Doorway to heaven
By Arturo Morales Tirado August 1, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Lecture
Pátzcuaro
Tue, Aug 5, 1:30pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

Pátzcuaro, the main craft and cultural center of the Purépecha’s indigenous traditions, nestles in a pine forest on a plateau in a beautiful landscape accented by a high-altitude lake. Purépecha means “river of the frogs.”

Pátzcuaro is allied to the cultural life of San Miguel de Allende from the time of the indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations. The Chupícuaro, for more than 2.000 years, developed to the south and north of the Lerma river basin. The Purépechas constituted in the Postclassic era an independent territory of the Mexica or Aztec military domination and extended their area of influence to the south of the present state of Guanajuato.

From Pátzcuaro, Franciscan friars and indigenous people came to found the San Miguel village between 1540 and 1550. One image of great veneration in San Miguel comes from that time. “The Master of Conquista” is exhibited in its exclusive altar in the main parish of the city, which was elaborated with the old technique of corn-cane paste sculptures, a technique that, to this date, is continued in Pátzcuaro by, among others, Don Antonio Hernández González.

Pátzcuaro was host to the archbishopric of Michoacán in the sixteenth century, where Don Vasco of Quiroga (a Catholic priest), put in practice the Renaissance utopia of Thomas More, turning to this in the cultural and handicraft center city of the Purépechas, which, in diverse towns, specialized in the production of articles and services that even today express great local identity and personality, like: Santa Fe de la Laguna, Quiroga, Tzintzuntzan, Erongarícuaro, Chupícuaro, Tócuaro, Ihuatzio, Santa Clara del Cobre, Zirahuén, Yunuen and Janitzio.

Today, a visit to Pátzcuaro lets one experience the root of Mexican identity in Mesoamerican indigenous traditions, expressed in festivals related to the Catholic ritual calendar like Easter, Saint Isidro the Farmer, Saint Juan Baptist and, of course, the celebration of El Día de los Muertos.

More about ancient cultures from Professor Méndez
By Professor Guillermo Méndez

Lecture
Ancient Cultures of Mexico: Part II
Wed, Aug 6, 3pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

There are several ancient cultures of Mexico whose names are fairly well-known—Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Aztec, Olmec and Toltec. Less known, perhaps, is the Classic Veracruz culture that flourished from about AD 100 to 900. The Classic Veracruz had a unique art style that revealed itself in yokes, palmas and hachas, stone-carved ritual objects associated with the Mesoamerican ball game, a ball game that frequently ended with the sacrifice of the players. Not all the players, of course, but—what would you guess—the winners or the losers? The Classic Veracruz culture’s interest in the ball game was extraordinary. Most architectural sites of the ancient cultures had one to three ball courts. El Tajín, the major site of the Classic Veracruz civilization, had eleven!

The Classic Veracruz culture along with the Maya, Zapotec and Mixtec are the focus of this lecture. The lecture’s purpose is to aid those interested in distinguishing between the various cultures.

Each culture has a defining characteristic or phenomenon that sets it apart from the others. There are also images of art and architecture that differentiate and distinguish each of the cultures. The lecture will be illustrated with over 200 digital images that reveal the uniqueness and beauty of the ancient cultures of Mexico. The lecturer is Guillermo Méndez, retired professor of humanities and San Miguel resident.

Reconsidering neoliberal globalization today
By Dr. Betsy Bowman

Lecture
Dr. Betsy Bowman
Wed, Aug 6, 10:30am
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

Over the last 15 years, much discussion of neoliberal globalization has permeated the media, universities, think tanks and everyday conversation. Before liberal meant progressive, it meant laissez-faire or nonregulated with reference to trade and the economy. Hence neoliberal is a renewed form of laissez-faire, nonregulated economic theory and activity.

Today we can look at the results of economic activity from the mid-seventies to the present, during the neoliberal phase of capitalism, as compared to the results of the Keynesian period of capitalism from the Great Depression to the early seventies.

Keynesianism as an economic theory advocated government spending (both military and domestic) to stimulate growth. Growth, traditional economics argues, is the motor of all increases in the standard of living for everyone. By the late seventies, Keynesianism was considered to have failed.

Neoliberalism replaced Keynesianism. As an economic theory, it advocates reductions in taxes, in all government spending on social programs and elimination of all regulations on trade and economic activity. It advocates private ownership of previously government-owned industries. In effect it also advocated private, government and corporate debt to stimulate economic growth. If Keynesianism was a failure, then neoliberalism was the solution.

However, if this were true, there would have been more growth from the seventies to the present than from the Second World War to the seventies. But that is not what happened. Under neoliberalism, growth worldwide has slowed to a trickle. All the economists—from Joseph Stiglitz at the World Bank to Jeffrey Sachs at the IMF—were wrong. If we ask Ronald Reagan’s question of 1980, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” approximately 90 percent of the world’s population would answer, “No.” So what did neoliberal economic policies achieve?

My talk on August 6, will discuss neoliberal theory and results both worldwide, in Mexico and in the US. Proceeds benefit the programs of the Center for Global Justice.

Dr. Betsy Bowman is a research associate at the Center for Global Justice.