of pride of this right that was given to me for being a resident of Mexico.   Fair enough, give me my five days– even if I was going to get them off anyway. 

The other aspect of the revolution that I cant get grasp is the celebration of the violence in it.  The students set up a drama of a bunch of peasants being gunned down, with toy wooden guns, by the anti-revolution forces of the government.  After all these people were fake gunned down, everyone started laughing.  In the states you aren’t allowed to bring toy guns to school, let alone make a joke about shooting someone in front of an audience.  But these were the poor, helpless peasants, and the troops were the representatives of the bad government.  In the history of the U.S., there are no bad guys.  The closest thing we might have is Jefferson Davis, but he left the U.S., so you could say that people consider him and all the other confederates as being outside the system.  From 1776 until today, we might have had bad presidents, people who didn’t run the country well, but never have we had a bad guy, a person reviled by everyone.  I suppose that is one of the major differences between history in Mexico and the United States.  As it is in so many other ways, our two countries are barely comprehensible to each other.