I’ve spent a bit of time recently obsessing over the US Democrat primaries. There’s a big US expat community in Mexico City and I’ve watched some of the candidate debates with a group called Democrats Abroad in the American Legion bar in Condesa. In the process I have unexpectedly become a Bernie Sanders fan and wrote a piece for a Liberal Democrats blog explaining why he’s the best person to beat Trump, published last week. I’ve reproduced it below, or you can just read it at Lib Dem Voice here. It received a mixed reception! To see all the comments, go to the linked version.

Why Bernie Sanders is our best hope

With Super Tuesday done we’re now in a two-horse race between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination with Joe Biden now the frontrunner. Many Liberal Democrats welcome this shift which I think is short-sighted. We need Donald Trump removed from office and a clear-eyed analysis suggests that Sanders has a better shot at this than Biden.

Many US moderates believe that Sanders, as a self-described socialist in the land of the rugged individual, cannot win. But the data shows that he can. Sanders can take advantage of increasing numbers of younger voters, as well as votes lost in 2016 by Hillary Clinton to Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, in the crucial swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin to flip them back. He’s also got much greater appeal to independents than other Democrats, who will be crucial in November. So the ‘Sanders can’t win’ line is not rooted in actual evidence.

Conversely anyone who see Biden as a safe bet needs to take a much closer look. He is a legacy candidate whose success so far has been through trading on his name recognition and association with Barack Obama. Watching the Biden of just four years ago (here explaining Sanders’ appeal) underlines how much he has declined since then. Only this week he called it ‘Super Thursday’ and confused his wife with his sister at a rally. Perhaps most significantly the corruption allegations against Biden’s son Hunter – still to be fully ramped up by the Republicans- give Trump an easy reprise of the ‘Crooked Hillary’ line and will neutralise any Democrat attacks on this corrupt presidency.

Trump is more suited to a personal, vitriolic campaign against a tired establishment insider with no real agenda than a match-up with Sanders, a genuine outsider with a platform for change, and a genuinely powerful, if a bit shouty, presentational style. If coronavirus gets more serious and highlights just how much we rely on ‘big government’ to prevent disasters, then even socialism could stop sounding quite so scary.

Of course, Sanders will have every dodgy view or indiscretion from his past dredged up, and there are a few. But then, so would any Democratic candidate. In 2004 for example Karl Rove successfully smeared John Kerry’s Vietnam war record. Kerry was then seen as the safe candidate, just like Clinton in 2016, the most experienced candidate for a generation, who lost to a reality TV star with no personal redeeming features. American doesn’t go for safe. To win, you’re always better off going with the maverick with a message.

Most Lib Dems are not instinctively sympathetic to socialists. We don’t believe in grand plans or talk of revolution and some of the tribalism of Bernie supporters is uncomfortably close to Corbynism.  But I think we should honestly look at who is best placed to oust Trump and move the world away from the abyss.

Donald Trump launched his election campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and murderers, promised to build a wall to keep them out, and is still at it, apparently considering shutting down the southern border (this is illegal but never mind) to keep coronavirus out. But I’ve recently found out that Trump is actually Mexican.

Not literally, of course, but in his style of governing. Octavio Paz, poet and authority on the Mexican identity, wrote a famous essay showing how much Mexico’s rulers still owed to the Aztec model of centralised arbitrary rule. In the 19th century, Benito Juarez and other liberal reformers tried to change this by turning Mexico into a model European republic guided by abstract laws and principles, elected by citizens, but this dream has repeatedly been disappointed. At the turn of the 20th century his successor General Porfirio Diaz had been ‘reelected’ six times. Even after a long revolution fought initially in the name of democracy, for most of the 20th century Mexico was ruled by one party, the PRI. Power was concentrated in the hands of the president who after a single six-year rule would anoint his successor.

