Abstract
Intercultural Bilingual Education (EIB in Spanish) is the most recent version of education for indigenous people in Mexico , but what is it about and what is the difference between this and the previous models? ‘Formal’ education in school has always had two basic functions: knowledge transmission and the development of citizens, both according to the interests of the ruling class.
…because one thing is to recognise that there are others and another quite distinct is to respect them (Tales of Old Antonio).
Dr. Laura Bensasson, function, association, founder and coordinator of the Cátedra Intercultural Carlos Montemayor; born in Tunisia. Email: bensasson01@hotmail.com.
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- 1.
Refer to Lineamientos Generales para la Educación bilingüe intercultural para las niñas y niños indígenas (EIB) (1999). SEP/DGEI, Mexico, D.F., that mentions ‘the requirements of quality, equity and propriety declared in the Educational Development Program’ (Programa de Desarrollo Educativo in Spanish) 1995–2000.
- 2.
To testify to the magnitude of the massacres that happened during the conquest, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas accused the ‘peacemaker’ Pedro de Alvarado of slaughtering more than four million natives between 1524 and 1540 during the conquest of Guatemala, and Adrián Recinos tells in the Crónicas indígenas de Guatemala (Indigenous Chronicles of Guatemala) that Alvarado’s men slaughtered so many natives in Quetzaltenango that the river was named Quiquel (blood) “because all the water became blood” (Reifler Bricker 1989). The episodes of violence that we see nowadays have their predecessors in the conquest and colonial times. Let us remember, for example, the death of Jacinto Canek, the Quisteil rebel (1791), who “before they ended his suffering with a blow to the head, he had to go through the agony of having his arms and legs broken and have his flesh ripped off with pliers while he was still alive”. At the same time, eight rebel chiefs were hanged and cut to pieces, and “their pieces were exhibited to the people of their home towns. Even after the Caste War, at the beginning of 1848, the leaders of the indigenous insurrection wrote letters that denounced the breakage of the independentists’ promises and the indiscriminate slaughter of the loyal and rebel indigenous people” (Reifler Bricker 1989: 150).
- 3.
A clear example of the influence of colonial mentality in the purpose of the educational system is provided by the assertions of Justo Sierra, Secretary of Public Instruction and Fine Arts in the last years of Porfirio Diaz’s government: “The indigenous, the peasant, will not have the protection of the State when they have acquired the habit of respect over the interests of the landholders and land owners… The indigenous demand rights over the land they work, over their parents’ land, over the land they were born on, but the fact that they are not the actual owners of that land implies that they are less competent [and] the victor has the right to have the fruits of his aptitude respected” (Scanlon/Lezama 1982: 61–80).
- 4.
The colonial – or globalised – culture imposes a foreigner lifestyle on the economically privileged classes that occupy the highest ranks of public administration and that Babacar Sine defines as ‘bureaucratic, consumerist, parasitic’. This lifestyle, Sine adds, “represents a very high expense to underdeveloped countries because it implies the overspending of budgets… the diversion of public funds, speculation and corruption” (quoted by Varela Barraza 1985: 144–146).
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Bensasson, L. (2018). Peace Education in a Pluricultural and Multilingual Country. In: Oswald Spring, Ú., Serrano Oswald, S. (eds) Risks, Violence, Security and Peace in Latin America. The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73808-6_20
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