Absolut Nonsense
There is a bit of a furor over this ad, run in Mexico, that shows the pre-1848 borders of Mexico, when Calfornia, Texas and everything in-between was all part of Mexico:
Why are Americans in an uproar over historical fact? Is it that they do not want to be reminded of how they stole half of Mexico in an unjust and unprovoked war? Or is it that the reminder of where those lands came from conflicts with their strenuous efforts to keep Mexicans out of them? It is kind of unsettling to the Texan belittling the ‘damn foreigners’ to find that the family in question may have been in Texas before Sam Houston. And it is upsetting to Californian sensibilities to remember their oh-so-ecological cliff-top house is perched on land stolen from the ancestors of their gardener.
But really, others say, why not go a few years further back in history and show the entire continent belonging to Native Americans, before the English and Spanish and French stole the land from them? That could get complicated since the locals did not consider themselves one nation, but thousands of independent entities — who regular conquered territory from one another.
Here at the coffeeshop we say it is all nonsense. Nobody deserves compensation for the wrongs done to their ancestors, or we would all be in for a slice of the pie. But that doesn’t mean we should forget the lessons of history — be it the Mexican War or the Holocaust — we need occasional reminders of the sins of our ancestors to shed light on today’s decisions. Had Junior Bush thought of justice before invading Iraq we would be living in a safer and more hopeful world today. The living have enough of their own actions to be held accountable for, we need not look to the dead to find evil deeds.