Evo Morales, Shaka Zulu, George Custer and Benito Juárez

Morales, Juárez, Shaka, Custer

In recent days I've read in several places that the electoral victories of Evo Morales in Bolivia placed in the first magistracy of an American country "for the first time in more than five hundred to a member of the original inhabitants", which is a simple, blatant lack of truth, a lie.
This falsehood is associated with others that are functional to new highly dangerous form of racism, indigenous neo-racism that several imperialist  sectors is spreading throughout American territory, especially to the south of the Rio Grande.
Already San Martin had warned in his proclamation to the Peruvians when disembarking in Pisco that "foreign agents would claim exacerbate caste interests to take over American wealth" and had only wait for time to allow African slaves , Aboriginal, Creoles and Europeans join transplanted into a true national project.
When it is said that Evo Morales is the first Aboriginal president in the presidency of one american country we are forgetting the Grand Benito Juarez.
Just remember - stakeholders - my previous note saying: The Indian did not pay the foreign debt



I was reading the epic poem "Shaka the Great" - devoted to the Zulu emperor who fought so hard for his people in the early decades of the nineteenth century - written by the great South African poet Mazisi Kunene, when a phrase from another book - and another hero -  broke into my memory to remind a third member of the gallery exceptional human beings who admire the extraordinary ability to fight for his people, for his country, for his identity and his race.
Strange trick that make books taking us from here to there by brain library shelves that we have built with our readings throughout life. 
Are we, perhaps, a hard drive that stores data that are mobilized and explicit with a particular word? 
I do not know, but as with witches - in which I do not think but undoubtedly exist - is not easy to explain how to link suddenly without reason, Shaka Zulu, George Custer and Benito Juarez.
An African warrior, a yankee warrior and a statesman Zapotec not relate so easily, except for those for whom the fight against imperialism - or want to - is crossing the Rubicon that separates some people from the other, when  is about to award our respects.
Shaka did not know any of the other two - and they may have read about his exploits in the papers, no more - but yes George and Benito met. In a very special situation that has probably gone unnoticed for many historians who have written about both separately.
And that deserves a reflection that can extend to all who have the huge responsibility of leading a national, regional, provincial or municipal state in this era marked by a brutal imperialism, not explicit - as were the previous ones - but camouflaged with lambskin globalization.
Because it is not good to add to fragmented social and cultural demands that characterize our time more separation, linear and schematic interpretation of self and abroad, the friend and enemy can only lead to the tribes and institutions, the creator integration, the maker of meeting spaces, the host of nuances.
The limit is always - as taught by greats - identity.
George Benito invited him to participate in a deed and George - the blond generally handsome and brave - he want to accept the invitation, but the president of the United States denied permission.
Why Benito invited him?
I imagine two answers, but to understand them, we must know who was Benito Juarez.
He was born on March 21, 1806 in San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, Mexico. Son of Zapotec Indians was orphaned at age three to twelve and only spoke in his native tongue. At twelve, his uncle did start their formal education. For a decade he studied to be a priest in 1829 but left the seminary and joined the Institute of Arts and Sciences of Oaxaca to study law. When he graduated in 1831 he started working in the city defending the Indians. He witnessed the adventures of Santa Ana Mariscal, against the French who invaded Mexico - to protect Gallic traders - and took his leg, and against David Crockett and James Bowie at the Alamo.
He witnessed the slaughter of Heroes of Chapultepec at the hands of the Yankee hordes who invaded Mexico City during the last days of the war by the states of California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. He fought to take away their privileges to the Catholic Church and separate the state from religion. He was a judge, governor and president. He was exiled several years in New Orleans and returned to be president.
In July 1861 he decided to suspend payment of the foreign debt for two years.
England, Spain and France invaded the Aztec land. By disputes between the three powers, Spain and England withdrew. The French went further: Napoleon III and theoretical - the French tend to disguise their imperial dreams with fabulous theories giles worldwide bought with enthusiasm - they invented a word: "Latin America" ​​to justify its claim foothold in these land and also gift they sent a deceived Emperor Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, who believed that the Mexicans had chosen their God on earth.
In 1866 during the war against the usurpers, Benito Juarez asked George Armstrong Custer by Mexican forces did. The hero of the American Civil GUERRAL accepted the invitation and began to assemble an expeditionary army of volunteers to fight side by side with the enemies of two decades ago to drive the Europeans to sea. But Johnson, the successor to Abraham Lincoln, did not grant the permission and appointed commander of the famous Seventh Cavalry, the same as a hundred years later officially inaugurated - the experimental use of helicopters - the Vietnam War in the Valley death.
Benito Juárez Maximilian shot them - to no avail the pleas of Victor Hugo, Garibaldi and all the monarchs of the Old World - and died in 1872, with a clear conscience for having done his duty as a son of this land.
He never knew that his chosen - Custer who played Errol Flynn in that memorable "They Died with Their Boots On" or deceived Dustin Hoffman as Indian Scout in "Little Big Man" - would die with his men on the banks of the Little Big Horn, Montana, in 1876 at the hands of Gall, another American Indian orphan, Sioux race, excellent strategist and godson of Sitting Bull.
Benito invited Custer because it suited his side have American troops led by a charismatic and popular general from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Monroe Doctrine (America for the Americans) and the yankee military presence in Mexico, the French should leave their dreams in these lands.
I prefer the second explanation - not to make historical interpretation a kind of implacable determinism, which asserts that everything is always done by an ulterior motive and that is not possible courtesy and recognition of personal virtues because the other belongs to the side enemy - which lets imagine that Benito Juarez, the hero in exile, working as a waiter in a restaurant in New Orleans met the young Custer an autumn afternoon and discussed their dreams and struggles and realized what united them and a moment forgot the great differences that separated them.
What dates do not endorse? Never mind.
Imagine admired Benito Custer is more likely to imagine that a Zapotec Indian boy orphan reaching speak and write perfectly in Spanish, English and French, who kneel at the very Catholic Church and its conservative allies, issued a republican constitution and Federal, which becomes a judge, a member of the Supreme Court, Governor and President of his country and fusile an emperor of the House of Hapsburg puppet Napoleon III, who - more than two degrees of separation - separating them from his illustrious ancestor.
Imagine admired Benito Custer is more likely that an Argentine fifty-eight, reading a poem African cowboy remember a book that talks about the invitation from a Mexican Indian, the same as the reader met through the Legends collection America, published as a magazine in Mexico during the year 1958 and I read every week when he completed the first year of secondary education at the National College of Adrogue.
Imagine admired Benito Custer is more likely to remind Paul Muni playing the Mexican statesman and Bette Davis in the skin of Carlota mourning her Maximiliano pulled together the firing squad with his head shattered by the coup de grace of a Mexican officer Moctezuma smiling eyes looking Quetzalcoatl - white - surrendered to his feet.

Guillermo Compte Cathcart