CITY OF MEXICO: A Spanish narrative praising the ideals of the country’s triumph of the Americas presently appearing in Mexico has added fuel to a politically charged banter over the tradition of imperialism.
Latino America: The Spanish director Jose Luis Lopez-Linares claims that his film “A Song of Life and Hope” presents “a new vision” of colonial times.
Shot in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, it portrays the Spanish as affecting the Americas, giving a glad legacy of Catholicism and craftsmanship, including elevated Rococo roused Spanish provincial design.
It makes no notice of the maltreatments committed for the sake of evangelizing the Native people groups of the New World. The film’s delivery in Mexico comes closely following an aftermath between Mexico’s new president Claudia Sheinbaum and the Spanish government.
Sheinbaum’s failure to apologize for the atrocities committed during the 1519-1521 Conquest of Mexico and the subsequent three centuries of colonial rule infuriated Madrid, who prevented Spanish King Felipe VI from attending her inauguration ceremony earlier this month.
Mexican journalist Jose Juan de Avila, who was at a VIP screening of the film this week in Mexico City, said, “It’s a rubbish, manipulative, and racist piece of propaganda that attempts to rewrite history.” He was expressing his displeasure with the film.
Conflicting narratives The release of the movie came at the same time that October 12, 1492, marked the anniversary of the Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. This event paved the way for the colonization of the Americas.
In Spain, the date is celebrated as Hispanic Day and is a national holiday. Yet, in Mexico and other Latin American nations it is known as Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race), a celebration of local opposition against the Victory and of social variety.
“The Victory was a rough demonstration,” Sheinbaum emphasized on Wednesday, adding that she needed to “recreate the past” to reinforce relations among Spain and Mexico.
The “unbridled glorification” of colonialism promoted by the late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco is the inspiration for the film, according to Spanish author Carlos Martinez Shaw.
However, the viewpoint presented in the documentary by Lopez-Linares that the Conquest was a source of enlightenment is held by some Mexicans. At the screening, Avila, the journalist, challenged the director for his “shameful” depiction of the colonial era, but the audience, mostly European-born Mexicans, shouted him down.
The film features an interview with philosopher Juan Miguel Zuzunegui, who describes it as a message of “love in the face of hate speech.” Zuzunegui is an outspoken advocate for Mexico’s Hispanic heritage.
“Heroes and saints” Mesoamerica was a region that included parts of Mexico and Central America. When conquistador Hernan Cortes arrived in 1519 with an army of several hundred men, horses, swords, guns, and smallpox, the region had an estimated population of 15 million to 30 million people.
There were only about one million to two million Indigenous people left after a century of wars, massacres, and plagues.
