We, the Indigenous people of this continent, were hoping that the Walt Disney Company would show the beauty and great accomplishments of our Maya people in Mel Gibson's new film APOCALYPTO. We were hoping to see recreations of our great cities, our art, our libraries, our calendar systems, our superior knowledge of astronomy, or at least some of our great accomplishments in a positive light. Sadly, this movie is a series of nightmares of the same old racist ignorance, distortions and exaggerations, stereotypes, and lies and omissions that present our people as a violent and irrelevant savage people.

Apocalypto is Gibson’s ignorant and criminal white supremacist vision of Maya civilization. Hitler’s minister of propaganda could not have done a better film to destroy the true beauty of our Maya heritage.

Before the European (the only real illegals) invasions of our continent began, we were a great collection of sophisticated and egalitarian civilizations with accomplishments in medicine, writing, engineering, architecture, laws, agriculture, mathematics, literature, and so much more.

Does Gibson focus on our accomplishments in Apocalypto, even in a minor way? No! He is obsessed with downgrading us as human beings, lessening our accomplishments, showing us as the worst of people committing human sacrifice; a people worthy of being destroyed by Europeans. The Nazis demonized Jews to have Germans hate Jews and their culture in order to make it easier to destroy them. Gibson has accomplished the same thing toward all Indigenous people with this film.

Gibson, like most European descent people, conveniently ignores the fact that Europeans were doing more human sacrifice with the inquisition’s torture killings of wayward Christians, the burnings of women, and the public executions of poor people who had stolen a piece of bread. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans were sacrificed to keep the god-like royal elites and the church in power.

In those centuries that Gibson’s Apocalypto takes place Europeans never bathed and were mostly illiterate, while our people were bathing daily in cities that had public toilets and free hospitals. We had mandatory and free education for males and females in all ranks of society. We had great universities and libraries, poets and philosophers, courts with fair laws, and more democracy than any place in Europe.

With all of these facts that could easily have been researched, without Eurocentric bias, why is Mel Gibson obsessed with doing a film about Mayas and the violence of human sacrifice? He will likely respond with, "It was the truth!" If that logic holds, will Mel Gibson’s next film be one about Greeks, in a manner that is obsessively graphic showing the "Greek Love" of men and boys that was a key part of Greek civilization. Probably not, because it would belittle and lessen the great accomplishments of the Greeks.

Today we see human sacrifice in children’s books about the Mexica (Aztecs) and Mayas all the time. Somehow the Indigenous human sacrifice subject is acceptable truth, truth that lessens our children’s self-esteem. Meanwhile “Greek Love” truth is unacceptable because it would lessen the self-esteem of European descent children and their pride in Greek culture.

What needs to be known behind all of this is that Europeans destroyed the last Maya city in 1541. Hernandez de Cordoba was the first Spaniard to land in Maya lands and was promptly killed in 1517. In 1518 Grijalva's invasion force was turned back. Hernando Cortez landed in Maya lands in 1519 and suffered a series of losses.

Overall, Europeans destroyed all of our great civilizations and killed 70 to 100 million of our human lives in the Western Hemisphere. We are the 5% that survived. 95% of our population was killed in a very uncivilized (savage) way, in a very un-Christian way, in a very immoral way, in a very cowardly way, using biological warfare (mostly smallpox), enslavement, and lies and deceit. The massive series of massacres, executions and use of smallpox as a weapon of mass destruction fits the criteria for what is called genocide.

Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as 'a composite of different acts of persecution or destruction'. His definition included attacks on …culture, language, national feelings…. Even non-lethal acts that undermined the dignity… of a group constituted genocide if they contributed to weakening the viability of the group…(from David Stannard’s book AMERICAN HOLOCAUST)

Mel Gibson has just committed an act of genocide with this film because he has actively initiated and participated in the distribution of racist lies, distortions, and omissions that will damage all the Indigenous people of this continent in their sense of worth and their already damaged pride. You can destroy a people by denying them the dignity of having pride in their heritage. Who could have pride in the Maya monstrosity that Mel Gibson calls APOCALYPTO.

Why do European people feel that they can
obsessively and graphically show human sacrifice
every time they do films, books (including children's books),
when our civilizations are presented?

THE ANSWER IS:
The white supremacists who are the cultural elites
of worldwide European colonial interests
feel that it is absolutely necessary that they
belittle, lessen, desecrate, and destroy
any knowledge of the accomplishments of our people.



