Spain’s King Felipe VI spoke publicly about Spain’s colonial past during a visit to the Archaeological Museum of Madrid in mid-March, in what was seen as a landmark moment of recognition from Spain’s royal family.
The King attended an exhibition titled “Half the World: Mexico’s Indigenous Women” held at the museum together with Mexico’s Ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz Coppel.
During his visit, the king acknowledged the “abuses” and “ethical controversies” that arose during Spain’s conquest of the Aztec Empire (now Mexico) in the 1500s and subsequent colonization of much of the Americas.
It has since remained a powerful debate cutting across political divides in both Spain and the United States. Some argue that Spain’s conquest of the region was a civilizing mission, while others point out how it led to the deaths of as many as 80 to 90 percent of Central and South America’s indigenous people. It occurred directly through Spanish wars of conquest, or through enslavement and disease spread by Europeans.
If accurate, this would represent the largest single event of human death ever recorded, proportional to the world’s population at the time, and second only to the death toll of World War II in absolute terms.
The Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in the world at the time of its conquest of the Americas, and continued to rule much of the region for the next three centuries and was a great source of wealth and prestige for the monarchy.
reopen old wounds
This history of colonialism has caused tensions between Spain and Mexico, especially in recent years, with the Mexican government repeatedly demanding a formal apology from Spain.
In 2019, then-Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent a letter to the Spanish king and pope urging them to officially and publicly acknowledge the historical abuses committed during the conquest. But no such apology was issued. Instead, the Spanish government stated that events that occurred 500 years ago “cannot be judged in the light of modern thought.”
In response, Mexico’s current president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, decided not to invite King Felipe to the 2024 inauguration ceremony, citing the Spanish monarchy’s failure to issue an official apology. The Spanish government was outraged by this, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the act as “unacceptable.”
Spain has since worked to rectify this problem and is now receiving some recognition for its imperial past.
Late last year, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares publicly acknowledged the “suffering and injustice” experienced by Mexico’s indigenous people while visiting the same exhibition in Madrid.
“Like all human history, the history shared between Spain and Mexico has its lights and shadows,” Albares said. “There was an injustice, and it is right to acknowledge it and regret it. It is part of our shared history, and we cannot deny it or forget it.”
This line was echoed in King Felipe’s visit earlier this month, a rare recognition from the royal family.
The king insisted past monarchs had acted with “protective intent”, but acknowledged this may not have been achieved “as intended” and that there were “quite a few abuses”.
The King acknowledged that “when viewed through the lens of modern values, there are aspects of our past that we cannot be proud of.”
However, he said, “It is important to evaluate events in historical context using objective and rigorous analysis rather than excessive moral presentism.”
Is it too little, too late?
It is not yet known how far these statements will go in repairing relations between Spain and Mexico.
Mexico welcomed the comments by King Felipe and Minister Álvarez, and Sheinbaum acknowledged the king’s “gesture of reconciliation.” She previously congratulated Albares on what she described as “this first step.”
“Forgiveness uplifts a nation,” Sheinbaum previously said. “Rather, it is not humiliating. Acknowledging history, acknowledging grievances, asking for forgiveness or expressing regret, and accepting it as part of history improves government.”
Nonetheless, Felipe’s statement still falls short of a formal apology for Spain’s actions in its imperial past. “It’s not everything we wanted, but it goes one step further,” Sheinbaum said of the king’s speech.
The Mexican president added, “You can say that this is not everything we wanted, but it is a gesture of reconciliation by the King in relation to what we have been talking about, which is an acknowledgment of the excesses and obliteration that took place during the Spanish arrival.”
“That alone is not enough,” said Humberto Beck, a historian at the University of Colegio de México, arguing that it would be seen as merely a “substitute for an official apology.”
He told the newspaper: “Making relations between the two countries conditional on this apology was a mistake on the part of the Mexican government that addressed a deeper problem, one that hindered the ongoing process of reflection, remembrance and recognition.” nation.
wider pattern
Spain’s avoidance of an apology largely reflects how most countries have behaved when faced with similar demands.