This is the kind of endless dynasty Trump would like to build with Ivanka rumoured to be running in 2024. Ideology came second to power consolidation, as the PRI’s long rule encompassed economic nationalism, socialism, and towards the end, free market neoliberalism. Corruption was, and is, an inescapable part of rule, and some presidents particularly enriched themselves and their families. On leaving office in 1994 President Carlos Salinas’ family was found to have a vast fortune hidden in bank accounts around the world, its provenance a mystery. In the same way, Trump and his family have already profited hugely from his presidency. And while currently leaning to the far right, Trump’s views have been flexible in the past – his trade war ignores Republican free market beliefs and he’s been a supporter of gun control and abortion rights in the past.

Paz argued that Mexico is addicted to the rule of the strongman, the ‘caudillo’, who rules unrestrained by anything but his own conviction. Juarez himself, though promoter of liberty, might have become the dictator Diaz did had he not died – he was arguably laying the foundations. Pancho Villa, revolutionary hero, was often arbitrary and cruel, and at the peak of his success, so convinced of his own infallibility that he made a series of terrible decisions. Ignoring better qualified advisers he lost a series of battles against Alvaro Obregon who had learned from the battlefields of World War One that cavalry charges were a thing of the past. Much like Trump and coronavirus – we have to hope that more sensible heads will prevail. The one hope is that unlike Villa, Trump is basically a coward and will give in, as over Iran, once things starts to get a little scary.

But Trump loves these kinds of strongman rulers (Putin, Orban, Duterte), and would be one if given half a chance. The White House is already run like a court echoing the classic patrimonial style of Mexican rulers, everything revolving around the personal whims of the leader. In time his arbitrary style rule could become worse with the threat of impeachment gone. Mexico has inched towards being a more democratic republic but Trump has shown how easy it is for a wrecker only interested in power to smash up principles and norms that endured for centuries. If he studied some Mexican history he might find a lot to like.

It’s easy (and fun) to go to another country and start judging, especially when certain things aren’t run quite how you expect them to be. I have to check myself sometimes. In my head, by comparison with the daily frustrations of Mexico City, the London Underground has become a perfect transport system I know deep down that this is not the case. So I thought I’d give a couple of examples of organisational dysfunction that can’t be blamed on Mexicans.

Firstly, this week I went to watch the Democratic party debate at American Legion bar. The last one of these was not a success but mainly because the debate was incredibly dull and nobody turned up. This time, people turned up, and it was really exciting because Bernie et al united to hand it to Michael Bloomberg. I didn’t see it as they hadn’t sorted the feed out. We missed the start then watched some of it via YouTube until that broke, then I went to stand in the other room. I later overheard the organisers worry that they hadn’t sold anything from their giant table full of cute sloganed hoodies, which I hope is not a clue to the party’s main fundraising strategy (obviously it isn’t, that’s rich people). If the Iowa disaster hadn’t happened this would be less worrying.

Secondly, I’m helping someone with their English presenting skills at a large technology company. Their process is incredible – you can really see how this company became the world’s biggest search engine provider. 1. Boss, based in LA, writes a script about their education programme 2. Gives it to Mexican colleague to memorise verbatim 3. Colleague must present 91 slides for 2.5 hours without notes to grumpy Americans who don’t like being told stuff by foreigners. The script contains zingers like:

‘The problems educators face aren’t limited by geography- around the world, they are similar.’

‘Before we talk about the nuts and bolts of____ for Education, we need to understand the challenges facing the current educational environment, so we can see how ____meets these challenges.’

‘There is generally broad support for deploying tech solutions to assist in streamlining school management.’

Reminded me of Harrison Ford’s famous remark on the set of the original Star Wars: “You can write this shit George, but you can’t say it.”

The moral of the story is that people are equally incompetent everywhere (except Transport for London workers who are perfect).

As the ball floated over my head for the eighth time in the game I remembered why I hate playing left-back. I turned, off-balance, and gave chase to the Mexican winger ten years younger than me. Half falling, I followed him into the penalty area, and as he reached the six-yard box I decided enough was enough. With a desperate lunge the younger man hit the floor – but somehow I got a toe on it and corner was given. Our American goalkeeper applauded what looked like a skilful tackle but what was actually just me giving up. I voluntarily substituted myself and lay down on the sidelines.

