The Blue Monkey Review

And, indigenous cultures in almost every part of the world confront world movements that have little regard for particular cosmovisions. In another posting I mentioned the prevalence and apparent success of evangelical churches in El Petén. There is much less evidence of evangelicalism in Cuernavaca, though the carefuyl observer can find Protestant churches in various parts of town. Yesterday, on a walk from my house into the center of town (normally half an hour but more when, like yesterday, I take a wrong turn) I passed two charismatic churches and spent a little time peaking in on the services. In total they included perhaps forty people, so hardly seemed like a threat to Mexican culture or to the Catholic church here. But in those areas where evangelical churches have prospered, indigenous cultures face more of a threat. They have little concern for indigenous practices and make no accommodations for rituals or beliefs that they view as pagan or demonic.

Like most liberal intellectuals, however, I have trouble making up my mind about this issue (or, these issues). I think religious freedom is a fundamental human right, and should protect people who wish to change their belief system and practices, and should equally protect from coercion those who wish to continue in a system of belief. And on the question of separatism, while I find the notion attractive in some ways I can´t quite see how it would work. Only the most oppressive poverty or the most fanatic belief systems have so far provided protection against world capitalism and the consumer marketplace.

When it comes to Mexican culture, I generally try to use my fellow director Alvaro Ramirez as a reality check. He truly understands both U.S. and Mexican culture. Born in Mexico and raised in both Mexico and in industrial Ohio, he manages to understand and to navigate the competing intellectual currents. ¨Cultures change through contact with other cultures,¨ he said over cena recently. You can´t protect cultures from change unless ¨you set them up like leper colonies.¨

Alvaro certainly sympathizes with the problems faced by indigenous, and readily rains curses on government programs that claim to offer help to isolated pueblos and indigenous groups but really only exploit them for their support or for world publicity. ¨The minister of education wants to put computers into every school in the country. How is that going to help when they will go into rooms that are dismal, when the electricity goes on and off all the time, when there´s not support when the computer breaks down? Why not launch a program that will improve teaching? That would really make a difference.¨ (my paraphrase)

If there is any hope for the indigenous, it is their attraction for the tourist industry. If you look at a poster advertising for Mexican tours, Alvaro says, ¨you don´t see an ordinary Mexican young person in Levis with GAP shirts and blond-dyed hair. You see an Indian.¨ The indigenous should take advantage of this much more self-consciously. ¨They should set up Potemkin villages, where you can go see how people lived in 1491, with original dress and religious rituals (without the human sacrifice, of course) and then after the tourists leave they can put on their real clothes and drive to comfortable home.¨