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Monte Alban & The Miss Universe Contest

I had worked with my friend Maria, psychologist & nurse practitioner, for some ten years in Oregon. On Saturday February 24 she arrived for a ten day visit with me. I have been leading her all over Oaxaca ever since…beginning with Monte Alban, the Zapotec ruins high on a hill overlooking the city.

Around 500 BC ancestors of Oaxaca’s present day Zapotecs founded what many experts believe to be the Americas’ earliest metropolis. Today the ruins of platforms, pyramids, palaces and ceremonial ball courts still remain…much of it decorated with inscriptions in a language yet to be deciphered, recording the exploits of their god-kings. Monte Alban flourished as a city for a millenium with as many as 40,000 people at it’s height. The city was repeatedly reconstructed over the centuries, like a peeling onion, first by the Olmecs, two periods of Zapotecs and finally succumbing to the Mixtecs by A.D. 1000 who used it mainly as a burial ground.

So it is with anguish that Oaxacans are anticipating the besmirching of this ancient site. Mexico’s national tourist bureau has decided to hold the “costume competition” phase of the annual Miss Universe contest at the Zapotec shrine of Monte Alban in May.

Undoubtedly, the ruins will be closed for some period of time so that the site can be “improved” for the contest. Certainly (given the pattern thus far shown by this governor) the “improvements” will be arbitrary, expensive, and unaccounted for. Tempers are sure to flare, many among the significant minority of Oaxaqueños that managed to ride the fence this last summer and fall.

Many local folks are still smarting over last year’s fashion show by designer Carolina Herrera. The cultural center next to Santo Domingo church was blockaded by scores of police so that only the “chosen” could attend.

Surely, this latest announcement will result in more militancy and more oppression. The teachers of Section 22 will begin their annual strike in May…the same month as the contest. If what the government wants is to paint a smiley face on Oaxaca, this has to be the stupidest idea yet.

We are now hearing as yet unconfirmed rumors that the folks in charge of antiquities are about to receive complaints over the issue of whether or not all the heavy equipment and the expected huge crowds might damage the site.



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-1 responses to “Monte Alban & The Miss Universe Contest”

  1. admin says:

    It has been announced that the Governor has cancelled
    the beauty contest at Monte Alban…

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