Here am I, Guaicaipuro Cuautemoc, who have come to discover those who are
celebrating the discovery. Here am I, a descendant of those who colonised
America 40,000 years ago, who have come to discover those who discovered it 500
years ago.
My European brother at his border asks me for a written document with a visa in
order to discover those who discovered me. The European moneylender asks me to
pay a debt contracted by Judas which I never authorised to be sold to me. The
European pettifogger explains to me that all debts must be paid with interest,
even if it means selling human beings and whole countries without their consent.
I am gradually discovering them.
I also have payments to claim. I can also claim interest. The evidence is in the
Archivo de Indias. Paper after paper, receipt after receipt, signature after
signature show that between 1503 and 1660 alone, 185,000 kilos of gold and 16
million kilos of silver were shipped into San Lucar de Barrameda from America.
Plunder? I wouldn't say so. Because that would mean that our Christian brothers
are violating their seventh commandment. Pillage? May Tanatzin have mercy on me
for thinking that the Europeans, like Cain, kill and then deny their brother's
blood! Genocide? That would mean giving credit to slanderers like Bartolome de
las Casa who equated the discovery of the Indies with its destruction, or to
extremists such as Dr Arturo Pietri, who states that the outburst of capitalism
and of the current European civilisation was due to the flood of precious metals!
No way!
Those 185,000 kilos of gold and 16 million kilos of silver must be considered as
the first of several friendly loans granted by America for Europe's development.
The contrary would presuppose war crimes, which would mean not only demanding
immediate return, but also compensation for damages.
I prefer to believe in the least offensive hypothesis. Such fabulous capital
exports were nothing short of the beginning of a Marshalltezuma Plan to
guarantee the reconstruction of a barbarian Europe, ruined by deplorable wars
against the Muslim foe. For this reason, as we approach the Fifth Centennial of
the Loan, we must ask ourselves:
What have our European brothers done in a rational, responsible or at least
productive way with the resources so generously advanced by the International
Indoamerican Fund? The answer is: unfortunately nothing. Strategically, they
squandered it on battles such as Lepanto, invincible armies, Third Reichs and
other forms of mutual extermination, only to end up being occupied by the Yankee
troops of NATO, like Panama (but without a canal).
Financially, they were incapable - even after a moratorium of 500 years - of
either paying back capital with interest or of becoming independent from net
returns, raw material and cheap energy that they import from the Third World.
This disgusting picture corroborates Milton Friedman's assertion that a
subsidised economy can never function properly, and compels us to claim - for
their own good - the repayment of capital and interest which we have so
generously delayed all these centuries.
Stating this, we want to make clear that we will refrain from charging our
European brothers the despicable and blood-thirsty floating rates of 20 or even
30% that they charge to Third World countries. We shall only demand the
devolution of all precious metals advanced, plus a modest fixed annum
accumulated over 300 years.
On this basis, and applying the European formula of compound interest, we inform
our discoverers that they only owe us, as a first payment against the debt, a
mass of 185,000 kilos of gold and 16 million kilos of silver, both raised to the
power of 300. This equals a figure that would need over 300 digits to put it
down on paper and whose weight fully exceeds that of the planet Earth.
What huge piles of gold and silver! How much would they weigh when calculated in
blood? To say that in half a millennium Europe has not been able to produce
sufficient wealth to pay back this modest interest is as much as admitting to
the total financial failure of capitalism.
The pessimists of the Old World state that their civilisation is already so
bankrupt that they cannot fulfil their financial or moral commitments. If this
is the case, we shall be happy if they pay us with the bullet that killed the
poet. But that is not possible, because that bullet is the very heart of Europe.