Should Spain apologise for colonisation crimes?
Source: Alexander Schimmeck en Unsplash
Spain hits back at Mexico in row over colonial rights abuses
Madrid ‘completely rejects’ Mexican president’s demand for apology for crimes against indigenous people
A diplomatic row has broken out between Mexico and Spain after the Mexican president wrote to King Felipe VI demanding that he apologise for crimes committed against Mexico’s indigenous people during the conquest 500 years ago.In a video filmed at the ruins of the indigenous city of Comalcalco, in southern Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on Spain and the Vatican to recognise the rights violations committed during the conquest, led by Hernán Cortés. The video was posted on the president’s social media accounts.
“There were massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and the cross. They built their churches on top of the (indigenous) temples,” he said. “The time has come to reconcile. But let us ask forgiveness first.”
The remarks came two months after the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, made an official visit to Mexico; his government reacted angrily to López Obrador’s letter.
“The Spanish government profoundly regrets the publication of the Mexican president’s letter to his majesty the king on March 1 and completely reject its content,” a government statement read.
“The arrival of the Spanish on Mexican soil 500 years ago cannot be judged in the light of contemporary considerations. Our closely-related peoples have always known how to view our shared history without anger and from a shared perspective, as free peoples with a common heritage and an extraordinary future.”
Mexican historians were quick to react to López Obrador’s requests for apology. “It’s an instrumentalisation of history for political purposes – like all governments do,” said Harim Gutiérrez, professor at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City.
“He [López Obrador] says it’s an attempt at …achieving ‘a general agreement’ based on forgiveness, which is consistent with his policies of ‘peace and love’,” Gutiérrez added.
“The governments of independent Mexico have had all this time to try to overcome the wrongs of Spanish domination and, currently, in Mexico, the legacy of Spanish domination doesn’t explain all our difficulties.”
López Obrador took office on 1 December vowing to be a champion of Mexico’s poor and indigenous people. Unlike millions of mixed-race Mexicans – mestizos – the president is almost entirely of Spanish descent, with grandparents emigrating from Asturias and Cantabria in northern Spain.
Cortés led a small squadron of soldiers – equipped with horses, armed with diseases such as smallpox, and abetted by indigenous groups at odds with the Aztecs – to Mexico City (then known as Tenochtitlán) in 1519.
The Spanish sacked the city two years later and proceeded to convert the indigenous populations to Catholicism. Cortés has long occupied a controversial place in Mexican history. His indigenous mistress, La Malinche, is still seen as a traitorous figure – with her name forming the epithet malinchista, someone who prefers the foreign to the domestic.
In 2021 there are plans to mark the 500th anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlán and 200 years since Mexico gained its independence from Spain. López Obrador says there must be reconciliation first before these events can be commemorated.
Spain has shown little contrition about its colonial past. Last November, Pablo Casado, leader of the rightwing Popular party, commented that: “We didn’t colonise, what we did was to make Spain larger.”
In recent years various other countries have faced up to the crimes committed against indigenous people during colonisation.
In 2008 the Australian parliament offered a formal apology to indigenous Australians. “We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians,” the parliament said. “We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.”
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has apologised on several occasions to indigenous Canadians.
In the US, an apology to Native Americans buried in the middle of a defence appropriations spending bill in 2009 called on the then president Barack Obama “to acknowledge the wrongs of the United States against Indian tribes in order to bring healing to this land”, something that Obama never did.
In 1995, Queen Elizabeth II formally apologised for atrocities committed against the Maori Tainui tribe in New Zealand in 1865, and in 2013 the British government expressed “sincere regret” for torture and abuse committed by British colonial officers against Kenyans in the 1950s.
Pope Francis, speaking in Bolivia in 2015, asked for forgiveness “for crimes committed against native peoples during the so-called conquest of America”.
Comments
First of all, does it do some good? Does forgiveness go to Aztecas, indigenous groups or different people who lived then? Can current people forgive to English, French or Spanish people from then? Now, there are not people able to apologise, neither to forgive. So, it´s fashionable. It´s polite. Politicians (Included the Pope) use it to expand their field with new supporters. Anyway, apologizing for events of 400 years ago is useless.
However, the government of Spain weather would have apologise because there are, now, a lot of people who has not which is necessary to live. There are, at present, too many people without employment. The government of Mexico would have apologise because there are in Mexico more than one million of indigenous people that can´t live like the rest of the Mexicans. Canada and USA would have apologise for different treatment that they do to the Aborigines and the Indians now instead of before. Now it is okay but for then it is ridiculous.
Having said that, it is said that the Mexicans have laughed at their president because he thought that he is going to receive a lot of applauses with this subject and, instead it, he has received negative feedbacks. Some politicians treat the rest of citizens like cattle. Perhaps, on the contrary, politicians are cattle.
I didn´t know that La Malinche was the mistress of Hernan Cortés and that malinchismo is a tendency to favour foreign things.
See you.
I find myself agreeing with you - but only up to a point.
Apologising for past injustices does seem to be the in thing. I doubt it makes much difference, especially if the wrongs happened generations before.
Having said that, I do feel it is important for a country to face up to the dark chapters of its history. Some countries, no names mentioned, try to paint a wholly rosy picture.
First of all, does it do any good? Does forgiveness go to the Aztecas, indigenous groups or different people who lived then? Can the current generation forgive the English, French or Spanish people from then? Nobody is now able to apologise, nor forgive. So, it´s fashionable. It´s polite. Politicians (the Pope included) use it to expand their field with new supporters. Anyway, apologizing for events of 400 years ago is useless.
However, the government of Spain would have to apologise because there are now a lot of people who don't have basic needs. There are, at present, too many people without employment. The government of Mexico would have to apologise because there are more than one million indigenous people in Mexico that can´t live like the rest of the country. Canada and the USA would have to apologise to their Indigenous population for unfair treatment today, instead of before. Now it is okay but for then it is ridiculous.
Having said that, it is said that the Mexicans laughed at their president because he thought that he was going to receive a lot of applause with this subject; but instead, he has received negative press. Some politicians treat their fellow citizens like cattle. Perhaps, it is just the contrary; politicians are cattle.
I didn´t know that La Malinche was the mistress of Hernan Cortés and that malinchismo is a tendency to favour foreign things. (You learn something new every day)