Munoz Molina says that, in his Liberal youth, “taking pride in the autochtonous seemed liked an unfailing sign of stupidity. It was so alien to us that it deserved nothing but contempt.”
I’m totally an old-time Liberal.
11 responses to “Taking Pride in the Autochtonous”
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In Latin America the conflict in the 19th and 20th centuries was often between old time liberals and indigenous populations and their supporters. Somoza’s political party in Nicaragua was called the Liberal Party. A former colleague of mine says much of the history of Latin America during that time can described in terms of conflicts between liberalism and indigenous (Indian) interests and values.
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Speaking of autochtonous:
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2014/03/will-there-be-pogroms-against-crimean.html
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I would take pride in knowing the word autochthonous, though. Bonus points for knowing how to spell and pronounce it.
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I had no idea it was spelled with an h after t. I think I even overrode the spell-checker when it tried to correct. This must also mean I’m not pronouncing it correctly.
Thank you for pointing this out!
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Isn’t it a bit pretentious to use autochthonous instead of indigenous? The word confused me because of the chthonic part which made me think of the underworld. So I thought one’s own underworld was the meaning.
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This writer is from Spain. In the context of Spain, the word indigena would sound bizarre.
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Me a person of the Earth. Me tribe killem other tribe. Is good.
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It sounds, though, as though MM is talking about a right wing style of cultural nationalism, and-or certain kinds of essentializing origin myths.
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He is frustrated with the way the Left has been cultivating and celebrating regional differences. He offers some quotes from the statutes of autonomies, and they are filled with the most ridiculous nationalistic cliches one can imagine (“The Kingdom of Aragon has existed for millenia and has a distinctive national character, etcetera ).
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That isn’t new to the left either. Soviet descriptions of various narody dating back to the 1920s all talk about ancient national character too.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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