Homefancy clothes → Reflections on ‘Spain, the first globalization’ (José Luis López-Linares, 2021) |There is no other story that can be compared |

Reflections on ‘Spain, the first globalization’ (José Luis López-Linares, 2021) |There is no other story that can be compared |

‘There is no other story that can be compared‘.After a kind of introduction, thus the documentary "Spain, the first globalization" begins, a trip through the modern history of the Hispanic monarchy and the territories of the Empire beyond the seas.The title is so resounding that it will mark the predominant taxative character for the next 106 minutes.As an abstract, the documentary presents a legitimizing account of the Castilian presence in America throughout the more than 325 years of presence in the territory.And the date of its premiere on October 15 is not baladí since it is very close to the celebration of October 12, the Day of Hispanity.

There is no other story that can be compared (that of evil called Spanish empire), as if there is a comparative scale of great tangible and historical events that could be selected among the most important of all time.This is defended by the different personalities that occur in this historical documentary, such as writers, philosophers, doctors and professors of history.In the same way, production has the approval of the Royal Academy of History, an academic body formed by mostly and specialized men above all in the most glorious moments in the history of our country.Therefore, the conservative Think Tank has a tremendous thrust in the face of such support and thus adds more credits in its eagerness to renew the political image of recent times.

However, it is necessary to remember the recent past of this institution, which has been splashed from certain controversies.For example, the Royal Academy of History in 2011 began to agglutinate many criticisms around the publication of the Spanish biographical dictionary, in which Francisco Franco was defined as Generalissimo or Head of the State but not dictator who set up an authoritarian regime but notTotalitarian, an entrance written by the academic Luis Suarez, former high position of the Francoist administration.However, for Juan Negrín, president of the government of the Second Republic, there was a reference to a dictatorial government.It is also necessary not to forget that the RAH is chaired by Carmen Iglesias, who before being chosen the first director of the Royal Academy of History, was Tutor of Cristina de Borbón, she was a history professor of the current Felipe VI and was president of the groupEditorial Unit, editor of the newspaper El Mundo.

In relation to this, it is also necessary to remember that the Royal Academy of History itself has reaffirmed its commitment to the knowledge of the action of Spain in America, beyond falsifications, misrepresentations and interested manipulations since presentism, which values charactersHistorical with current parameters, simplifies and unfinct action in America.However, this allegation has a difficult fit with the entry that the RAH performs in its Spanish biographical dictionary when talking about Christopher Columbus: the history of Columbus has been contemplated not like that of a simple mortal, but like that of a mythological semi -joycapable of extraordinary deeds.May each one draw his conclusions.

Throughout the projection, there is a main thesis that has vehicle the viewing speech: delegitimize the negative vision of Spain, both interior and externally, especially in relation to the American continent.A priori, this argument is commendable and thus exemplifies in those moments in which the role of Mexico City as a link of the empire or the forgotten and little known role of the Philippines and their connection with China and, therefore,With the Asian market.However, in spite of this, they have been based on three fundamental aspects that detract from the end explained previously: the ultranza defense of a Spanish nationalism, the preparation of a biased and optical revisionist of the history where there are such sweetened events thatThey are clearly unreal and, finally and the most prosaic, drain the bulge out with the famous strategy of "and you more."

However, these are not the only mistakes that see the entire documentary.There is another big problem incurred by the majority of participants: there are no Spain yet.Spain does not exist and it will not exist as such until the s.XVIII and the arrival of the Bourbons to the Peninsula.The official name of the State that developed during the 15th centuries was that of Hispanic monarchy: a multiethnic political conglomerate formed by numerous very scattered territories of each other that, although they had a nerve center in the Iberian Peninsula, were independentamong themselves and had their own institutions.For example, the territories of the Western Indies (America) depended on Castile only and Aragon had neither voice nor vote in such matters.Therefore, assimilating historical concepts of some times to others (the famous presentism that the RAH so much complaint) is a stumbling block that should not commit such personalities.

Let's start with the basic issue: the negative vision of the history of Spain.I studied in Galicia and the Catholic Monarchs were the demon.Thus begins his argumentary Pedro Insúa, philosopher and collaborating writer of the online newspaper DigitalPlato.The same line shows Elvira Roca, historian and author of the controversial essay "Empire and black legend".In this work a criticism of this pessimistic vision of Spanish history is made while she analyzes some historical episodes with a few plot turns that end up misrepresenting the events.In fact, so controversial was the work that there are numerous articles and newspapers that enumerated each and every one of the mistakes made.

