Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has responded to Spain’s King Felipe VI and acknowledged the “gesture of rapprochement” he made on Tuesday during his visit to the exhibition of Indigenous women that Mexico sent to Spain last autumn. Felipe VI said on Monday that there was a great deal of “abuse” and “ethical controversies” in the colonization of the Americas by the conquistadors — the greatest concession to date from the Spanish Royal Household.
Sheinbaum welcomed the gesture, and noted that this was “unlike several years ago,” when the letter sent by then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador — requesting an apology from Spain for the abuses of that period — “wasn’t even acknowledged.” Spain’s emphatic refusal led, as Sheinbaum herself admitted during her morning press conference on Tuesday, to a “cooling of relations,” which are now beginning to thaw.
Felipe VI’s gesture of rapprochement did not come entirely as a surprise. Over the past year, the two countries have been smoothing over tensions, and Spain has made several overtures toward Mexico aimed at paving the way to repair the political relationship — the area where the rift has been most evident. Some gestures have been more subtle, such as awarding the Princess of Asturias prizes to the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide (the Arts award) and to Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology (the Concord award). Others tread more cautiously around the demand López Obrador put on the table in 2019: an explicit apology from Spain for the conquest of the Americas, an issue that moved from background rumbling to the forefront of political debate.
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares had already taken a first “step” in that direction, as the Mexican president described it at the time. Last October, Albares acknowledged the “pain and injustice” inflicted upon Indigenous peoples during that period. “There was injustice, and it is only right to acknowledge and regret it. That is part of our shared history; we cannot deny it or forget it,” he added, in what had been, until now, the most significant concession made by Spain. Albares’s message was made at the inauguration of the same exhibition that King Felipe visited on Monday.
That, broadly speaking, has been the role culture has played in recent years: bringing closer what had grown distant and acting as a bridge in a relationship that is flourishing outside of politics. In addition to the Princess of Asturias awards, the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) — the largest Spanish‑language literary event in the world, held in Mexico every December — hosted Spain and the city of Barcelona as guests of honor over the past two years, both with resounding success. Conversely, Fitur, the major tourism fair in Madrid, welcomed Mexico as its guest country at its most recent edition.
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