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Who Are the Bad Guys?

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In my course on Hispanic Civlization, I was talking about the horrors of the Inquisition.

“Why do the Christians always come off like the bad guys?” one student asked giving me an accusatory stare.

I didn’t want to tell her that we still had the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the name of the spread of Christianity ahead of us in the course.

And the ruin that religious fanaticism brought to the Spanish-speaking world during the years of the Empire.

And the way the Church constantly undermined the struggle for progress and the attempts to create a democratic society in Spain in the XIXth and early XXth centuries.

And the fascist Catholic dictatorship that existed in Spain between 1939 and 1975.

I have no desire to hurt the sensibilities of my Bible Belt students who have spent their lives in places where religion is the only form of entertainment and community organizing. But what can I do if history is the way it is?

30 responses to “Who Are the Bad Guys?”

  1. Diego Avatar
    Diego

    ESTEBAN: ¿Quién mató al comendador?
    MENGO: Fuenteovejuna lo hizo.
    ESTEBAN: Perro, ¿si te martirizo?
    MENGO: Aunque me matéis, señor.
    ESTEBAN: Confiesa, ladrón.
    MENGO: Confieso.
    ESTEBAN: Pues, ¿quién fue?
    MENGO: Fuenteovejuna.

    As an alternative answer, you could show them Sergei Eisenstein’s “Alexander Nevsky”. Since it is a silent, the language won’t matter and they can discuss it in Spanish.

    Of course, the answer to Fuenteovejuna is that Lope was a Christian, if the southern Illinois “christians” would consider a “catholic” a christian.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      We read Fuenteovejuna in my grad course last year and it was wlidly successful. Except for one male student who said he was tired of “las pinches feministas.” 🙂 I had to tell him that the pinche feminista author of the play was male.

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      1. Diego Avatar
        Diego

        And died 400 years ago! I first read “Fuenteovejuna” in high school. How did this guy make it to grad school in Spanish without knowing about Lope?

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  2. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    I’m confused, I thought muslims were always the bad guys! 😉

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      In my course, they keep turning out to be the good guys. I had to keep pounding the students over the heads with, “Starting in 711, Muslims restored culture and civilization to dirty, stupid and backwards Europe.”

      What can I do, it’s history? I’m not making this up or anything.

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      1. Diego Avatar
        Diego

        “Starting in 711, Muslims restored culture and civilization to dirty, stupid and backwards Europe.”

        What were you thinking, woman? They attacked the Visigoths, the height of Ukrainian culture.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          You should hear what opprobrium I heap onto poor Visigoths in class. 🙂

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          1. Rimi Avatar
            Rimi

            Do you use panels from Asterix in Germany to prove your point?

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        2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Why are Visigoths Ukrainian?

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          1. Diego Avatar
            Diego

            The Visigothic migration to Iberia in historical times began from the southern Ukrainian steppes between the Don, Dnieper and and the Dniester rivers. Of course, they probably originated somewhere along the Baltic, but that was pre-history.

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            1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
              bloggerclarissa

              I had no idea Ukrainians could be blamed for this! This is cool! Finally, there is some conquest we managed to pull off successfully. Good for us! 🙂

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              1. Diego Avatar
                Diego

                The Vandals were also from the same area of southern Ukraine. That is where they picked up the Iranic speaking Alans, whose descendants today are the Ossetians. The Alans kingdom/empire, between the Volga and the Don, was destroyed by the Hunnic invasion and they moved west of the Don and teamed up with the Vandals. They picked up some of the Suevi on the east bank of the Rhine, just before the crossing in 406. By the time they got to Iberia, there were actually more Alans than Vandals and Suevi.

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  3. Rimi Avatar
    Rimi

    “But what can I do if history is the way it is?”

    Just tell your students these were Catholics. I doubt most Bible Belt kids have been socialised to include Catholics within their approved Christian cliques.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Nah, they aren’t getting off on the “blame the Papists” card. That would be way too easy!

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  4. Diego Avatar
    Diego

    “Finally, there is some conquest we managed to pull off successfully. Good for us!”

    Well, it was only successful for 300 years. Hey wait. The US has only been around 225 years!?

    Hopefully, you will include a showing of the film, “También la lluvia” in your course.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      What do you mean, only 225 years? According to my students it was invading the Iberian Peninsula in 711!

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      1. Diego Avatar
        Diego

        Do you mean that “being the most advanced culture in the world” indicates that the Moros must have been Americans? Your students are great!

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Yes. It’s all my fault because I used the language they identify easily and relate to their nationalistic discourse as a matter of course.

          I should have realized what I was doing. 🙂 🙂

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  5. Diego Avatar
    Diego

    ¡Basta! This is great fun. Bate-papo as we say in Português. But I have to go cook the family dinner.

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  6. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    I have no desire to hurt the sensibilities of my Bible Belt students who have spent their lives in places where religion is the only form of entertainment and community organizing. But what can I do if history is the way it is?

    Why not?? I always thought one of the purposes of college was to challenge students’ deeply held/unexamined beliefs. It surely worked that way for me, and I attended a fundamantalist Xtian college.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I want them to start thinking but I don’t want to hurt their feelings.

      I’m also kind of afraid of the fanatics.

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      1. Brittany-Ann Avatar
        Brittany-Ann

        So what did you end up saying to the student?

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          I said, ‘Good question! Let’s see if we can answer it collectively by the end of the course.’

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  7. Darque Avatar
    Darque

    She said:

    “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

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    1. GMP Avatar
      GMP

      LOL! Thumbs up for the Monty Python quote!

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        This went completely over my head. 🙂

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        1. Rimi Avatar
          Rimi

          Goodness, really? Here is Monty Python — it is my personal opinion they are a mix of physical humour (the Ministry of Funny Walks, for example) and subversive sociopolitical parody. I think they’re great, but a little too much in large doses. Others, however, think they’re almost spiritually uplifting comedy.
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python

          This is their sketch, the Spanish Inquisition, which gave Anglophone popular culture the catch-phrase, “NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

          As a bonus, since you’ve lived in Canada, here’s their Lumberjack Song:

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          1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
            bloggerclarissa

            Thank you, Rimi! I tried watching Monty Python a couple of times, but I just don’t get the humor. It must be the autism.

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          2. Diego Avatar
            Diego

            Am I autistic also? I don’t get more than an intermittent chuckle and by the second minute I am bored. They may be the best we have today in slapstick comedy, but they are far short of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Abbot & Costello.

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            1. Brittany-Ann Avatar
              Brittany-Ann

              I don’t think so. When I was younger I found it hilarious, but anymore it only gets eyerolls and grunts from me. I prefer to think of it as my sense of humor maturing.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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