The Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch has shown his rejection of the recent statements by King Felipe VI, who stated that during the Conquest of America there was "much abuse" despite the Laws of the Indies promoted by the Catholic Monarchs to safeguard the indigenous population, and admitted that those behaviors, judged from the current perspective and values, are not a cause for "pride".
"We are dumbfounded (...) Frankly, many of us do not understand your formal and almost habitual adherence to the theses of those who only seek harm and contempt for the history of Spain and the present of Spaniards", Tertsch criticized in a message on the social network X collected by Europa Press..
In that same publication, the MEP addresses the monarch directly: "Sir, my King Felipe VI, with all due respect, I remind you that "much abuse" there is now on the part of a criminal government that plunders Spaniards, has corrupted the entire State administration, steals without pause and also constantly harasses, marginalizes and attacks the institution that Your Majesty", he pointed out.
In his reflection, Tertsch maintains that "the possible existing abuses" in any human community are "insignificant" if compared with the abuses that "were perpetrated by inhabitants of those lands and in front of the colossal and glorious work of Spain".
The MEP also vindicates the actions of the Spanish Crown in America and emphasizes that "In America, in the immense feat begun with the end of the reconquest, the end of the Muslim presence and the glorious leap across the Atlantic towards New Spain, there was above all and more than anything a civilizing miracle full of generosity, piety, ingenuity, service to Spaniards, indigenous people and mestizos and devotion to the Crown of Spain", he concludes.
Pride?
For his part, Felipe VI made these considerations during his visit to the exhibition "Half the World. Woman in indigenous Mexico" at the National Archaeological Museum (MAN), where he was accompanied by the ambassador of Mexico in Madrid, Quirino Ordaz.
This public intervention by the monarch marks the first time he has spoken directly on this issue, after the continuous calls from the former Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who in recent years demanded an apology from the Crown for the "grievances" committed during the Conquest.
The lack of response to the letter sent by López Obrador to Felipe VI in March 2019, in which he requested that gesture, was the reason given by the current president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to exclude the King from the guest list for her inauguration in October 2024, despite the fact that traditionally it is the Spanish Head of State who attends this type of ceremony representing Spain.
During his tour of the exhibition, the King commented that there are historical episodes that, when analyzed with "our present-day criteria, with our values, well obviously they cannot make us feel proud", according to images disseminated by Zarzuela on social media, "but they must be known".
Nevertheless, Felipe VI defended that this examination of the past must be done "in its just context, not with excessive moral presentism, but with an objective and rigorous analysis" and stressed that it is also necessary "to draw lessons" from the "moral and ethical controversies" that arose regarding the way power was exercised "from day one."
The monarch also recalled that "the Catholic Monarchs themselves, Queen Isabella, with her directives, the Laws of the Indies" evidenced "a desire for protection that reality later makes not be fulfilled as intended and there is much abuse".