the United States later helped to dismantle. The Monroe guage is emphasized there both as the unifier of Mexico and asndoctrine, the Spanish-American War and the American a means of undermining the United States, particularly thosengovernment’s indifference to the persecution of religion in states that once belonged to Mexico. By contrast, thenSpain and Mexico in the 1930’s are all part of the same anti- Spaniards and their religion are viewed negatively as the forcesnSpanish and anti-Catholic pattern. Theodore Roosevelt gal- against which Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Parlopednuphill and Franklin D. wheelchaired down, but the man ty defines itself. The brutal and oppressive Aztecs who cullednwith the big stick and the self-styled good neighbor shared their subject peoples for human sacrifices are honored andnthe same prejudices. celebrated in lavish museums of anthropology, but the Con-nIt appears odd at first that those who denounce Spain as the quistadors and the friars who accompanied them are slancruelnland of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish Inquisition, dered in modern Marxist murals. It was not by chance thatnbullfights and Franco, are also in favor of the increased use Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City. Both he and hisnof Spanish in American schools and public life, even though it murderers felt at home there. In Mexico every last ugly healsnthe biggest barrier to the social and economic rise of the His- then ruin is a subject of government preservation and venerapanics.nBut all becomes clear if we look at the history and tion, but the baroque churches that are the true artistic glory ofnpolitics of America’s southern neighbor, Mexico. In Mexi- the country are either sadly neglected or their restoration hasnCO, anti-Americanism coupled with a rejection of the Ian- been financed by foreigners. The dark idols to whom mennguage of the Anglos and gringos coexists with an official ide- were sacrificed have been set above the monuments that comologynthat is more fiercely anti-Spaniard and anticlerical than memorate God’s sacrifice for man. Do we really prefer this tonanything to be found in the United States. The Spanish Ian- Columbus? nE i morti risorgerannonby Roberto MussapinAnd the dead will rise again in brief splendornopened upon the eyes from the shutters flung wide,novercoming the sound of the usual awakeningnwithin time’s secret, between clock-hands and hourntheir light will fall plumb on the eyes newborn.nAnd the body, rolling there in the snowy whitencovered by the cold that kept it alive,nwill rise from the now loathsome palletnopening the window just one handnwill clutch the handle like another handnunknown, from the coldnin the circle of the dead seasons and the dim blood,nthe grace that came before the newborn footprintsnand gave back to dust the ancient breathnplunged the eyes of the living into the abysmal wellnand in the waters oblivion and memory melted together.nThrough the wire that goes on barb after barbnpass the years and the images in the darknof any wire, wounds of light,nand the hindsight in the early morning’s last sleepngave birth to shorter dreams in bright sipsnwhen the eyes pushed back the initial awakeningnremaining shut on the winged images,nsouls in the shape of swallows or childnfrom the roofs, keepers of the breathing restnthat came down to visit the eyelid and the dreamnand got into the memory of the man who was asleepnand was close to his death and was savednby the dead risen again in the eternal splendor.n(Translated by Angela Canavesi)nnnOCTOBER 1992/19n