This game was supposed to be a gentle reintroduction to football after four months out with an ankle injury. I hadn’t counted on ‘Mexicanitos vs Internationalitos’ being so competitive. In England I’ve definitely felt that football has got more serious over the years, as younger men spend more time at the gym, take fitness more seriously, and feel compelled to win at everything. It feels similar here. While just a friendly, each game I’ve played has referees and linesmen, and there’s a lot of demonstrative shouting and backslapping. The German team captain’s reaction to me turning up wearing New Balance trainers, a blue polo t-shirt and brown canvas shorts was of polite bemusement (this conformed to that rule of society that whenever you do worry about what you’re wearing no-one would have cared anyway, but as soon as you slum it a bit you’re an outcast).

Playing with other nationalities reminded me of my irrational tendency to assume that if a country isn’t good at football at national level then nobody from that country can be any good. So it was a bit of a shock to play in a team of very competent Americans and Australians. I found it difficult to accept tactical instructions from an American so what I did was shout back my own instructions. Our Aussie striker was very good but it did amuse me after the game to hear him claim that he could have taken it past three players and scored at any point, and only didn’t because he could see everyone was enjoying playing in a close game.

In midweek 7-a-side games I’ve encountered my two pet peeves of football, the petulant Latino frontman and the English tryhard. The former I played up front with in a sort of mobile attacking trio, which started well but got tense as our fragile lead was overturned. After scoring the opening goal and playing him and others in with some nice touches I got tired and then fell into that trap of trying to please/ self-justify to the perenially disgruntled. It made me think it must be awful to be a professional striker when you’re not performing, like Fernando Torres at Chelsea. As I missed a few chances and some touches went astray I could feel his dissatisfaction eat into my enjoyment. I got a good goal at the end to remedy things a bit.

The second type, the tryhard, you’ll find everywhere in the English five-a-side world. Usually not terribly talented, these lads make up for this by harrying and pressing as if their lives depended on it. I’m not sure why but I find them so stupendously irritating, maybe I just can’t understand them. Bizarrely, many of them are ginger, as is this one (he’s also English and he’s doing zip all to soften our international reputation as untechnical cloggers who run around a lot). Biding my time, I gave him a cheeky kick during the second half, immediately holding my hands up to apologise. Towards the end I glid past him on a mazy run which is probably a better way of handling things.

I’ve been reading Susan Cain’s Quiet which is both a defence and celebration of introversion. I especially liked how it catalogues the ways introverts like me learn get by in an extrovert’s world. It made me think about why it’s so good to have an introverted personality when you’re a foreigner living in Mexico.

Learning to speak Spanish is a challenge for an introvert. On the first day of my CELTA English teaching course our tutor made the obvious but slightly crushing point that extroverts learn languages more quickly, being more disposed to dive in to achieve immersion in the new language. An introvert can overcome this by making social commitments their future self can’t break or entering high-incentive situations like getting the cheapest wine available in the local convenience store. But while learning Spanish requires an inner resolve that has to be drawn upon in every situation where the fight or flight instinct occurs, introverts have many overriding advantages when it comes to language learning.

I remember volunteering in Peru with a young English guy called Phil. He had milky-white skin so wore a bucket hat all day and looked at the floor. As John, a laddish scouser on a mid-life career break put it, he was “painfully shy” with “no confidence whatever”. What Phil did have was quiet persistence and watchfulness. I observed him try out the new Spanish he learned on local people whenever he could, even when the interactions were objectively stilted and awkward. He studied alone every night to improve further. He ended up living in the same Peruvian town, whose relief project most of us passed in and out of within a few weeks, for a year, and I reckon he’d have become fluent in that time. He also had the courage of his convictions, insisting in the face of general scorn that Sgt Peppers is the best Beatles album, which while nonsense did him credit in its contrariness. Incidentally I met up with John six months later and he was still obsessed with Phil’s shyness – some extroverts can’t let it go.

