XXIV. Final Reflections
Original Publication: Novedades — Editorial Section, June 21, 1948.
Author: LIC. OSCAR MÉNDEZ CERVANTES.
Topics: Philosophy and Culture; History and the Hispanic World.
Fragments of the Epic
By LIC. OSCAR MÉNDEZ CERVANTES
XXIV
FINAL REFLECTIONS.
The fourth centenary of the death of Cortés—preceded a year earlier by the discovery of the Conqueror's remains—has given us an opportunity to contribute to the exaltation of his memory, however modest our little corner of journalism may be. An objective and realistic patriotism has guided us in this undertaking. That has been our sole purpose. If our assertions have sometimes clashed with certain prejudices against Cortés that some people still hold in good faith, we have not sought to provoke controversy or wound anyone, but—simply—to be heard. Those who systematically and for self-serving reasons vilify Cortés are not worth much attention, and so we have referred to them only minimally and incidentally.
What does matter to us is to establish that these articles have not been driven by a “pro-Spanish” spirit, as more than one reader might suppose. Our inner motive has been, essentially, Mexico. Love for it, because it is our Homeland. The conviction that this Homeland of ours can scarcely know the glorious course of its destiny if it ignores or only half understands the dynamic, living secret of its illustrious origins. One must know where one comes from to know where one is going. That is all. Our praise of Spain for the general character of its unparalleled nation-building work has been just, but incidental, and intended rather to outline the spiritual setting of the epic of Cortés. A fair appraisal of aboriginal culture has led us more than once to dwell on the ugly aspects it inevitably presents to a judicious observer and which, unfortunately, are the most conspicuous. Nevertheless, this has not been intended to imply contempt on our part for the Indigenous person. On the contrary, it carries an implicit desire to help put an end to the spurious indigenism we have suffered, which, in seeking to exalt what should not be exalted, actually advocates something degrading for our Indian: stripping him of the truly civilizing elements that came to him with the Conquest, an undertaking that might more fittingly and better be called “liberation” from a social condition in which the features of barbarity and savagery predominated over those of culture in both number and importance.
So little have we been “pro-Spanish” that on another occasion we have already asserted that Cortés belongs more to Mexico than to Spain. For it is not, in truth, the Spaniards who are properly called upon, first and foremost, to take pride in Don Hernando. Cortés, yes, was born in Extremadura; but it was not in Extremadura that Cortés became Cortés, but in Mexico. In other words, those who brought to completion—Cortés among them—the prodigious founding effort of the Spanish American peoples were not the Spaniards who remained over there, in Spain, and from whom the Spaniards now living on the peninsula descend in the flesh. THOSE WHO ACCOMPLISHED THE FEAT WERE THE SPANIARDS WHO REMAINED HERE, FROM WHOM WE WHO MAKE UP THE MESTIZO HOMELANDS OF AMERICA DO PHYSICALLY DESCEND. The people of the peninsula may take pride in our illustrious founders insofar as the same distant ancestral blood flowed in them as in their own forebears, and insofar as they imparted to American lands a culture—the most exalted the centuries have seen—born in Spain.
But let us stress the point: strictly speaking, today's Spaniards are not the descendants of the conquistadors. THAT DISTINCTION BELONGS ONLY TO US, THE SPANISH AMERICANS. And Hispanic culture—note that we do not say “Spanish”—is as much ours as that of the people of the peninsula, since it was the indivisible common heritage both of their fathers—the Spaniards who remained there—and of ours—the Spaniards who remained here and became “Spanish American.” The cultural inheritance of our common forebears, as is possible only with gifts of the spirit, was transmitted whole, without any need for division, to both.
Observe, then, that no “inferiority complex” beats beneath this glorification of Cortés, as someone fancied it did in these “Fragments of the Epic.” On the contrary, we have wished to strike a note sometimes filled, admittedly, with the passion that all great things should inspire, but above all calm and impartial, leading the reader to conclusions that are not “pro-Spanish,” but Mexican in the fullest possible sense.
For the truth is that when Spaniards honor Cortés, they exalt a member of their family, a brother of their fathers, all of them heroic and immense. In sound logic, they can claim no more. But Mexicans who disown Cortés do nothing other than affront themselves, in seeking to affront their own father, without whom Mexico would not have come into being, just as it never existed before him.
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