Avoidance. If it were a college course, I would get an A+.
I have only two immediate tasks: (1) get the house ready to put on the market, and (2) take some serious steps to work on my Spanish. I have been doing neither.
What I have been doing is studying Henry Bamford Parkes's History of Mexico. The book is a good read. Parkes writes well and manages to turn one of the world's most complex political systems into an easy-to-understand tale.
My friend, Juan Alvarez, makes fun of historians like Parkes. He claims that the classic description of Mexican regimes that switch from liberal to conservative to liberal simply misses the poignancy of Mexican government. He says: "There is no historical cycle. It is a carousel of tragedy."
But that is not the point that caught my eye tonight. Parkes expends appropriate page space in describing the presidency of Porfirio Diaz in great detail. (That is the presidente pictured above -- looking like the grill of a Mercedes-Benz touring car.)
There is no doubt that Diaz is one of the most tragic figures of Mexican history -- a leader who pulled Mexico into the modern age while creating a budget surplus and creating ever-poorer peons. By the time he fled office, a small percentage of Mexicans were extremely rich, and the overwhelming majority was poorer than when he stepped in to save the economy.
During the Diaz presidency, foreign investors were encouraged to invest their money in Mexico. As a result, most of the industry was owned by foreigners, along with large tracts of real estate.
In that context, Parkes notes:
I have only two immediate tasks: (1) get the house ready to put on the market, and (2) take some serious steps to work on my Spanish. I have been doing neither.
What I have been doing is studying Henry Bamford Parkes's History of Mexico. The book is a good read. Parkes writes well and manages to turn one of the world's most complex political systems into an easy-to-understand tale.
My friend, Juan Alvarez, makes fun of historians like Parkes. He claims that the classic description of Mexican regimes that switch from liberal to conservative to liberal simply misses the poignancy of Mexican government. He says: "There is no historical cycle. It is a carousel of tragedy."
But that is not the point that caught my eye tonight. Parkes expends appropriate page space in describing the presidency of Porfirio Diaz in great detail. (That is the presidente pictured above -- looking like the grill of a Mercedes-Benz touring car.)
There is no doubt that Diaz is one of the most tragic figures of Mexican history -- a leader who pulled Mexico into the modern age while creating a budget surplus and creating ever-poorer peons. By the time he fled office, a small percentage of Mexicans were extremely rich, and the overwhelming majority was poorer than when he stepped in to save the economy.
During the Diaz presidency, foreign investors were encouraged to invest their money in Mexico. As a result, most of the industry was owned by foreigners, along with large tracts of real estate.
In that context, Parkes notes:
The foreign colonies lived in isolation, reserving all the more responsible and highly paid positions in their industries for men of their own race, accumulating wealth which they proposed one day to take home, and openly voicing their contempt for the nation which they were exploiting.
Is it any wonder that Mexicans look at Americans and Canadians locked in their gringo ghettos with contempt?
Now that I have inadvertently offended someone, I will return to my task of avoiding doing what needs to be done.