They do this because if they don't do this
they will have to explain to the world why they destroyed a people
of great civilizations and great accomplishments.



They will have to explain the totally dishonorable crimes of their ancestors.
They will have to explain that
we would have continued to make great progress
in the development of our civilizations if Europeans had not
broken and entered into our continent.
They will have to explain how they intentionally used smallpox
against our population in order to defeat us.


They would have no justifications for stealing our lands, our continent,
or stealing all of the wealth of natural resources of this continent.
So for now, they can just say,
"See, they were savages. They were just committing human sacrifice. How uncivilized.


It's good that we came here to end this savage life.
The land was empty. They didn't believe they owned the land anyway.
We do believe in owning land and this land is now ours.
Everything is better now that we are here.
Anyway their civilizations weren't real civilizations."



How convenient for Europeans to tell those lies.
They came here unwanted.
They came here with criminal intent.
They came here as terrorists
pirates, rapists, thieves, murderers, grave robbers, as criminals of the worst kind.



EUROPEANS WERE VERY DISHONORABLE
AND VERY CRIMINAL IN THEIR ACTIONS AGAINST US!
And that is something that they don't want the world to know.
It is something they don't want their own people to know.
Because all of those cowardly and dishonorable crimes would be very embarrassing for them.



It should be very embarrassing for Europeans
to know of all of the crimes that their ancestors committed
so that they could live in the manner that they now live!
EUROPEANS NEED TO FEEL THAT SHAME
AND THEY SHOULD FEEL GUILTY
OF SO MUCH CRIME.



THEY HAVE COLLECTIVELY BENEFITED
FROM CRIMES OF THEIR ANCESTORS,
THEREFORE THEY SHOULD COLLECTIVELY
MAKE AMENDS FOR THE CRIMES OF THEIR ANCESTORS!



One final note: This is a Disney film. The same Disney company that is promoting white supremacy on ABC radio. The same white supremacist company that was going to hire a Spaniard to play Emiliano Zapata.

Yeah, think about that one next time you go to Disneyland, "I'm giving money to people that are participating in the oppression and genocide of my people".

Olin Tezcatlipoca, Nelyollotl Toltecatl, Jesse Rivera
Directors,
Mexica Movement

Mexica Movement is An Indigenous Rights Educational Organization
for People of Mexican, Central American, and Native American Descent

CHECK OUT THIS EXCELLENT ANALYSIS OF "APOCALYPTO" BY JUAN SANTOS:

http://the-fourth-world.blogspot.com/

Mel Gibson conventiently omits the grandeur of the Maya civilization. The Maya had major cities, writing, precise astronomy, and the world's most accurate calendar.

Mel Gibson portrays the Maya as sadistic savages, and ends the film with Spaniard-Europeans coming to "save the day" like cowboys. Gibson neglects to mention the awesome amount of human sacrifice occurring in Europe at that same time.

From what I've read, the situation for indigenous (and other people of color) in Australia is still bad.

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/1175.htm

Gibson did a pretty good job of showing English brutality and subjugation of the Scottish people in Braveheart and the severe punishments handed down by the original Latinos (Romans) in the Passion. I think it's his style of film making and it makes him money. Sounds like he already got your nine bucks so you have supported his "genocide". If you haven't seen it ,then what are you complaining about? You turn more people away from the cause with your Euro-phobic ravings. From your photos you guys all are of European descent as well as Nican Tlaca, like millions of Americans. Why should those of us with native blood feel any shame because some grandparents came from another place? One beauty of this country is freedom of expression, so go make your own portrayal of Mayan society and I promise to see it without listening to any armchair critics first.

A healthy critique of politically and culturally sensitive movies like "Apocalypto" is needed by people who have actually seen to movie, otherwise is only hearsay..

After having seen the entire movie, i realized that Gibson's sensationalism was needed to explain past history to people, otherwise people would become bored by documentary. The portrayal of the Mayan as imperialist slave traders is disliked by many, though the portrayal of the protagonist "hunter-gatherer" tribe where "Jaguar Paw" & his family was the last members alive shows clever and happy people. To claim that Gibson is a racist white supremacist because he focuses on slave trading of an early stage imperialist culture (Mayan) while showing the humanity and intelligence of the hunter-gatherer people isn't accurate..

