King Felipe VI attended a private visit this morning to the exhibition 'Half of the world. Women in indigenous Mexico'. The meeting was not on the agenda but during it, in front of the Mexican ambassador to Spain, King Felipe acknowledged that "there was a lot of abuse" during the colonization of America. "There have also been struggles, let's say, moral and ethical controversies regarding how power is exercised. From the very first day, that is to say, the Catholic Monarchs themselves with their guidelines, the laws of the Indies, through the legislative process, there is a desire for protection, which reality later shows is not fulfilled as intended, and there is a lot, a lot of abuse and also, as I said before, valuing the fact that from there, from that knowledge, well, we will appreciate each other more," affirmed the Monarch to Quirino Ordaz, head of the Mexican diplomatic mission.
King Felipe focused his intervention on the need for "both sides of the Atlantic" to know the common history because "that mestizo culture is what defines us today" because "knowing the past is the way we have to value what happens today." Thus, the King acknowledged that "there are things that when we know them, when we study them, in our current judgment, with our values, well, they cannot make us feel proud, but we must know them, and in their proper context, not with excessive presentism."
The King's visit to this exhibition is a gesture of reconciliation, of bringing positions closer, with Mexico, a country with historical and commercial ties to Spain and whose relationship had been very strained since the former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, insisted since 2019 that Spain had to apologize for the conquest. An argument that was continued by his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, who did not extend an invitation to Felipe VI for her inauguration.
Since then, relations at the highest level were 'on hold,' as AMLO defined it, until Spain apologized. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs began approaching the country a few months ago when the head of diplomacy, José Manuel Albares, inaugurated this same exhibition that the Head of State visited on Monday. Albares then stated that "the shared history between Spain and Mexico, like all human history, has its light and dark moments. There has been pain and injustice towards indigenous peoples. There was injustice, it is fair to acknowledge and regret it. That is part of our shared history, we cannot deny it or forget it." These words were welcomed by Sheinbaum as "a first step" to resume institutional normality.
Spain will host the Ibero-American Summit next November, and the Government's desire is to revitalize these meetings, which in recent years have been characterized by minimal representation of Heads of State. The King has embraced this aspiration and has been fully involved. Last week, he undertook a mini-tour that took him to Portugal, Chile, and Bolivia. A trip that the Minister of Foreign Affairs did not attend.
This Monday, he takes another step with the private visit to the exhibition, accompanied by the Mexican ambassador and reflecting on the behavior of some during the conquest. Despite the Government's interest in reestablishing relations, once again, no minister has accompanied the King to this commitment, where the director of the AECID (Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation), Antón Leis García, and the Anthropology professor at the Complutense University, Andrés Ciudad, were present.