A passing cloud

I spent two days looking around the Centro Historico. The oldest part of town that was built right over the ruins of Tenochtitlan (Destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores) In 1978 Mexican workers accidently discovered the foundations of the Templo Mayor of the Mexica ("Aztec") right near the main square whhile doing some maitenance work on the metro system. You can walk around the foundations now and look at some carvings of skulls in the walls.



The main plaza of the city, known simply as the Zocalo, is the second largest urban square in the world after the Red Square in Moscow. (Mexico City has a lot of second _______ in the world tags) It seems to be a focal point for Mexican nationalism of all different strands. At the moment there are protesters camped out there who are trying to raise awareness and support for the resistance against the government in Oaxaca state. There were also ingigenous groups doing traditional dances and heaps of poeple selling crafts and trinkets to tourists and Mexicans alike (Residents of Mexico city are called Chilangos by everyone else)



I visited a museum called the Palacio Minera. There had an exhibition of torture devices used in Europe during the Middle ages and right up until the 19th century. Ive always had a kind of macabre fascination with Draconian brutality of Europe during the medievel period, but actually reading about and seeing with my own eyes the horrific nature of these practicies was completely overwhelming. I just couldnt actually comprehend how any human being could inflict that sort of pain and suffering onto another human being (regardless of what crime, if any, they had commited) or the myriad devices that people invented to prolong the agony and suffering of another human being. What really suprises is how commonly people were tortured and executed during the middle ages, and often for the most slight of crimes.

What also horrified me was how readily the Christian church was involved in metting out the most brutal punishments to people. This is suspposed to be the church that is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, right? There was an especially noticable tendancy to torture women who would not comply with social expectations of what their place was in society (which was to bascially be powerless). Often women who had some small amount of power due to their wisdom and their knowledge of folk medicine were targeted by the male dominated social hierarchy of church and state. I see a long running conspiracy of patriachs who use the false pretenses of religion or just down-right rubbish charges (being a witch or consort of the devil) to systematically torture and kill millions who challenged their position of social dominance. I actually found it so confronting at one point that I had some sort of panic attack and had to sit down and calm myself down for a while! Unfortunately the only place to sit was next to "The Iron Maiden", a type of upright metal sarcophegus that people were made to stand in, and then have the doors closed on them so that hundreds of razor sharp metal spikes would pierce into their joints, internal organs, ears, eyes and brain. They would be left there for days to die slowly in agony. Yay for the human race!





Overall though, it was worth going to gain more understanding of the dark side of human nature, and also to learn that thousand of people today are still being subjected to torture - from non-democratic regimes where secret police have free reign to commit these atrocities, to Guantanemo Bay in Cuba, which the United States (supposedly the leader of the free world ) uses as a legal grey area outside the conventions of international law. Right now many human beings are being tortured there to extract confessions of their involvement with Al-Qaeda and their involvemnt with the 9/11 attacks, even though some are no longer suspected of having being involved.

Death by goat licking was definately the most unexpected form of torture devised by the medieval mind. 3 or 4 thirsty goats were unleashed on the hapless victim who had been rubbed with a salt solution. The goats would lick for hours and hours until your skin started to come off!

Back with something lighter soon!

x