{"id":540333,"date":"2025-10-31T18:06:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/540333\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T18:06:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:06:14","slug":"spain-acknowledges-the-injustice-and-pain-of-colonization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/540333\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain Acknowledges the \u2018Injustice and Pain\u2019 of Colonization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn Friday, Spanish foreign minister Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares inaugurated a sprawling exhibition titled \u201cHalf the World: Women in Indigenous Mexico<\/a>,\u201d with more than 400 works on loan from the Mexican government.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt a press conference at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, one of the exhibition\u2019s four venues, Albares said that the history between Spain<\/a> and its former colony Mexico \u201clike all human history, has its light and dark sides,\u201d according to a report<\/a> in El Pa\u00eds.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cThere has been pain and injustice toward the indigenous peoples. There was injustice, and it is only right to acknowledge and lament it. That is part of our shared history; we cannot deny or forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"BARCELONA,<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Albares, speaking on behalf of Spain, stopped short of offering a full apology for Spain\u2019s three-century colonization of Mexico. That has been a point of contention in the two country\u2019s relations since 2019, when former Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador wrote a letter<\/a> to Felipe VI, the King of Spain, and Pope Francis demanding an apology for Spain and the Catholic Church\u2019s role in the conquest of the Americas, as well as asking for forgiveness. At the time, Spain rejected the idea of an apology.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about the encounter of two cultures,\u201d L\u00f3pez Obrador said at the time, according to the New York Times. \u201cIt 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 \u2014 the Catholic churches were built on top of the ancient pre-Hispanic temples.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt a press conference earlier this week, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that Mexico\u2019s diplomatic relations with Spain had not broken down since the 2019, as has been reported by some media. \u201cNo relationship has been broken,\u201d she said, according<\/a> to the Diplomat in Spain, citing \u201ceconomic relations, political relations, tourism relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSheinbaum, who excluded Felipe VI from the guest list of her inauguration last year for failing to reply to the letter, called her predecessor\u2019s missive \u201cvery diplomatic\u201d and said that it was \u201canswered in an undiplomatic manner,\u201d adding, \u201cWe never agreed with the way they responded, and furthermore, we agree with the letter that President L\u00f3pez Obrador sent, and we are still awaiting this response.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this month, Sheinbaum wrote a letter commending the \u201cHalf the World\u201d exhibition, which is also being exhibited at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Casa de M\u00e9xico in Spain, and the National Archaeological Museum. In it, she said, \u201cThe conquest was a brutal process of violence, imposition, and dispossession. The aim was to destroy not only territories, but entire cultures, ancient knowledge, languages, and ways of life. Indigenous women suffered especially from this onslaught: they were silenced, displaced, and subjected to violence. Nevertheless, they resisted. [\u2026] Honoring this legacy means acknowledging the abuses of the past and the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the press conference on Friday, Cervantes Institute director Luis Garc\u00eda Montero said, \u201cThe involvement of both governments is proof of the efforts of two countries committed to culture and to what they do for mutual recognition. Diplomacy is conducted through words, memory, and shared expression.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, Spanish foreign minister Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares inaugurated a sprawling exhibition titled \u201cHalf the World: Women in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,2132,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-540333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-mexico","11":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115470112245421085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}