The other advantage expat introverts have is our ability to survive on our own internal resources. This means being able to live in a big city without knowing many people but getting sustenance from incidental encounters, a few close relationships, and the surrounding stimuli which a new city constantly provides. It’s common to exchange civilities with strangers or low-key banter at general shared spaces like supermarkets. I had a nice moment yesterday with a woman in 7-Eleven regarding the new plastic bag ban and it’s customary when leaving a restaurant to wish the remaining diners a ‘Buen Provecho’. These encounters can be very nourishing when you don’t have such a high need for social interactions – it can be enough just to be recognised as a fellow human being now and again before retreating into wallflowerdom.

Introverts also tend to be better at noticing the world around us which is useful and enriching when living somewhere unfamiliar. I’ll spare you more reflection on the amazing wonders of this wonderful city experienced by my sensitive soul, instead I’ll restrict my amazement of the total lack of noticing that so many people in foreign surrounds seem to do. Of course, these more extroverted muchachos may be throwing themselves into all sorts of rewarding social situations of which I’ll only see a fraction. And their ability to cruise down a street past thousands of years of history without blinking an eye is admirable. I suspect the introvert’s advantage here is that for the gregarious there is always the temptation of subsisting on fellow expat society whereas if you’re interacting mainly with your eyes, ears and brain it’s harder to ignore the foreignness of your environment and all that entails.

This isn’t to say that it isn’t often difficult to live as an introvert in a generally extroverted country like Mexico. As a British introvert you stick out even more. This is a blessing in some respects as people ascribe your personal tendencies to a national character, but it also makes you even more of an alien. As any introvert will know, being told to “just get stuck in” is infuriating. Recently a man in a bar explained to me that communication transcends language (fair enough). He also proudly told me about the famous time his father, a man who spoke no English, ordered scrambled eggs and jam on toast in an American diner by grabbing his balls. This non-sequitur was all in the name of unsolicited advice to help me make my teaching approach more Mexican-friendly. But while largely a moron the man in the bar was correct in assuming that Mexicans do tend to have higher expectations of high-energy extroversion from their teachers which can be difficult to meet.

In what other ways is introversion a useful trait for living overseas? I’d like to hear from you if you can think of any. Next time: how JK Rowling’s English teaching in Portugal informed her depiction of education.

I spent 3 weeks travelling through the south of Mexico into the nearest parts of Central America. Here’s what I ate:

Not just this! Oaxaca in the south is known for its rich cuisine. Mole negro is a chocolatey-nutty sauce that takes days to make and is considered a delicacy. It is often served with meat. I first tried this at the Teotihuacan ruins just outside Mexico City and gave up after two mouthfuls. Tepid, bitter, borderline nauseating. The version I tried in Oaxaca was as part of a gourment tamale (more on those later), this was more palatable. Another Oaxaca specialty is the tlayuda, a large tortilla disc covered with various toppings like a pizza. I ate this in an indoor market where they were showing Star Wars: The Force Awakens and I found Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher’s parenting struggles more diverting than the bland crunch in front of me. Mexican food has to try really hard to be tasteless but they managed it with the tlayuda.

Things improved! In Puerto Escondido I had my first michelada made with salsa ingles (Lea and Perrins Worcester Sauce). These are pimped-up beers, always with salt and lime and then a variety of extras. In Mexico City they tend to be fruity, sometimes with embellishments like gummi bears. Further south it’s more about the salty tang. Micheladas are refreshing and moreish, perfect in tropical weather. (Incidentally I’m told El Salvador has the highest global per capita consumption of Worcester sauce).

Moving into Guatemala where I found the food to be often disappointingly bland compared with Mexico but not without its diversions. I had a good food experience on the Mexico/ Guatemala border following a harrowing 6-7 minutes when after confidently walking into Guatemala we realised our bus had disappeared and men offering favourable exchange rates shoved money in our faces. Bus located I had a lovely tamale, which are warm slabs of dumpling filled with a piece of chicken, cooked in a maize leaf and served with sauce in a plastic bag.

