In Mexico, October 12, Christopher Columbus Day, takes place against a backdrop of tensions with Spain, revived by the screening a few days ago of a documentary presenting colonization in an exclusively positive light.
The thesis of the documentary Hispano-America, song of life and hope screened this week in Mexico City is simple: Spain civilized a barbaric region through religion and music, with a legacy of the grandeur of Baroque architecture. Spanish director José Luis Lopez-Linares « offers a renewed vision » of “Conquista”, underlines the dossier of this documentary filmed in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, which is due to be released on Thursday in 80 theaters in Mexico.
« It is a filthy, manipulative and racist pamphlet that seeks to falsify history », exclaimed cultural journalist José Juan de Avila contacted by AFP, after being reduced to silence by the cries of the public in favor of the film’s theses during the presentation. The documentary does not mention any negative aspect of colonization: Indians massacred, died of smallpox, forcibly converted to Christianity or reduced to forced labor.
Spain’s historical account of the conquest does not suit Mexico. As a symbol of this divergence: October 12, celebrated in the European country as the day of the Hispanic world, previously called “Race Day”, is rather called in Mexico “Day of the Multicultural Nation” or even, “Day of the indigenous resistance”.
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