It's been a while since I last identified as a left-wing Galician nationalist. I've discovered the liberal authors, such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Szasz, and have become a less collectivist person. Yet my aversion for authoritative states hasn't changed; just channel it differently. So, I'm not very excited about the 12th of October. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, I still am—and am perceived—as a Spanish man. So, on a day like today, I feel like standing up for Spain.
In spite of the black legend of the Spanish empire, the truth is that the American nations—Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and English-speaking—are much more responsible for the Amerindian genocide than Spain, whose Catholic missionaries didn't wipe out the natives but rather baptised and taught them how to read (in Castilian Spanish, of course). I won't deny that Spaniards played a highly complex chess game, by allying with some indigenous nations under Aztec, Mayan and Inca rule, in order to bring those empires down; or that a lot of people died when getting infected by European diseases. However, making us, present-day Spaniards, bear the karma of the native American genocide is racist.
Needless to say, the history of the United States, where the bulk of the population is either white or black (at least, before 1892), is the record of the building of a new country at the expense of the native Americans' lands (e.g. Trail of Tears, 1831-50). But the history of some Latin American nations is no different. I find it equally necessary to denounce the human rights violations carried out by the Latin American republics, because there still are Amerindian peoples over there with their own languages and cultures. Those countries, often ruled by populist governments, have a very strong tendency to divert attention away from their own crimes by singling out Spain, a country that retreated from the Americas 300 years ago.
Among all the Latin American nations, as far as the rights of indigenous peoples are concerned, the most criminal nation has fairly been the Argentinian Republic, who're celebrating the Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (sic) today, and, nowadays, shame looms over Mexico, Chile and, very especially, Brazil.
In spite of the black legend of the Spanish empire, the truth is that the American nations—Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and English-speaking—are much more responsible for the Amerindian genocide than Spain, whose Catholic missionaries didn't wipe out the natives but rather baptised and taught them how to read (in Castilian Spanish, of course). I won't deny that Spaniards played a highly complex chess game, by allying with some indigenous nations under Aztec, Mayan and Inca rule, in order to bring those empires down; or that a lot of people died when getting infected by European diseases. However, making us, present-day Spaniards, bear the karma of the native American genocide is racist.
Needless to say, the history of the United States, where the bulk of the population is either white or black (at least, before 1892), is the record of the building of a new country at the expense of the native Americans' lands (e.g. Trail of Tears, 1831-50). But the history of some Latin American nations is no different. I find it equally necessary to denounce the human rights violations carried out by the Latin American republics, because there still are Amerindian peoples over there with their own languages and cultures. Those countries, often ruled by populist governments, have a very strong tendency to divert attention away from their own crimes by singling out Spain, a country that retreated from the Americas 300 years ago.
Among all the Latin American nations, as far as the rights of indigenous peoples are concerned, the most criminal nation has fairly been the Argentinian Republic, who're celebrating the Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (sic) today, and, nowadays, shame looms over Mexico, Chile and, very especially, Brazil.
Image by Laura Hamilton from Pixabay.
