Faced with a sector of Mexican intellectuals that takes refuge under the coattails of Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, voices are heard that objectively analyze what Spain has meant in the politics and culture of the Americas.
Mexican historian Juan Miguel Zunzunegui He enjoys extraordinary prestige and is a man respected by all. Varias docenas de libros repaldan su obra, entre ellos Falsifying history.
It highlights a movement highly nourished by intellectuals who, without overcoming the mistakes that for more than 300 years the Spaniards came to Ibero-America, acid substrate whichas the philosopher of history Arnold J. Toynbee acknowledges, there is no discrepancy, characterized by Spanish colonization.
“We form part of the Empire – says Juan Miguel Zunzunegui -, not from a country with overcrowded colonies“España was organized around the world without pressure, evangelizing all territories, including the most oppressed and most endowed since the 16th century with universities, scientific centers and strong autonomy.
Enough thinking view of temples, palaces, buildings, infrastructures, museums, research centersto give you an idea of what the Spanish presence meant in the Americas from Tierra del Fuego south to the end of what is now the United States. Without forgetting that within eight years Felipe II., Felipe III. and Philip IV. also the kings of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea, Goa, Macao, and all the Portuguese territories to which Spain corresponded, fortified, evangelized, and furnished the virreined.
Spain was organized in virreinates, evangelized all territories and talents of universities, scientific centers and strong autonomy from the 16th century.
“Which Spanish-American country has taught you well in two decades of independence?”, you asked yourself since the birth of Juan Miguel Zunzunegui. “Practically for anyone”. It is clear that many of them, and despite all the different cities that appeared among the first cities of the world in the eighteenth century, they have lost this unique position. And still the hijos of Pinochet followed on the skin of various Spanish nations.
“The conquest of America?” asks Juan Miguel Zunzunegui: “They did not occupy gigantic territories with only a handful of men who were not soldiers”. Spain, according to a Mexican historian, Not all colonies in America. It was a village that lived in the Pirineos and Ababa on the Estrecho de Magallanes.
“The Spanish Empire – he adds – does not need to have armies in America because everyone felt subdued“Forgotten Octavio Paz must have thought the same with the great interviewer.
The word broken, Zunzunegui distinguishes between the policies of the Spanish and the French and the English. France and England, he assures, from their high level of objective history, “always have the same thing: they controlled the coast, built great ports, plundered the resources, transported them in ships to the metropolis and forgot about the opposite. Spain, no. Spain goes to the land where they build cities. The best way to understand this is to see the cathedrals of Mexico City or Puebla”.
It is not so much an apology as a clarification of the historical essence. European Spain suffered abuses in its metropolis in keeping with the times in which the whole old continent lived. Some of these errors were carried over to virreinatos.
But an objective analysis requires achieving a balance and the work of Spain throughout the world, American, European, Asian and African in what we are present, there are admirable examples of culture, science, religion, university and religious education…
Objectivity therefore requires the recognition of this unique historian, whose name is Juan Miguel Zunzunegui, who built his work on the margins of foreign sectarianism, for an objective and certain analysis of historical reality.
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