Guatemala’s cuisine is notably different from its neighbours in a few ways. There’s a much bigger pasta culture there and I saw the odd takeaway lasagne place, while pollo y papas (chicken and chips) is widely available and a cut above your Morleys usual. There’s a big Chinese community so I had one passable curry in Guatemala City. Coffee is as expected generally really great and better than Mexico. Although I did once wait 15 minutes for a black instant coffee served with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Livingston is on the northern Caribbean coast of Guatemala and only accessible by water. The Garifuna community live here – pretty much all of Guatemala’s 8,000 strong black population – as well as people of Mayan heritage fleeing 20th century government persecution. Its culinary showpiece is the tapado, a seafood soup made with coconut milk and filled with plantain (see image above). As a seafood sceptic I couldn’t manage a whole one of these but plantain in a soup is recommended, plantain with anything to be honest.

Finally El Salvador where the pupusa rules all. I’d describe it as a warmed up savoury version of those circular syrup pancakes Sainsbury sell in packs of eight, but much fresher and with infinite fillings. You can’t beat getting a warm pupusa at a border crossing while men wave dollars in your face. Even better, I then got to sample the full works of a Salvadoran New Years: chicharrons (pork canapes) and tortillas by the pool in the day, followed by a 5pm lunch of calamari rice and salad, then an evening of beach, then nap, then drinking until midnight when everyone toasts the new year. At this point everyone sits down for a barbequed meat feast followed by tequila and Latin pop. This definitely beat a battered sausage down Romford High St at 3am.

The holiday period still wasn’t over when I returned to Mexico City, as on January 6th Mexicans celebrate ‘El dia de los Reyes Magos’. In the preceding days everyone is busy buying toys for their children and a huge ‘Rosca de Reyes’, a special celebratory cake. Madly one supermarket seemed to actually stop selling bread to make room for these. Each contains one small plastic Jesus. The person whose piece contains this then has to cook for their friends on Candlemas on 2 February. I got a mini rosca, pictured, and it was delicious, the best bit the candied peel topping.

Most people go abroad to experience something different, so we´re disconcerted to find the distance of oceans changing very little. Teaching corporate English in Mexico particularly highlights this. I´ve been surprised to find that corporate culture has given certain workplace practices and ideas a global freedom of movement most workers can only dream of.

In a pharmaceutical company lesson I instigated a discussion on what to do when you don’t know the answer to the something. Students generally agreed that it’s never a good idea to admit total ignorance and that one should smooth over the absence with some patter and maintain the impression of competence (I reckon this blagging culture is a key British export). Another is the idea of ‘story of self’, which is pretty pervasive these days across business and politics, dictating that a presentation of quarterly sales figures will be far more effective when hung around some personal experience. This prompted glowing accounts from my students of a soft drinks executive who had won over her international audience through a comedic but touching account of a hangover.

Admittedly not all ideas are universally accepted. The concept of the balanced team met with a bit of resistance. Although I elicited agreement from most of my class for the idea that different personality types make for a more effective team, one student, an accountant, wasn’t having any of it and insisted that the best teams would include only people like her.

These ideas get disseminated via an effective global curriculum meaning one set of people, in Mexico and presumably all over the world, are imbibing a set of dare I say it ‘neoliberal’ ideas. These include concepts of the flexible self, the importance of impression over substance and so on, in an environment that is often uncritical (not the organisation per se, but the key ideas, which either pass unquestioned through practice or formal training which rarely allows for critique of the core ideas).

Mexicans working in global corporate roles are more likely to be privately educated, drive cars and avoid public transport. Ten minutes from Polanco where many of them work, is Tacubaya, where hundred vendors and hawkers in the informal sector live out a more physically grounded existence selling food, clothes, phone cases, pretty similar to vendors in Walthamstow Market. It made me wonder what learnings Tacubayans might share over breakfast telecons with their counterparts in North London, assuming they´re not at capacity.