Reflexiones sobre ‘España, la primera globalización’ (José Luis López-Linares, 2021) | No hay otra historia que se pueda comparar |

De la misma manera, esta tesis es defendida por más historiadores, como Natalia Denisova, que en sus entrevistas en el documental y en El Imparcial argumenta la excesiva imagen peyorativa de la Monarquía Hispánica, contribuyendo al engrandecimiento constante de la leyenda negra española. Y como colofón, el historiador e hispanista Stanley G. Payne también sale en defensa de la necesidad de revisar el concepto de la leyenda negra sobre la llegada de los castellanos a América y de la crítica total por la llegada del catolicismo al continente. Conviene recordar que Payne es un viejo conocido por la historiografía española ya que teorizó que las elecciones de 1936 fueron un fraude, que los representantes del gobierno democrático de la República fueron los que se alzaron en armas, justificó el golpe de Estado de Franco o definió la Ley de Memoria Histórica como una costumbre soviética. La aparición de esta figura en el documental es toda una declaración de intenciones.

Therefore, having clarified the fundamental premise, let's analyze the three pillars of the documentary.

Analysis

Durante el visionado de todo el documental se destila un aroma a nacionalismo español (a veces de manera velada y en otras ocasiones no tanto). Por ejemplo, Pedro Insúa afirma que la visión negativa es la que hay que desterrar y para eso propone estudiar las grandezas de la historia de España. Por ello, considera que España surge en esta época y el mundo antiguo se viene abajo y que los españoles, como católicos que éramos, mirábamos a todo y aspirábamos a todo. Roca argumenta que Ese imperio [Monarquía Hispánica] fue un momentazo de la historia de la Humanidad y yo no creo que nadie tenga que avergonzarse de él, salvo que media humanidad esté decidida a avergonzarse de sí misma. Así define la conquista y ocupación de más de 300 años por parte de la Monarquía Hispánica del continente americano. En la misma línea argumentativa se han mostrado algunos políticos en los últimos días, como por ejemplo Isabel Díaz Ayuso con su frase España llevó la civilización y la libertad a América o Toni Cantó con su sentencia la conquista fue un hito que liberó a los sojuzgados por un poder que era absolutamente brutal, salvaje e incluso caníbal.

The economist and politician Ramón Tamames, in this extreme current of the glorious past, says that Cortés is the inventor of Mexico.He builds the bases of a nation.What more portentous legend than that?What Tamames does not explain later is that Hernán Cortés, after two and a half months of fence to the capital, destroyed the city of Tenochtitlan and died about 240,000 people, destroying the Aztec cultural heritage.

With the aim of enlarging certain episodes of the story that is told in the video, certain arguments are revented to muddle certain passages in history.And so we pass to the next video pillar: a biased and revisionist vision.For example, when talking about the expulsion of peninsular Jews, where the Jewish race is discussed, racism refuses in such expulsion and proposes the easy solution that, in order not to be expelled, it was enough only to baptize andBecome convert.And that's it, paraphrasing Pedro Insúa.The same is attempted with the Inquisition, which is justified: the Inquisition is born precisely so that the crime of religious intolerance is subject to a legal, structured process […] in front of other territories.

De este modo se tratan temas como la Reforma protestante, considerando sus diversas variantes (protestantismo, calvinismo, etc.) solamente como herejías opuestas al orden católico y al poderío español imperante en ese momento, sin tener en cuenta otras posibles circunstancias como el deterioro espiritual de la Iglesia Católica o la crisis social y económica del momento. Toda esta disertación capciosa viene acompañada con una serie de imágenes de fondo en las que muestran al reformador Martin Lutero con esvásticas nazis de fondo. Si eso no es una visión tergiversada de la historia, que baje el propio Lutero y lo vea. También se hace un revisionismo sobre la guerra contra Inglaterra, donde se califica a la pérdida de la Armada Invencible como una derrota honrosa, y se argumenta que estudiarlo como lo hacen los ingleses y no como debería hacerse aquí en España es un componente suicida, hablando de criterios de evaluación, esperemos.

