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thunder-blue-3 | 9 months ago

Mexico has so many greater problems to discuss than a few people learning the ancient tongue. 2 days ago a beauty influencer was shot dead on a live stream, and female (and male) mayors have been gunned down regularly. I couldn't care less about what they're speaking over there, I hope they take care of their basic human rights and giving their citizens dignity first.

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zeryx|9 months ago

What do you expect the average Mexican to do about that? The Cartels have substantially more power than the state.

I think it's great that they're reclaiming some power by relearning their ancient languages that were nearly destroyed by their colonizers

speakfreely|9 months ago

> The Cartels have substantially more power than the state.

This is a common misconception. The state can absolutely dominate any cartel in Mexico, they just choose not to for political reasons.

> relearning their ancient languages that were nearly destroyed by their colonizers

Nahuatl is actually a colonizer language. The Aztecs brutally subjugated other native peoples, so brutally in fact that those groups were extremely eager to ally with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztec empire.

ty6853|9 months ago

Mexicans could start with liberalizing their gun laws since all the bad guys already have them. Zapatistas and other local resistance groups aren't afraid to fight them when they have weapons, and some of the communities that actually have gotten their hands on guns have managed to make it more trouble than it's worth for the cartels.

BirAdam|9 months ago

Well, the cartels have more power as you get away from the Valley of Mexico. Much of the power distribution in Mexico is related to geography afaik. When terrain is difficult to cross, enforcing a monopoly on power is difficult. For another example of this problem, see Afghanistan.

johnisgood|9 months ago

What kind of power are you speaking of? "Cultural power" or something? Does it mean much in practice in this context? I fail to see what its reclaim would achieve against fighting cartels.

em-bee|9 months ago

human rights and dignity are not something to be given (by whom?) but to be fought for. and the most important weapon in that fight is building a community. discovering your identity and making a connection to the community you live in is a big part of that. and learning your ancestral language is a way to make that connection.

alephnerd|9 months ago

> Mexico has so many greater problems to discuss than a few people learning the ancient tongue. 2 days ago a beauty influencer was shot dead on a live stream

Yucatan ain't Jalisco. That's like saying Alaska shouldn't support indigenous Alaskan languages because there is racial animus or police brutality in Mississippi.

Mexico is a federal state like the US, that's why it's the Estados Unidos Mexicanos/United States of Mexico.

myth_drannon|9 months ago

People without past have no future. Connecting to your ancient traditions is a form of empowerment. Look at what happened to Jews with Hebrew. It helped rebuild a united identity and contributed to Palestine's de-colonization effort. I hope people of the Americas will do the same and free themselves of the Spanish colonizers.

sarchertech|9 months ago

Most genetic studies show the average Mexican has around half and half Native American and European ancestry with about 5% African ancestry. 99% of Mexicans speak Spanish and 94% speak only Spanish.

I’d love to know what Spanish decolonization in such a place looks like.

There is no objectively correct demographic language or culture for a given location. You have to pick a point in time to go back to and there is no way to do that that isn’t arbitrary.