With the endorsement of the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives, October 12 was approved as the Day of the Pluricultural Nation in Mexico.
On Thursday, November 19th, the Mexican Senate officially approved October 12th as the Day of the Pluricultural Nation to recognize “the multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual wealth that characterizes Mexico.”
Unanimously, with 105 votes in favor, the plenary session of the upper house approved this opinion, which was sent to the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador for enactment, since it was previously approved by the Chamber of Representatives.
The president of the Indigenous Affairs Commission, María Leonor Noyola, explained that the Ministries of the Interior and the Public Education Secretariat, as well as the institutes of Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Languages, will be in charge of organizing the commemorations of this day.
“The objective is to motivate the knowledge, recognition, appreciation and promotion of the multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual wealth that characterizes Mexico,” the Senate detailed in a statement.
Senator Martí Batres, of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena), pointed out that October 12 was “the beginning of a cruel war of conquest”, in which Christopher Columbus “opened the way” to the conqueror Hernán Cortés.
Martí Batres added that “it is important to change symbols, recognize the history and leave Eurocentrism behind.”
For his part, Xóchitl Gálvez, from the conservative National Action Party (PAN), celebrated that “this commemoration does justice to the long journey of recognition of indigenous peoples,” according to the Senate statement.
October 12, the anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to America in 1492 and the National Holiday of Spain, is a date that generates controversy in America, especially in indigenous communities.
The government of Mexico City was forced to remove the statue of Christopher Columbus in the central Paseo de la Reforma in the capital last October because a march was called to tear it down on the 12th of that month.
President López Obrador plans to organize several commemorative events in 2021 for the 200 years of Mexico’s independence, the 500 years of the conquest of Hernán Cortés and the 700 years of the founding of México-Tenochtitlán, present-day Mexico City.
The president caused a diplomatic clash with Spain last year by asking King Felipe VI to apologize to the indigenous people for the conquest during these commemorations, a demand that he maintains to this day.
The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, was in Mexico City on Tuesday, November 17th, and confirmed that Spain will attend the commemorative events in 2021 but the country rejects to apologize in any way.
Source: Forbes Mexico