However, the most burdensome is the categorical denial of a fact as contrastable historically and scientifically as the disastrous population loss suffered by the American continent with the arrival of European conquerors. This position is defended by Marcelo Gullo, Argentine historian denialist of the genocide in America and defender of the Salvador role of the Hispanic monarchy. He is the author of "Mother Homeland: dismantling the black legend", where he argues that the famous genocide did not exist. Actually the conquest of Mexico did not make Hernán Cortes but did the Indians. In fact, this radical thesis is endorsed by Patricio Lons, another revisionist historian who defends the Castilian presence during the following three centuries as a time of peace and prosperity, since the war of independence was not the end of a 300 -year struggle of 300 years . No. For 300 years he lived in peace in America. And as a final brooch to this same idea, the historian Adelaida Sagarra affirms that when one studies the twenty -first, and escape a little in what was the Argentine legislation, he meets the concept of extermination. When one studies the sixteenth, he finds that all legislation is pro indigenous subjects. That is, it is intended to confirm the benevolence of some benefactors and not the image of some aggressor conquerors.

Por último, llegamos al argumento más banal (e incluso a veces hipócrita) de todos: “y tú más”. Resulta muy poco académico tratar los problemas propios azuzando los ajenos. Por ejemplo, en este sentido, se critica que sólo sepamos la fecha de expulsión de los judíos en España (1492) y que no se conozca la expulsión de los judíos del resto de Europa, donde incluso se empezó a expulsar a la comunidad judía mucho antes que en la península. Una buena reflexión sería el plantearse por qué la Monarquía Hispánica incurrió en el mismo error que cometió Inglaterra 204 años antes cuando expulsó primero a la comunidad judía y, la Monarquía Hispánica, dos siglos después no diseñó un mecanismo alternativo para evitarlo.

Carmen Iglesias, director of the Royal Academy of History, reminds us that in France and in England more witches were burned than in our territory during the XVI-XVII centuries and, for this, a series of records are presented where it is demonstrated.Later, she ends up criticizing the alleged religious freedom of the Protestant princes of northern Europe to choose the religious confession of their territory ("Cuius Regio, Eius religio).Precisely this idea that she criticized before is what the conquerors will do in America when they impose forced Christianization to all the indigenous people of the continent, and much more brutal.

De la misma forma, en el documental se defiende la idea de que la presencia castellana en América no fue una colonización al uso, sino que la Monarquía Hispánica fue incorporando territorios y a todos ellos llevó sus modos de vida, sus derechos, sus acueductos, sus ciudades, sus sistemas de organización. Siguiendo esta misma idea, la historiadora Enriqueta Vila afirma que la conquista de España en América no se le debe llamar colonización porque no hicieron colonias. En el Imperio Americano se trasladó la forma de vivir de los españoles y los españoles se trasladaron allí. Colonias nunca han sido. Sin embargo, no se dice que dichos territorios americanos no tenían representación política y estaban supeditados a la Monarquía, como un ente dependiente de Castilla. Esta falta de autonomía política será uno de los motivos de las revoluciones independentistas del s. XIX. Así que no: España no generó otras Españas, como aseveran en el vídeo constantemente, a modo de mantra.

Siguiendo con esta premisa, al hablar del tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), se comenta el genocidio que los anglosajones cometieron con las reservas y misiones indias que los castellanos dejaron en el territorio que perdió México frente a Estados Unidos (el suroeste norteamericano): La mayor parte de las tribus y de los pueblos que había en California desaparecieron cuando el Imperio Español desapareció. Pero sin embargo no se menciona el genocidio que se cometió durante el s. XVI en el continente americano donde se diezmó hasta en un 80% la población indígena. Un profesional de la Historia no debería jugar con la doble moral: a todos debe aplicársele el mismo filtro, calibrando según la época histórica en la que se encuentre evidentemente.

Como conclusión, parafraseo a Juanlu Sánchez, subirector de elDiario.es y presentador del podcast “Un tema al día”: llega el Día de la Hispanidad y mientras en España el ejército desfila por la calle, en América Latina tumban estatuas de Cristóbal Colón. El Papa pide perdón por los abusos de la conquista y la derecha española se ríe de él y apela al orgullo imperial. Y este documental se enmarca en esta corriente legitimista y benefactora del mal llamado descubrimiento (conquista) de América. No es solamente una cuestión de legitimación de la presencia castellana o no, sino que el debate va más allá y debería enmarcarse en las corrientes indigenistas americanas que fueron arrinconadas con la llegada de los conquistadores y que hoy en día, cinco siglos después, siguen marginadas de los centros de poder político y económico de sus respectivos países. Y mientras tanto el documental se limita a ensalzar y glorificar un pasado colonizador de épocas pretéritas.

Therefore, we are faced with a broad, complex debate, which affects many interlocutors, which should be treated from a much more integrative and inclusive perspective and that I do not believe that it should be summarized in phrases as simple and harmful as indigenism is the new communismor that they must settle with assertions as serious as the first globalization or there is no other story that can be compared.

Por Ángel Villar

Trailer

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