Is this a healthy way to promote pride and national unity? Or is this obsession with the story - which is manifested at all levels, from the latest best-sellers to the debates on television news programs - is something that is distracting the country from the urgent task of concentrating on future to become more competitive and reduce poverty?
In recent weeks, several heads of state are solemn ceremonies presided over the exhumation of the remains of the heroes of the independence of their countries.
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez paralyzed the country to unearth the remains of Simón Bolívar in a nationally televised ceremony, after which he announced that he had touched the coffin found in a boot and "the hero's''perfect teeth independence.
The joke circulated in Venezuelan opposition circles after the transmission of the exhumation of the remains of Bolivar was that "Chavez showed the remains of Bolivar Venezuela, but showed the remains of Venezuela Bolivar.''
Chavez ordered the exhumation to investigate the causes of death of Bolivar, which would have occurred under "mysterious circumstances''and could have been a murder perpetrated by" the oligarchy.'' Bolívar died on December 17, 1830 in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, and almost all historians agree that he died of tuberculosis.
After unearthing the remains of Bolivar, the Venezuelan government announced on August 29 - as part of the same research - exhume the remains of two sisters of Bolivar. The vice president said Elias Jaua coroners would draw a tooth from each of the sisters, to examine their DNA and ensure that all traces of the Bolívar family were genuine.
Chavez has gone further than other presidents in his obsession with the past, speaks to the country every day with a huge image of Bolivar, Bolivar's writings used - usually out of context - to justify its measures of government , has called for replacing the Superman and Batman toys and dolls of Bolivar, and he even renamed the country the "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.''
However, Chavez is far from being the only This unearthing dead.
* In Mexico, President Felipe Calderon recently led a military parade on the Avenida de la Reforma in Mexico City, to move the polls of Miguel Hidalgo, José María Morelos and ten heroes of independence from the graves where they had rested from 1925 to a scientific laboratory at the National Museum of History.
A group of scientists examine the remains of the heroes and ensure they are well preserved, before being transferred to the National Palace, "for Mexicans, all of them this year pays tribute to the motherland,''said Calderon .
* In Central America, several Presidents are disputing the remains of regional independence hero Francisco Morazán, which lie in El Salvador. Last year, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya told his Salvadoran counterpart to hand over the remains to Honduras to be buried in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.
El Salvador indignantly rejected the idea, while growing speculation that Costa Rica also ask the rest of Morazán. The problem is that General Morazan was born in Honduras in 1792, was executed in 1842 in Costa Rica and, as his last will, was buried in El Salvador, explained the historian. According
the Salvadoran press, the governments of the three Central American countries seriously consider affording one another the remains of Morazán for periods of several months. The proposal - which some described as tourism funeral - prompted strong objections from Salvadoran intellectuals.
* In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa had already used much of his time at the beginning of his presidency in a national campaign to remove the remains of the hero from the Eloy Alfaro independence from Guayaquil to a new mausoleum that the president ordered the construction of in the town of Montecristi. But the descendants of Alfaro objected to the move, generating a national debate. Finally, it was a Solomonic decision, part of the ashes of Alfaro remain in Guayaquil, and the other part would be moved to Montecristi. "This will end the fighting,''Correa said triumphantly.
* In Argentina, former President Nestor Kirchner had previously ordered the transfer of the remains of former President Juan Domingo Peron, who died in 1974, a new mausoleum at 45 kilometers from Buenos Aires.
The official motorcade carrying the coffin with the remains of Peron ended in pandemonium when Peronist factions faced punches.
Many historians argue, correctly, that Latin American countries republics are young people who need to consolidate its national character, and to celebrate its history is a good way to go. But many Latin American presidents are perhaps exaggerated the note because it is also true that the writings of the eminent nineteenth century can not always be used verbatim for government programs XXI century.
We are living in a different world. Bolivar died in 1830. That was 40 years before the invention of the telephone, and 150 years before the advent of the internet.
not forget - or fail to honor - to its great men, Latin American countries should look what they are doing China, India, and other emerging powers that are totally focused on the future.
Instead of investing so much time discussing where they should rest their heroes, Latin American presidents should spend more time discussing why their young people are among the last places in the annual international PISA tests in math, science and language; or why no Latin American universities among the top 100 ranking of Higher Education Supplement Times of London, or why only 2 percent of all global investment in research and development goes to Latin America, or why as United Nations figures the small Asian nation of South Korea 80.000 patents registered annually in the world, while all Latin American countries together with fewer than 1,200.
is time for America look a bit less backward, and slightly forward. And that presidents have fewer stories, and devote more to improve the quality of education, science and technology.
item was removed from the daily El Nuevo Herald
source: http://educacion-unamiradadiferente.blogspot.com/
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