Those terrible Spaniards and their conquests

Down in Mexico, the new “Presidenta,” as she likes to be called, is off to a confusing start, as a friend told me this weekend. The country is dealing with a massive crime wave including a mayor being decapitated. Yes, I mean that his head was cut off. The poor man had been on the job for five days. There is a new man on the job.

So what is the new “presidenta” focused on these days? Well, “la presidenta” is continuing her predecessor’s fight with Spain over an apology for crimes committed centuries ago. Let’s check this from our friend Allan Wall:

In 2020, then-President AMLO changed the name of the celebration in Mexico to Día de la Nación Pluricultural, Day of the Multicultural Nation.On October 12th, 2024, on her Twitter X account, President Claudia Sheinbaum posted this (my translation throughout): “The 12th of October is neither the Día de la Raza nor the Día de la Hispanidad. Christopher Columbus discovered America for the Europeans, but in our continent (Western Hemisphere) and particularly in what we now call Mexico, there were already great civilizations and cultures of which we females feel proud and we males feel proud [it’s awkward in Spanish too]. The arrival of the Spaniards more than five centuries ago represented subjection and even elimination of the original peoples. To offer apologies for the crimes committed is not shameful, on the contrary, it makes peoples greater and brings them nearer.”

Well, no one denies that mistakes were made in the colonization of Mexico. Colonizing usually doesn’t happen after a referendum or plebiscite. It’s usually done by force and it’s not pretty. Yes, the Spanish were often brutal, but that’s history, ugly and uglier. At the same, it’s not as if Moctezuma’s police read your Miranda rights or his opposition had their own newspapers.

Of course, what does what happened 400 years ago have to with today? A lot, according to “la presidenta” who can’t resist showing her devotion to the former president on a daily basis.

So the murders are tearing up Mexican society. Small-town politicians are learning the hard way that criminal elements will decapitate you if you refuse to play. Nevertheless, “la presidenta” is on a mission to get Spain to apologize for what those terrible conquistadores did years ago.

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