Guillermo Marín Ruiz

“ All the large and ancient civilizations, have followed the long road of their "human development" through a complex and elaborate structure of knowledge that explain and give sense to the individual life, the family, community and State. All these civilizations have invariably sought to answer three basic questions which are the foundations where all human development rises: who am I, where do I come from and where am I going? ”

“ It is true that education that we Mexicans have inherited from our ancient grandparents, in the last decades of the 20th century has gradually been lost in in the Mexican society; however, it can still be found in indigenous and peasant communities. The foundations and roots are solid and alive. Five hundred years of demeaning our education has undoubtedly borne colonial fruits. But we have not lost as people and as a civilization this valuable cultural heritage. ”

“ We are people with a strong culture, which has managed to transcend its historical death. The conquest, the encomienda, progress, modernity, development, neoliberalism and globalization, have not been able in these five centuries of denial, to erase the "own face and the true heart" from the culture of our old grandparents.
Mexicans as worthy heirs of the Cultural Heritage of the Ancient Mexico, we must know and be aware of these values, to transform our reality, with the same passion to "be and transcend", as our wise ancestors did. ”

“ Indeed, not all human beings desire or wanting can be positive or biophilous for the individual or the community. Humanizing the wanting is the restraint of passions, the containment of weaknesses. For the wise toltec the individual, the community and the world were perfectible, and it is precisely here where education takes its intersectoral and transcendent dimension. Only from this perspective the depth and meaning of Anahuac education can be understood, and the reason why it lasted for three millennia. ”

“ We can no longer stubbornly renounce to the most valuable of our cultural heritage. We must no turn our back and live in orphanage of our mother culture. We can no longer deny and ignore the largest part of our past, where one of the most ancient experiences of the world’s human development are deposited, full of wisdom. ”

“ As can be seen in this excerpt, the mother emphasizes that life is not only pleasure and joy. On the contrary, life is faced as a challenge of great effort and suffering and hard work, which has some bonuses, "my child in this world, is the place of weeping and afflictions, and discontent, where there is cold and unpleasant air and great heat from the Sun that afflicts us, and is a place of hunger and thirst: this is a great truth and from experience we know." ”

“ It is necessary to recognize the denied part of our being and assume us as first class Mexicans and not, as third world gringos or as second class spaniards. Appropriating all technologies and all the world modern ideas, but using them for our own project and civilizing development. It is not a matter of living in a "museum", nor in the past; on the contrary, the challenge is to remain traditional and faithful to our identity, but at the same time, spearhead modernity and progress, as does Japan or England. Build the future with the foundations of the past. ”

“ Education was a means to prepare future generations in the effort and permanent sacrifice. Life, as a self-control and temperance process, internal restraint and external balance. Education was not only based on knowledge. ”

“ But the substantial difference with our people was the viciously brutality, inhumane violence and absolute intolerance, with which first the conquerors and then the colonialist have systematically destroyed the culture and the identity of the defeated through erasing their historical memory, disappearing languages, minimizing and undervaluing their knowledge, depriving them of physical spaces, sacred, religious, and social and destroy and persecute their ancient religion, killing their priests and destroy their temples. ”

“ One could assert that civilization itself was based in education. No other humanity ancient people acted this way. With full coverage, mandatory for parents and authorities, and with a sense of being totally free. This education "conscience and concern" in which the Anáhuac inhabitants lived for three thousand years, is now seldom seen, very few countries have it. Because it is not only wealth and national power, but goes beyond, gravitates on a very high humanist horizon. ”

“ The Toltec and Quetzalcoatl are the wisdom and deepest spirituality expression of our civilization.
"As Quetzalcoatl teaches that human greatness lies in the consciousness of a higher order, its effigy cannot be other than the symbol of that truth and the serpent feathers representing it, should speak of the spirit which allows man - a man whose body, as that of a reptile, crawls in dust – to know the superhuman joy of creation, thus constituting an ode to the sovereign inner freedom. ”

“ Recreate new myths that support "our-own" future, with the foundations of the ancient civilization. Add it to the paradigms and the magical stories that give us memory and roots. Make the "ancient Mexican" our beloved and admired old grandparents, and put an end to the evil perception that there are no existing links or continuity between the ancient past and present. Understand and feel that the Anahuac civilization is alive and vibrates in every one of our dozing hearts. ”

“ These were the men and women who learned to “make clay lie", metals, textiles, wood, precious stones, plant fibers and a number of materials taken from nature and humanized by incorporating them, with a high aesthetic and mystical sense, to the millenary world of the Anahuac. It was these wise men and women that learned from nature, the skies and the spirit, to shape "own faces and real hearts" in their children and young people. ”

