“Spain needs to open the way to the future”

The director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero thanked “very much” the words of the King Felipe VIwhich last Monday acknowledged that there was “a lot of abuse” during the Conquest despite the Laws of the Indies adopted by the Catholic Monarchs to protect the indigenous population and admitted that those behaviors seen from the current perspective and values ​​are not something to feel “proud of.”

“I greatly appreciate the King’s words and consider them an act of patriotism.. Because Spain as an international reference, as a bridge between Europe and Latin America, needs to open the way to the future and that means becoming aware of what history is,” García Montero assured in statements to Europa Press.

The monarch made this reflection during his visit to ‘Half of the World. Women in indigenous Mexico at the National Archaeological Museum (MAN) accompanied by the Mexican ambassador in Madrid, Quirino Ordaz. This exhibition, which brings together 435 pieces donated by the Government of Claudia Sheinbaum, is divided into four Madrid venues: the House of Mexico in Spain, the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, the National Archaeological Museum (MAN), and the Cervantes Institute, home of García Montero.

This was the first time that the King had spoken on this issue, despite the repeated appeals that the previous Mexican president had been making to him in recent years. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, so that there was an apology from the Crown for the “wrongs” committed during the Conquest.

In fact, the lack of response to the letter that the president sent to Felipe VI in March 2019 in this regard was the reason given by the current president for not inviting the King to his inauguration in October 2024, despite the fact that he is the one who traditionally attends these types of events on behalf of Spain.

There are things that when studied and looked at with “our criteria today, with our values, obviously they cannot make us feel proud“, commented the King during the visit, according to the images disseminated by Zarzuela on social networks, “but you have to know them.”

However, it must be done, as he advocated, “in its proper context, not with excessive moral presentism, but with an objective and rigorous analysis” and we must also “draw lessons” from the “moral and ethical controversies“ about how power was exercised “from day one.”

After these words, García Montero explained that “to become aware of what History is”, we must know everything important that has been achieved, all the “shared history that has been set in motion”.

“And also recognize that human beings in the 15th and 16th centuries did not have the values ​​that we have today,” added the director of Cervantes, who specified that “the patriotic commitment is for the future“, thanking that Felipe VI is “taking that path.”