If we judge modern day Egyptians based upon the Pharoahs and their slavery of both Nubians and Isrealites, we would be wrong. To judge the modern day descendents of the Mayans and all other surrounding tribal groups by the actions of certain Mayan leaders 400 some years ago is also wrong..

Neither is Spanish genocide of Mayans, Aztecs, Incas and other developed cultures of the Americas acceptable based upon the Mayan's (or Aztec's) treatment of surrounding less developed peoples. However, Gibson skips ahead several centuries to show the arrival of the Spanish while the Mayans were still at their peak. This is historically inaccurate, though Hollywood frequently omits centuries of details in their historical based movies..

Gibson does imply the Mayan's sophistication in architecture, astronomy and math with the coming eclipse during the sacrifice. This shows an advanced stage heirarchal class based society very different from the autonomy of the classless hunter-gatherer society that Jungle Paw lived amongst. This shows the benefits and negatives of living in a so-called civilized society. For the individuals who reaped the benefits of heirarchal imperialism the Mayan culture did not appear savage and brutal, though for the hunter-gatherers who were captured in slave raids, the opposite was true. Did Gibson exagerate the severity of how the captured slaves were treated? Most likely, usually to boost ratings as people desire clearly defined protagonist/antagonist so they know who to cheer for, that is modern day US movie culture, thank Hollywood for that!!

The final critique of heirarchal developed civilizations bordering on imperialism can be applied to Britian's treatment of the Irish/Scots, Roman Empire's (including "Jewish" Pharisees) treatment of early Christians (followers of Christ), and Mayan's treatment of surrounding indigenous peoples..

This could also be interpreted as all humans are suceptible to the ravages of empire building, that the Mayans, Egyptians, Romans, British and other imperialist societies with highly developed class heirarchy were heading down the same path of growth, peak, plateau and eventual collapse. Currently the Anglo-americans in the US empire are heading for their collapse..

This is an interesting thread about Apocalypto over at SOS. It appears that one person there doesn't like Gibson's racism. Two disagree with the accuracy of the film. And one... the one who is brown and (I think) is part Mexican, buys the whole story as accurate, when Gibson said it's not.

I guess some people will believe what they want, if they want to believe it bad enough.

Telling of the complex Mayan history in an hour and half movie is impossible, so certain details may be left out. However, it is possible to infer the advancement of science in Mayan civilization by showing their complex temple architecture. Not like anyone believes that the Mayan priests just said "Hey you, pile those stones over there into a giant pyramid." Obviously to engage in such structure building required complex architectural planning complete with math and astronomy to line up the temple's calendar to match eclipses, solstices, etc..

The reaction by the "Mexica" group against Gibson's "Apocalypto" is as over the top as people who claim Gibson is an "anti-Semite" because he implicates the Jewish Pharisees in the Roman state sponsored execution of Christ..

Despite Gibson's recent "anti-Semitic" comments (overheard by an anonymous "Officer Friendly") against "THE Jews", he remains a product of sensationalist Hollywood movie producers (many of whom are "Jews") and any historical data found in his (or anyone else's) movies needs to be researched before being accepted as truth..

Mexicans are not limited to discussing their ancestry in terms of either Aztec of Mayan because those are the only names that Anglos are familiar with. Many other indigenous peoples live throughout Mexico alongside the developed civilizations of the Aztec/Maya societies yet are frequently ignored by modern day "Mexica" activists who wish to amplify their heritage as being "civilized" by embracing the Aztec/Mayan aspect to the detriment of the multitude of other indigenous groups to whom they may belong simply because these other groups didn't build fancy temples that lasted into modern era of Euro-colonialism. Mayan languages numbered approximately 69 out of 288 known languages, not including the peoples assimilated (or genocided out of exsistence) into Mayan culture during the height of Mayan empire building..

"Mexico's "fragmentation into countless mountain valleys, each with its own mini-ecology," according to the historian Nigel Davies, led the Indians within each geographical unit to develop their own language and culture. This is a key to understanding Mexico's unique and fascinating diversity. Although Spanish is the official language of Mexico today, the indigenous people of this nation - almost five centuries after The Conquest - still speak approximately 288 Amerindian languages."

read on @;
http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/ling.html

Gibson shows that there are other peoples living symbiotically in the forest beside the Aztec/Mayans and that the result of "civilization" found in the Aztec/Mayan empires was also forest clearcuts, epidemic diseases, slavery and invasions, occurring simultaneous with astronomy, architecture and math. Ditto that for any other imperialist civilizations, from Egypt to Rome to Britain to modern day U.S. However, little is known about the "low-tech" neighbors of the Mayans because they lives so lightly within the rainforest ecosystem that nearly all archeological evidence of their culture was destroyed by biodegradation over the centuries..

