On June 24 2021, a ship called La Montaña arrived at the port of Vigo,
Spain, which had set sail two months earlier from the Mexican port of
Isla Mujeres, Mexico, to make the reverse path that the European
conquerors did five centuries ago. The group of four women, two men and
a transgender person who was traveling in it will begin months a journey
full of symbolism that will take them through various cities and towns
throughout Europe and which will be joined by many other Zapatistas who
are arriving in Europe. One of the highlights will take place at the
European Meeting of Fights to be held in Madrid on August 13, when
exactly 500 years have passed since the entry of the conqueror Hernán
Cortés into the city of Tenochtitlan.
500 years ago the Spanish conquest of America began to erase the Nature
cults and community traditions of pre-Columbian peoples with the Bible
in one hand and the sword in the other. Also in that year, 1521, Emperor
Charles V crushed the rebellion of the Castilian communities, destroying
the communal traditions that remained in his own home. The Empire
imposed itself on the peasant communities, both on one side and the
other of the Atlantic.
The same imperial symbols of the Bible and the sword have continued to
resonate to this day. When Jeanine Añez, for example, proclaimed herself
president of Bolivia, she appeared on television with the bible and the
army "blessed by Jesus" defending Catholic Hispanity from the "attack"
of indigenous pagan cults. The Spanish far right has also released a
speech in recent years that speaks of the empire, the army and a
visceral hatred of everything that smells of ecology. The bible and the
army against "Pachamamista paganism," the same discourse on both sides
of the Atlantic.
History has already shown us very well that behind this defense of the
Bible there is usually nothing of spirituality or evangelical charity;
what there is, is the temptation of "earthly power", to which the
Catholic Church has been so fond. And we also know that it is not the
Hispanic culture or the science that is in danger due to the rise of
these "Pachamamista superstitions", but the extraction of gold, silver,
crops, and natural resources of America. The love of the land (with or
without Pachamamism cults) and peasant communities have always hindered
extractivism.
As an inhabitant of this long-suffering Castilian plateau, and daughter,
granddaughter and great-great-granddaughter of Spaniards as far as
memory can remember (a common genetic poverty in these lands of the
“Emptied Spain”) there is something that outrages me about all that
discourse: that they are always using Hispanic culture to justify their
interests and their businesses. And I say theirs, and not my, because
almost every time the Spanish empire is invoked it is done to defend the
interests of a few, very few.
The Spanish empire was a curious one, capable of exploiting both its own
peasants and Native Americans. It arose almost as much on the basis of
dispossessing the Mayan or Andean communities as on the basis of
domesticating the Castilian, Andalusian or Galician peasantry. That is
why it is not strange that it has strong detractors among the Spanish,
although that has always scandalized the Hispanic right so much.
Nor is it strange that Castilian society, when it has wanted to wake up
from the deep stagnation in which it has been plunged for centuries, has
resorted to the symbol of the Communards defeated in 1521, when
community traditions were sacrificed so that the Empire could feed its
armies and build its ships and its cathedrals ... on both sides of the
Atlantic.
That is why I would like to convey to the Zapatista comrades who in
these months are making the reverse journey of the Empire my most
resounding support for their initiative and my firm repudiation of the
terrible legacies that the Spanish conquest left in their nations. And I
do this not only out of solidarity or altruism but because of the
awareness that empires are not desirable. If something has made the
history of Castile clear, it is that the empires not only leave terrible
inheritances to the conquered peoples, they also leave very meager
benefits and much oppression to the peoples from which the conquerors
come.
But I would like to do it without recriminations or regrets, because I
believe that we have greatly abused the feeling of guilt when it comes
to judging the Spanish empire and that has only served to tie us in the
eternal wheel of hurt pride. It must be recognized that the Spanish
empire has left us a cultural legacy as valuable as that of any other
human empire, including the Americans. But this does not prevent us from
resoundingly rejecting other heritages, such as the racism that for
centuries has cornered the culture, spirituality and language of the
original peoples of America or the landowning oligarchies who were
direct heirs of colonialism.
We are fortunate that the American peoples have been able to respond to
European colonialism with an immense dignity that allows them to
approach Europe 500 years later armed only with the word and defending
life. Let us hope that this dignity is a seed that allows the Pachamamas
and the American and European communities to heal from all the attacks
suffered by the Empires. Because if something has become clear this
century, it is that we need many more Pachamamas than Empires on both
sides of the Atlantic.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margarita Mediavilla has a PhD in physical sciences from the University of Valladolid (Spain) and is an associate professor of systems engineering and automation at the School of Industrial Engineering. She is very active in awareness raising about the limits of economic growth, participating in all kinds of publications and conferences in the Spanish-speaking world, and is a member of the Group of Energy, Economy, and System Dynamics (GEEDS), University of Valladolid, Spain. Her personal blog is Habas Contadas.
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