By Kathleen Bohne
Below you will find excerpts from the July 17 edition of “La Semana” newsletter. To read the complete articles and subscribe, please visit www.themexpatriate.com.
“I know your opponents, the conservatives, will hit the roof, but without a bold development and welfare program it will not be possible to solve problems or gain the people’s support. The way out of this crisis is not conservatism, but transformation.”
In President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s 31-minute monologue in the Oval Office on July 12—described with tongue in cheek as a “filibuster” by Jorge Castañeda—he touched on economic cooperation and immigration policy, sprinkled with this free advice to President Joe Biden. It must have stung, as Biden faces poor approval ratings, a stalled agenda and a stormy outlook for midterm elections. After the visit concluded and agreements were duly released to the press, the jibes continued in the schoolyard of international diplomacy: a White House official gloat-tweeted that “Trump in his four years couldn’t finish a border wall, let alone get Mexico to pay for it” in reference to the $1.5 billion dollars Mexico promised to invest in “border infrastructure” by 2024.
Behind the bluster, what is the real status of the US-Mexico relationship? What were the tangible outcomes of this bilateral encounter? The most significant topics on the agenda were immigration policy, energy/climate change and drug trafficking, particularly the production of fentanyl in Mexico. The tangible takeaways were minimal, but many observers viewed the purpose of this relatively informal visit as reassurance after recent tense moments in the relationship—and an opportunity for political posturing to promote each president’s domestic agenda.
In the weeks leading up to AMLO’s arrival in Washington, there have been some noisy tiffs: first, his decision to not attend the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles in June as an expression of solidarity with the leaders of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, who were not invited. Secretary of Foreign Relations, Marcelo Ebrard, attended in his place. Then on July 5, a New York Times article titled “Has Biden’s Top Diplomat in Mexico Gone Too Far, Officials Ask?” put ambassador Ken Salazar in the spotlight, implying that he is too chummy with the Mexican president and “has caused confusion about the U.S. position on some of the most sensitive policy issues”…
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The Saga of the “Penacho” of Moctezuma
The July edition of Letras Libres magazine focuses on the theme “Legacies of Colonialism”, and includes an essay about the strikingly beautiful, and controversial, “penacho” (crest or headdress) of Moctezuma. This historical artifact—a piece of “dynamic artisanal engineering” made from hundreds of feathers from four different bird species and 1,554 metallic adornments, most of them gold—has made the news several times this year alone, but has a much longer history of inspiring polemic debate. It is today part of the collection of the Weltmuseum Wien in Vienna, Austria, where it has been housed since 1889. However, the “penacho” (or “quetzalapanecáyotl” in Náhuatl) has been in Europe far longer; it was first mentioned as part of the estate of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol in 1596. Several of Mexico’s presidents (including López Obrador) have requested the return of the artifact to Mexico, and there was even a purported attempt by the Hapsburg Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian, to have the piece brought back to its land of origin. Austrian diplomats and curators have refused to lend or return the object to Mexico based on two arguments: first that it was a gift, second (and more convincingly), that it is too fragile to transport safely.
As is the case with many historical artifacts, what we know about the “headdress of Moctezuma” is shrouded in mystery, half-truths and speculation: to start, it may not have been used as a headdress, and it is unclear if it was used by Moctezuma. The piece may have been a ceremonial adornment that was given to Hernán Cortés by the tlatoani (ruler) of the Mexica, or it may have been stolen by the conquistador and sent, with other treasures, along with one of his missives to King Carlos V. We do know that many Mesoamerican cultures, including the Aztecs, were masters of feather mosaic art (“plumaria”) and regarded feathers as important symbols in military and religious ceremonies. “The feathers cannot be separated from the animal they came from, and thus the pairing of bird-feather defines their symbolic nature. The selection of feathers from certain birds, combined with other reflective materials, such as polished stones, pearls, shells and gold, were all part of the iconography and customs for each occasion,” explains the Mexican historian, María Olvido Moreno Guzmán, who was part of the most recent joint Mexican-Austrian “penacho” restoration team.
The splendor of this ancient masterpiece, and the powerful symbolism it embodies, brings a swell of questions to mind: of myth versus history, nationalism versus rationalism and of the colonial legacy in the New World. After all, the “mystification of the continent began with Columbus himself.” Does the modern state of Mexico, born in 1821—three hundred years after the fall of Tenochtitlan—have the right to inherit this treasure from the Mexica empire? “To suggest that there is continuity from the owners of the ‘penacho’ in the 16th century to the contemporary Mexican state is to normalize a type of racial essentialism produced by not only blurring the ethnic and racial diversity of Mexico, but also marginalizing certain groups in this mix,” notes the essay in Letras Libres. There is also the question of taking political advantage of the transcendent symbolism of this one object while ignoring so much more of the archaeological heritage of Mexico. As writer Rodrigo Flores Sánchez notes, “in Mexico we have not distinguished ourselves in respecting our natural, historical and cultural heritage.” The federal budget for culture has been slashed by this administration…