“ Achieve that the colonized people ignore and despise their culture. The education given in Mexico, at home, at school and in society, is a colonized education. It does not seek that our children and young people are educated to free their people, but on the contrary, are educated to subjugate, dispose of and exploit the weakest. To succeed in a colonized society involves becoming a ruthless exploiter of their own brothers.
The sons of the sons of the ancient grandparents.
The descendants of the ancient Mexicans are all of us. We are the children of the sons of the old grandparents. ”

“ That we have suffered one of the most devastating cultural aggressions in mankind’s history, where the invading colonizers tried to strip us not only of our culture but also of our very condition as human beings. However, in spite of it all, the culture remains and continues to evolve. It is the vital force that guides and orients us although we cannot see or hear it, coming from the remote past. ”

“ Mexicans can be extremely traditional and maintain a deep and lively pride of our culture, our past and our Cultural Heritage; and at the same time, be chillingly modern. As the Japanese people do nowadays, who are proud advocates of traditions and at the same time, spearhead global technology. Mexicans need to develop "an own face and a real heart" in the 21st century, which at the same time is modern, but based in our millenary tradition. We must stop being "uneducated foreigners in our own land"; and we must strive to be first class Mexicans and not, westerners of the third world. ”

“ The language, therefore, takes the place of the speech or philosophical treatise. We must deepen in the language, just as we go deeper into a treatise. The explanation has to follow a narrow, winding, sometimes barely visible or at times broken paths to discover a culture philosophize, of a non-western thought and actions. We call it PHILOSOPHIZE, because Greece was not the cradle of all kinds of philosophy, nor the source of universal culture. ”

“ Although it may seem daring to suppose, we need to discover what remains of the Olmec culture in the Mexicans of the twenty-first century. Understand our historical and cultural continuity throughout these eight thousand years, is one of the most important challenges facing those that want to put an end to the colonization and to build a just and harmonious society. The Olmec and wisdom fruit have not died or it is missing. It is an intrinsic part of what we are today. It is our own culture, not shared by any other people in the world. ”

“ The bases of a person, family or civilization are in the food, health, organization and education. We cannot conceive of the greatness of the Anahuac, its monuments, works of art, their extraordinary knowledge and countless achievements, without an education system which at least was permanently operating during more than 30 centuries prior to the invasion and European destruction. And it cannot be denied that the legacy is still alive and latent in the being of the contemporary culture of Mexico. ”

“ The conquest of Mexico was rather a civil war between indigenous peoples, with deep philosophical, religious roots and old wounds between peoples under mexica domination, than a heroic epic of a handful of Spanish guided by a "fearless and brave captain". ”

“ To date the dominant culture does not accept that natives think and are able, by themselves, to initiate a social movement such as the EZLN. To accept that there was a large and sophisticated knowledge of the human being, of the world and the universe, would equate to recognize by the colonizers of yesterday and today, that one of the greatest human injustices would have been committed, because one of the World’s six most important and ancient human civilizations has been denied and tried to destroy. ”

“ This is why concepts such as "the Aztec civilization, the Mayan civilization, the Zapotec civilization", etc., are maintained, as if they were different cultural structures and civilizations.
“It is forgotten that a culture forms an organic unity and that, therefore, should be studied from its center and not from one of its peripheral aspects. The concept of life is the "center" of every culture. Above all the ideas about the origin, the meaning and the lasting value of human existence, is what reveal the special genius of a culture. ”

“ To maintain the myth of the alleged Aztec power and its inaccurate greatness, is to remain at the mercy of the conquerors cultural heirs, who in this way prevents us from knowing at a greater depth the ancient civilization of which we are living part.
Of course, the mexica formidable ability to break the depressive inertia of the Anahuac culture in the Postclassical must be recognized. Their great will power and temperance to overcome the hegemony consolidation challenges. Their ability to re-functionalize art is an undeniable proof of the reaches and talent that the mexica culture had. ”

“ Engineering with our ancestors reached unimaginable levels. Our civilization mixed very well engineering with astronomy and religion. In fact, beyond the physics laws challenge, mathematics and nature perfection; the Anahuac monumental constructions had the goal of harmoniously uniting mankind with earth, planets, and stars, in an amazing and wonderful approximation to the divine and universe sanctity. Because our ancestors lived for thousands of years with a spiritual sense and in harmony with the universe. ”

“ Gonzalo Guerrero bought his freedom, became a free man and joined to the mayan army and he became "nacon" (head of warriors) , and he married a maiden of the Maya high nobility called Zazil Há under their customs and religion, having three children, the first mestizos of Mexico and perhaps most importantly, taught the mayans to fight the spanish and died fighting against the spanish invasion. Gonzalo Guerrero is the symbol of the foreigner that upon coming to live in these lands and in our culture, not only gives the best of him and defends it, but also gives his own life in it. ”