The goal of historical based movies like "Apocalypto" isn't to take everything in the movie at face value, instead to engage in personal research about the window in time/place portrayed, in this instance pre-Columbian Mayan society and the lesser known "hunter-gatherer" tribes who left fewer archeological evidence behind than their neighbors the Mayans..

"After 900 A.D., Mayan civilization of the central lowlands declined significantly. The great cities emptied and eventually became overgrown by jungle. Although it is unclear why societies quickly deteriorated, given the rapidness of the population decline, researchers believe the cause was likely famine due to drought and/or trade disruption because of war. The Maya were constantly at war with their neighbors for land as well as people who were used for slavery and human sacrifice."

read on @;
http://www.rivieramaya.ws/mayanhistory/

Nobody wants to read about their ancestors conducting human sacrifice, and it may not apply to everyone equally. A Mayan craftsmen was no more responsible for the deaths caused by Mayan priest's human sacrifices than is a Mexican truck driver responsible for the Mexican military killing schoolteachers in Oaxaca. Stifling unpleasant aspects of cultural events of the past to please modern day political correctness of academia isn't giving people a fair chance to judge events in their historical context. Why do speakers of the Mayan languages in Mexico today feel that portrayal of pre-Columbian Mayan slavery is damaging to them as a society? If enough Mayans organized against the higher castes of the Mayan priests, did the priests eventually become kinder, gentler rulers out of neccesity? As the Mayan city states became smaller in scope, did they not also become more democratic and egalitarian when tyrants were detroned by popular uprisings??

"As in the Yucatan of to-day, where the wretched henequen-picker leads the life of a veritable slave, a crushing system of helotage obtained. The Cocomes made heavy demands upon the Tutul Xius, who in their turn sweated the hapless folk under their sway past the bounds of human endurance. As in all tottering civilisations, the feeling of responsibility among the upper classes became dormant, and they abandoned themselves to the pleasures of life without thought of the morrow. Morality ceased to be regarded as a virtue, and rottenness was at the core of Maya life. Discontent quickly spread on every hand.

The Revolution In Mayapan

The sequel was, naturally, revolution. Ground down by the tyranny of a dissolute oligarchy, the subject states rose in revolt. The Cocomes surrounded themselves by Nahua mercenaries, who succeeded in beating off the first wave of revolt, led by the king or regulus or Uxmal, who was defeated, and whose people in their turn rose against him, a circumstance which ended in the abandonment of the city of Uxmal. Once more were the Tutul Xius forced to go on pilgrimage, and this time they founded the city of Mani, a mere shadow of the splendour of Uxmal and Chichen."

read on @;
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/mmp/mmp3.htm

We can discover a parallel story in the Mongol culture of Asia, for several centuries since Ghengis Khan's initial raids on China's empires to the eventual collapse of the Mongol Empire. When Genghis and the Mongols first began their adventures, there were only outside empires to be invaded and conquered, as the Mongols were an unorganized collection of landless nomads and invasions of wealthy empires were justified. However, the following centuries of Mongol rule of Asia created numerous cruelties to people being invaded. Somehow we need to look at history with a neutral eye that doesn't blame people for what happened centuries ago. Are modern day Mongolians responsible for deaths caused by Genghis Khan's invasions of the Jin Dynasty of China??

For what it's worth, Genghis Khan respected the populations of the people he conquered, did not practice torture, did not force conversion to "Mongol" culture and only killed the imperialist rulers themselves, not their lowly subjects (farmers, artisans, laborers, etc..). In many instances, the subjects felt themselves liberated from the imperialist tyrants and welcomed the Mongols. In other cases, the Mongol invasions were experienced as bloody and brutal, depending on the economic status of the people being invaded. Now the name of Genghis Khan is used to describe a ruthless modern day tyrant, though there is no comparison. Following an invasion, the Mongol's followed a code of laws called "Yasa", outlined by Genghis..