As a teenager on a French volunteer camp one summer I befriended an American named Andrew. He impressed me with a story of how as a member of the Arizona state college cross-country team he would rise daily before 5am to jog across the desert. This inspired me to do the same after a summer of inactivity and self-abuse in which tennis with friends used to mean a beer at the bar even before the allotted hour had run out. The sweaty choking fiasco which inevitably followed my attempt to recreate Andrew’s heroics will be familiar to most people who’ve tried to get back in shape. Thankfully I’d never experienced anything like that since – until I came to Mexico City.

For various reasons Mexico City is a terrible place to go running but the main one is that it is 2,200 metres above sea level. At first the altitude makes even basic trips to the shops tiring and I sometimes emerge from the shower gasping for breath. Handily I was recovering from an ankle injury when I got here meaning I had to jog incredibly slowly anyway. But as time has gone on and I’ve got more confident the dreaded band round the lungs re-appeared. A student of mine who worked in Panama for a while tells me that the short term euphoria of running when back at sea level will make this all worth it, even if I’m back to square one when back in the city.

Additionally the city is one of the most polluted in the world. The quantity of emissions is made worse by the city being surrounded by mountains which creates a giant basin where the air can quickly become stagnant. In London I used to occasionally look at those coloured maps that show you the parts, like City Road, where never to run – I don’t dare here. I suspect it’s all red. There’s a lovely park, Chapultepec, but getting there is a journey in itself. All this for some endorphins!

Smooth running is also hampered by the user-unfriendliness of traffic and general road layout. One of my first attempts, to get to what looked on the ma like a pleasant green space about 2km away, resulted in a trek over a massive bypass and then a convoluted pedestrian bridge. Once I made it there the park was underwhelming and the only other jogger I saw was a huge rat. Even the simplest A-B run will at some point have you waiting impatiently, unable to cross the road while 500 cars to go past (I can’t do that run-on-the-spot thing at lights).

Despite all this I’ve managed to make it work following the general rule of Mexico City: keep it simple. Pick a destination that’s half the distance you want to run, down a single road. Run there, and run back, slowly. I live in a decent area called Navarte where even the quieter residential blocks have shops, small restaurants, markets and other services integrated within them, so there’s always something to see. The city’s grid system is also great for developing a sense of mastery, as you’ll cross long roads that you passed on different days in a different neighbourhood, promoting that sense of recognition and connectedness. And as you approach other pedestrians from a distance many will make great efforts to clear the path for your benefit with a smile – even on a quick jog the Mexican spirit of brotherliness is evident.

In a feature I definitely didn’t steal from a popular Channel 4 sitcom here are my reflections on what the Aztec civilisation has to teach the modern businessperson.

1. There’s no I in team (but there are two in sacrifice) The Aztecs recognised that sometimes individual sacrifice is essential for the healthy functioning of the unit. In their case this was of course literally, in the many people whose hearts were ripped out by high priests in honour of the sun god Tonatiuh. In your case this might be to make a few staff redundant at the end of the financial year. Either way the same principle applies- keep your underlings motivated and fearful.

2. Remember and cherish the hard times If your startup is still operating out of a Starbucks sofa then think of the Aztecs’ long path to success. Driven from their homeland in the north they wandered for 200 years before being permitted to settle in the Valley of Mexico by ruling regional tribes. They lived off lizards and snakes but it was alright. In 1323 they then sacrificed the local chief’s daughter who had just married into their tribe, which while well-intended (sacrifice would turn the princess into a goddess) didn’t go down very well with her father Achicometl who threw them back out into exile. But the Aztecs bounced back fuelled by the self-help philosophy of the war god Huitzilipochtli and through military skills and alliance-building were soon running the Valley of Mexico. This unshakeable faith in ones own destiny and ability to deal with adversity is essential to success in the modern business world.

3. Limitations are opportunities The Aztecs built Tenochtitlan on a huge lake, Texcoco. It was great for defence as you could only reach the city via narrow paths but didn’t carry huge agricultural promise. The Aztecs got round this through an innovation called ‘chinampa’, building mini fields from soil from the bottom of the lake, which were handily fertilised by water from the lake. These produced three harvests a year to feed a city of 200,000. Think about how this principle could be applied to your digital marketing strategy.

