Aztlan | Lessons in Politics

Aztlan | Lessons in Politics
July 19th, 2006

Today, and for the present, Aztlan is a spiritual concept, an ideational concept. But what does the future hold for the indigenous peoples of Anahuac?

As more and more neo-liberal policies are adopted and implemented, more and more of our people will find themselves displaced, forced to roam the Aztlan highway, as they have for thousands of years. Yet the Euro-American settlers continue to impede our basic human right to survival.

With Calderon as Mexico’s president for the next 6 years our people will again find themselves forced to leave their homes and loved ones only to face the criminalization of indigenous migration.

Meanwhile, the Euro-American continues to chant their ignorant sound bites about homeland security, illegal invasions and corruption in Mexico.

While all governments have some level of corruption, Mexico has to deal with more than its fair share because of the demand for drugs from the United States. Still, “America” refuses to accept that drug addiction is a developed medical condition and no more a crime than diabetes or Parkinson’s disease. Rather than to focus on treatment, the so called Americans choose to build dungeons and warehouse their addicts who are mostly of Latino and African descent. This denial of reality by the North Americans causes moral and ethical corruption in Mexico to an unbearable extent and casts a shadow of hopelessness over Mexicanos

The successful fusing of “illegal” immigration and national security is just as obtuse. Migrants are not terrorists and no one believes they are. But the tactic is effective and the politicos can pander to both the xenophobe and the secure borders crowd in one shot. Building one wall will keep out the Mexicans and the terrorists together, or so they hope.

The best way to keep terrorists out of the U.S. is to stop creating them in the first place. In the past, American foreign policy used to create communists. Unfortunately for them, that system was so backwards that it couldn’t compete with freedoms and democracy generally associated with capitalism. Today, however, American foreign policy is fostering something quite different. Terrorists are using a faith in god, a religion, a spiritual concept and not a failed economic strategy. Breaking the will of the Islamic terrorist is unlikely. A determined terrorist will not let a wall stop him from carrying out his act(s) of terror. Sadly, it is unlikely that the current administration or any subsequent administration, for that mater, will rethink the way it deals with the Middle East.

The irony is that the people the Euro-Americans are trying to keep out are hardly the targets of terrorism nor are they terrorists themselves. The Euro-American is the target of terrorism and according to some world leaders; it is the “Americans” who are the terrorists.

Recently, in Bolivia, Evo Morales was elected president. What made headlines was the fact that he is of indigenous ancestry. Also, he could not have been elected without the support of the Europeans and Mestizos. Unfortunately, there are now calls for autonomy by the mostly European and Mestizo ruled regions of the country. Is this what the Euro-Americans would do if we, the indigenous, Mestizos, Hispanics and Latinos of Aztlan became the majority, not just in our ancestral homeland, but in the entire United States?

Remember what happened in Rome when the Romans began accepting Barbarians as Caesars? The Romans, unable to prevent the Barbarians from migrating, finally had to accept the blue eyed invaders. And once they did, it wasn’t’ even Rome any more. And Rome fell.

What conclusions can now be made about the future of Aztlan? Will the Euro-Americans accept being ruled by us, possibly risking the collapse of the United States? Will they themselves seek autonomy rather than to face the humiliation of being ruled by ethnic Mexicans? One thing is certain, when we become the majority, and we will become the majority, more and more political offices will be held by democratically elected brown men and women.

Looking at Europe today, we see quite a different picture than that of just 50 years ago. Going back 100 years paints an even more exaggerated demographic picture. Using the breakup of European federal and imperial states into smaller ethnic states as a model for North America is not the least bit far fetched. The United States has already had one war over whether the South should be allowed to leave the union the way it entered, peacefully. But while the United States goes around the world espousing self-determination, it does not espouse the same here at home. Before 911, the FBI used to say that the greatest threat to the United States was the “Patriot” movements. These Patriot movements are the same folks that brought us Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. While I do not know if these groups are still active or not, clearly, the type of character that used to comprise these groups still are, they just have a new enemy, Mexicans.

As the United States imposes democracy in the Middle East, countries wind up electing politicians dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The lesson here is that unless the underlying root problems are not solved, democracy and elections are just technicalities.

Today, and for the present, Aztlan is ideational (reality as spiritual), but using Pitirim Sorokin’s
(1889-1968) “Social Cycle” theory (Social and Cultural Dynamics 1937, 1943), we see that according to a people’s cultural mentality, a society can move towards a “sensate” (reality is material) state. He also concludes that “The West” is already sensate. Coupling this with a more modern view of Aztlan is Dr. Truxillo’s (UNM) “The Inevitability of a Mexicano Nation in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico” where he states: “It is the natural aspiration of any peoples who achieve national consciousness to establish their own sovereign nation-states.” We see that an independent nation state of Aztlan is not only possible; it is inevitable, as well.

Perhaps the catalyst for the movement towards a sovereign Aztlan will be the continued mass deportations of our people from our ancestral homeland by the Euro-Americans. The duty of forming of our very own nation state will be left to the various factions who earn it. But the result of their efforts will be nothing less than a beautiful miracle, the miracle of Aztlan and her free, indigenous people.

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