The debates about Genghis Khan's Yasa Code of Laws don't question whether or not Ghengis actually invaded other countries or not, that is a given;

"All of this though fascinating in its own right does not address a crucial point and that is the survival of Chinggis Khan's legacy as a law giver for as long as 700 hundred years after his death in some areas that came under Mongol control at one point. Nor do the students of the Great Yasa address the usefulness of the idea of a Great Yasa in the political life of many regions of the Middle East. Indeed I think it ought to be asked, was the elaboration and perhaps even outright creation of the idea of a great code of Chinggis Khan part of a continuing public discourse about law and authority in society? What were some of the assumptions of that debate and in what regions and on what institutions did that debate have a marked impact and is that dialogue still going on in Central Asia today?"

entire article @;
http://www.mongolianculture.com/ThelegacyofChinggis.htm

Returning to the Mayans and their low-tech neighbors, the great scientific advancements of the Mayan heirarchy weren't very useful to their neighbors who preffered a low-tech hunter-gatherer society. If the Mayans eventually developed a code of ethics similar to the Mongol's Yasa Laws doesn't imply that slavery and conquest was eliminated, it was only regulated..

Seeing Gibson's movie through the eyes of the Mayans low-tech neighbors of unknown identity only shows that slavery really sucked for them, though it supplied the Mayan heirarchy with enough labor to move the stone blocks that built their great architecturally designed pyramids so that the select few Mayan priests could better map out the stars..

As a modern day green anarchist the technologically advanced societies of the Meso-Americas aren't exactly my favorites either, so there's some bias against the Mayans 'advancements' already in me. Am far more interested in the unknown multitudes of low-tech symbiotic forest dwellers who were being assimilated/enslaved by the Mayans before the Spanish arrived to finish the process of genocide..

Imperialism is a choice, whether Gibson is portraying this in the movie is up to the viewer, from the modern day Zionist empire of US Israel to ancient empires of Egypt, Maya, Rome, etc.. we all make choices and many people chose to fight or leave these empire states throughout history..

BTW, Congrats to Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad for showing the courage to question the US Zionist version of the Nazi's holocaust. Talk about historical revisionism (by who, US??), did it ever occur to anybody that the Jews, Gypsies, gays, mentally ill in the Nazi's concentration camps actually died when the US/British forces bombed the food/medical supply trains that led to the camps? How does "6 million dead" sound for the eager Zionists waiting to resettle "Jews" to Palestine/Israel??

Not US, we're the "good guys" , no?

"
"The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?" it said.

It is not the first time Ahmadinejad has voiced doubt about the mass slaughter of six million Jews under Nazi Germany, previously describing the Holocaust as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.

"By promoting the necessity of settlement of Holocaust survivors in the occupied Palestine, they have created a constant threat in the Middle East," he said, referring to Israel."

read on @;
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2149241,00.html

So the world finally wakes up to John Howard's apartheid Australia -- the Prime Minister and his conservatives are worse than GIbson, but Gibbo is an Australian (racist) son.

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?

When I watch apocalypto I didn’t get the message you outlined at all from it. What I got from it was a subliminal message to white people, especially from the opening words about…a culture only being destroyed when it’s been destroyed from within, meaning “Multiculturism, white Marxist self haters” and the rest of the film which shows a very human tribe, with all different characters and persoanlities being swept away by a superior culture. I think this is gibsons way of saying, “It’s not just white people who have done bad things. All races have done them.” But I’m glad you admit that a film depicting a culture in a less than favourable light lessens the self esteem of the children’s pride in that culture. That’s been happening to white people for about three decades now. It’s not nice is it. While you disparage white people in your anti-white piece, what’s with “superior astrology” and the “only illegal aliens are “whites” like every other race is set apart form whites in holier than thouness. And you say Gibson demonised. What you said, that’s demonising. So just think about why the poor white leftys who run the indie site hate their own culture and wish to see it destroyed. It’s for the very same reasons you purport. They’ve been made to feel ashamed, indoctrinated against their own people. Sad. Have you heard of irony. And as for Gibson not showing Europeans in a bad light, have you ever watched Brave Heart or the one about where the English are burning Americans in churches in the civil war. The “white supremacist elites want to hide bad history"…how many historical films make whites look bad…how many? Is there one that makes them look good since the 1960’s? You say that Gibson failed to mention the torture in Europe at the same time…why the hell is he going to cut to a scene in Europe when it’s a film about the mayans? If it’s about the black on black slave trade should they cut to a scene of Chinese genocide during the cultural revolution? My friend, you know nothing. Shut up. I know you like to be challenged in your beleifs on this site so this won't get published. I know.