El bicentenario mexicano

Mexico is getting ready for an extraordinary celebration in honor of its 200th anniversary of its Independence and 100th anniversary of its Revolution. Everything designed to commemorate these twogreat dates is linked to the ideal of renewing Mexico’s identity and historic continuity. The movement that led to Mexico's independence began on September 16, 1810, and the Mexican Revolution began onNovember 20, 1910. The entire year has been proclaimed by President Felipe Calderón as "Year of the Nation". September 15, 1810 is the day of the "Grito de Dolores" or Miguel Hidalgo's call to take uparms against Spanish colonial government.

Independence reached Mexico first in the conscience of Mexican intellectuals who had been influenced by the books of the French Illustration, which hadbeen translated by such friars as the Jesuits. The independence movements were at first small isolated rebellions that didn’t amount to much, they didn’t have weapons, other than their machetes andsticks, and besides, it didn’t feel like a clear independence movement, but rather as a form of protest. The illustrated Criollos, who were also integrated by representatives of the Church like MiguelHidalgo, started a plan that we now know as the Conspiración de Querétaro, but when it was discovered it accelerated the start of the struggle and the taking of power by the Criollos. Miguel Hidalgo yCostilla decided on the night of September 15, in the villa of Dolores, as the parish priest, to call for help from the whole town, free the prisoners and take the weapons from the small local garrison.Morelos was another character who supplied great ideas to the movement. Morelos was the brain of the movement; it was he who took the determination of integrating a government of greater vigorthan the one that had been established through the Junta Insurgente. He established in Chilpancingo, on the 14th of September 1813, the Anahuac congress. But neither the organization nor sustaining the...