In Britain, for example, earlier this month, dozens of British lawmakers similarly demanded a formal apology from the government for its involvement in the past occupation of Palestine from 1918 to 1948.
The UK Owes Palestine campaign group previously submitted a 400-page petition demanding an apology for alleged war crimes committed by Britain at the time. Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, the first Palestinian member of parliament in the UK, said:
“The consequences of these actions have fundamentally shaped the conflict we see today, yet successive governments have refused to acknowledge this record or issue a formal apology. If the UK is serious about promoting peace in Gaza today, it must start by confronting its historical role, recognizing the harm caused and taking meaningful responsibility for it.”
The British government has yet to issue any apology and the Foreign Office said it does not regularly comment on such petitions.
Countries such as Australia have held annual ‘National Days of Regret’ to acknowledge mistreatment of indigenous people since 1998, but such events are relatively rare.
According to Boston University professor Thomas Berger, such apologies are usually made only if the state feels it is necessary to do so. Failure to do so may result in greater political backlash.
“Apologies are not cheap,” he argued. “It means not simply telling a leader to say ‘I’m sorry,’ but a set of policies that include compensation, education policies, commemorative policies, and ways to remember the past through museums and cultural sites, holidays and events.”
In general, such apologies tend to be made only when there are significant moves within the country itself to demand it, as in the case of Australia’s indigenous peoples, or when it is important for the country to re-establish normal working relationships with the other countries involved.
Berger added that this was the case in Germany after World War II, which “was under great pressure economically, politically and geopolitically to be sensitive to the views of the victims, especially in democracies such as France, the Netherlands, Italy and Israel.”
The same was true in 2008 when Italy apologized to Libya and was in the process of concluding key agreements on trade and migration with the Gaddafi regime.
Britain extended an apology to Ireland for the famine that occurred ahead of the Good Friday Agreement, but ignored South Africa’s request for a similar apology.
A controversial legacy.
Most governments are willing to simply issue a statement of sadness or regret rather than an outright apology to avoid further questions about issues such as reparations or political backlash.
The mixed reactions to the King of Spain’s remarks provide an example. While some on the left welcomed the king’s comments (Inclusion Minister Elma Saiz Delgado supported his words), some on the right expressed anger, especially at those who continue to defend Spain’s colonial legacy.
“It is crazy to investigate in the 21st century what happened in the 15th century,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative People’s Party (PP).
He went on to add that Spaniards should be proud of their history, highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of the empire.
“The arrival of the Spanish in America gave rise to an extraordinary linguistic and cultural community. All of Spain’s actions during the conquest can be compared with all other actions of other empires of that period.”
The far-right party VOX has taken the lead in defending Spain’s actions, hailing the Spanish conquest as “the greatest task of evangelization and civilization in world history.”
Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch expressed surprise that the king had sided with “those who seek to undermine and discredit Spanish history”.
This was emphasized by British historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto, professor at the University of Notre Dame.
“I am glad to see that the king has not apologized firmly and clearly,” Fernández-Armesto said. EU report.
“There is no point in apologizing for matters that are beyond one’s responsibility. When a pope or a politician apologizes, you can be sure that they are hiding their own mistakes. The King said that moral judgments about the past should be free from presentism. That is true, and people of the past should not be accused of being themselves or conforming to the standards of the times.”
“There has never been a politics without abuses. The Spaniards and Spain as a whole have good reason to be proud of the era when most of the Americas formed part of the Spanish monarchy,” the scholar added.
“I have not heard Madame Sheinbaum apologize for the genocide of indigenous people in modern independent Mexico. The whole enterprise of a global monarchy like Spain’s has been scarred by its failure. It is a problem to be regretted, but not a problem to be corrected. You can apologize, but you cannot apologize.”
Featured Image: The King closed the 10th Ibero-American Journalism Conference.
Source: Casa de América via Flickr
Creative Commons License
This article was originally published by Daniel Goldstraw in EU Reports and is republished with permission.