4. Develop a ‘work now play later’ culture When an Aztec man reached 52 it was considered that he had done his bit. He was free to drink, laze around, and generally digrace himself. By contrast the children of commoners were set to work from the age of 5, men married by 20, and a lot of early life was a serious business, with drunkenness and tomfoolery sometimes punishable by death. Build a culture that ensures your workforce is fully focussed on the job with zero distractions, encouraged by the threat of harsh penalties for extra-curricular enjoyment and the prospect of early retirement.

5. Useful products and services are an inefficient route to income generation The simplest rule really but it bears repeating. Why go to the trouble of producing goods and services when you can simply get somebody else to pay you for existing? When the Aztecs defeated rival city-states in battle they didn’t wipe them out but demanded regular tribute, which over time made them extremely rich. Have you considered switching focus to a buy-to-let operation? Of course, this carries the risk that some point people paying you tribute (sorry rent) will hate you so much the prospect of paying someone, anyone and anything else will appeal – see below.

6. Beware of exposure to global markets When the Aztecs allowed the Spanish conquistadors to advance on Tenochtitlan and welcomed them as guests the spirit of openness was admirable but fatal. Exposed to foreign markers their technology (Stone-Aged obsidian weapons) looked backward and suddenly, being an aggressive regional power feared by all became a huge Achilles heel when all their local rivals saw an opportunity to turn the tables on their rulers. If you do manage to build a business empire, remember there’s always a bigger nastier fish out there waiting to gobble you up. This is a good reason to lobby for a protectionist trade policy to safeguard your regional monopoly.

If you don’t know the story of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico you should look it up now, as it’s one of the most exciting, significant and tragic events in human history. This month was the 500th anniversary of the first meeting between lead conquistador Hernan Cortes and Moctezuma, emperor of the Aztec empire. It led to a violent conflict in which a small Spanish invading force, helped by its exploitation of local rivalries and the inadvertent introduction of smallpox, dominated the indigenous millions and created New Spain. As I say, look it up.

The Mexican president Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador, used the 500th anniversary to demand an apology from the Spanish for the invasion. As he put it: “It wasn’t just about the encounter of two cultures. It was an invasion. Thousands of people were murdered during that period. One culture, one civilization, was imposed upon another to the point that the temples — the Catholic churches were built on top of the ancient pre-Hispanic temples.” This didn’t go down very well in Spain ahead of its latest general election.

All the main Spanish parties took offence at the demand, except the left-wing group Podemos who welcomed it. My favourite response was from Pablo Casada the leader of the conservative Popular Party who said Spain should be proud of its contribution to “the discovery of other people,” as if the Aztecs, Maya and all the other civilisations in this part of the world spent centuries just sitting around waiting to be noticed.

I’m yet to meet a Mexican who really agrees with the need for an apology, even those who are both supporters of AMLO and recognise that a lot about the Conquest was regrettable (as well as the initial violence the lengths the Spanish went to erase indigenous cultures and replace with their own are pretty shocking). Also, Mexicans quite like the Spanish and recognise their own mixed-heritage. They find the idea a bit silly and gestural. The sceptics reflexively put it in the category of latest clownish AMLO manoeuvre to distract from bigger problems at home.

It’s not possible to forget the Aztecs in Mexico City, where Cuauhtémoc (the name of the last Aztec emperor) is a key north-south road, the city centre Zocalo is the same one as Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, and street performers of dubious accuracy trade on the rituals and dress of their ancestors. Mexico did such a good idea of making its national identity a fusion of European and Mesoamerican heritage that for many turning one aspect of this against another just causes bemusement, at least from those people I asked about this. If you have a surname like Sanchez and Villa perhaps it’s easier to shrug off the past.

Demands for Mexico to make peace with its own indigenous communities and address the inequalities in Mexican society seem to be more coherent and worthwhile. AMLO has promised to make a similar apology in due course. However, the backlash against his vow to discriminate in favour of those communities -‘AMLO racist’ was trending on Twitter immediately after- suggests to me that more meaningful change will be hugely challenging.