Miguel saralegui | upv professor and ikerbasque researcher
“The idea that today’s problems are due to what happened 500 years ago occurs with greater or lesser intensity throughout the territory,” says this expert.
Miguel Saralegui (Bilbao, 1982), professor at the UPV and Ikerbasque researcher, is the author of books such as ‘Machiavelli and contradiction’ or ‘Carl Schmitt Spanish thinker’. He now he has published ‘Kill the motherland. History of a Latin American passion ‘, where he through philosophical and political figures he analyzes the evolution of the Latin American republics from anti-Spanish, a feeling that must be “accepted”.
– In your essay you say that «the Spanish heritage is the original sin from which they must be cleansed without ever achieving it completely».
– Spain is a country with great symbolic importance in Latin America. It is not only due to a cultural heritage and contemporary economic relations, but to the very difficulty of these countries in achieving objectives that are proposed as liberal democracy or economic development. These problems are associated with genetics, that of the colonies, and that has lasted until today. That structure of understanding was born with the republics, in the 19th century, with Bolívar, Sarmiento… With the great creators of Latin American identity. What is the Spanish heritage changes and is considered as something that must be removed.
– What sequels has it left?
– Anti-Spanishness is a very aggressive and identity discourse where the exaggeration is enormous, with the idea that the problems of today are due to what happened 500 years ago. With greater or lesser intensity, this theory occurs in all Latin American countries. But the consequences are relatively minor. Spaniards in Latin America are not only not mistreated, but sometimes in an easy way -especially compared to indigenous minorities or the middle/lower class- they have certain advantages. It is hate speech that does not generate hateful consequences.
Acceptance
“As much as our ties unite us, we will always deal with States founded against Spain”
– A speech with which Mexico demands an apology.
– What the president of Mexico has claimed we can consider ridiculous because of the most urgent problems in that country, such as security or drug trafficking. But what López Obrador is asking for is perfectly reasonable in the sense that no Spaniard would take the constitutive aspects of the conquest, such as the domination of a people or the imposition of a religion, as something good. Why does the Spanish identity get angry with AMLO? There is a reactive nationalism that gets angry when Latin American presidents try to make a complicated historical judgment of them that does not go with the gratitude that Spanish negative nationalism expects. Pedro Sánchez could say “we are very sorry for not having been liberal democracies in the 16th century”. But Mexico’s claim would be as innocuous as Spain’s response.
– As Juan Bautista Alberdi mentions, it is about erasing “the repulsive complexion” that Spain has left its former colonies.
– Alberdi was a great political thinker and he keeps repeating that genetic idea: Latin American countries come out of the worst starting position because of this terrible heritage that must be erased. It is a genetic structure that has been maintained until today. Like when AMLO says that “we, as Mexicans, treat the Indians badly because Spain taught us to treat them badly.” It is as if your parents force you to watch television instead of studying, in the end the day you want to study you turn on the television because that is what you have been taught.
– ‘Kill the mother country’. Is that feeling promoted by political circles and thinkers or is it also in the people?
– The identity of the Latin American republics is a successful process. Every Mexican or Chilean citizen, for example, knows the four or five things that define him as a nation. There is an anti-Spanish element that is universal. But in those countries where there has been strong national immigration (Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile or Cuba) there is a very clear distinction between Spain and the Spanish. On the one hand, an abstract idea of the country as something that should be freed from and, on the other, at a popular level, there is a general feeling that is close and friendly towards Spanish tourists. There is recognition of Basque, Galician, Asturian, etc. There is Spain as something negative and the Spanish as something positive.
Mexico
“AMLO’s speech focuses more on the violence of the conquerors, that is, on the black legend”
– Has the black legend increased resentment?
– I would say not. There is that of northern Europe – that of the Inquisition – but in Latin America there is a black legend of its own, especially in the 19th century, which has to do with the idea that Spain prevents the development of liberal democracy and capitalism, and that brings the economic delay. López Obrador’s speech is much more focused on the violence of the conquerors, that is, on the black legend.
forgetting is a utopia
– Is this hatred of Spain, 500 years later, justified?
– Hyperboles are always unjustified. It is a great exaggeration, but at the same time as Spaniards we have to be aware that this is the national exaggeration on which Latin America is built. In addition, it could be said that the Latin American countries with the least anti-Spanishness are the ones that progress the most”, such as Chile, Uruguay or Argentina.
– Should the King apologize?
– Forgiveness can only be requested by the person who inflicts an offense on the person who has inflicted it while both are alive. Although more than the King, it would be the institution. It would be interesting for us Spaniards, as a people, to reflect on what seems good to us and what seems bad to us. But what doesn’t seem right to me as a mature people is not saying anything. I’m surprised we’re so angry, I didn’t know we were so proud. Spanish nationalism is very cautious, reactive and defensive.
– In the book you say that “the ties between Spain and Spanish America are not the ties of a happy family, but the desire to reconcile a broken family.” How could they reach a reconciliation today?
– Like any family, you have to forget the insults and start from scratch. What is clear is that it has not served to say ‘nothing has happened here’. The speech of “no, the war was 500 years ago, here we love each other very much.” That strategy of ‘many years ago’ has not served to strengthen state ties -because with personal ones there is no problem-. You have to be able to forget, but that’s a utopia. As much as we have ties, we will always deal with countries founded against Spain. Don’t have that expectation that this is a family that’s going to come together easily. You have to accept that one of your children reproaches you more than the others.
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