What one head of state cannot do to another, and even less so to one head of state in Spain to another in Mexico, is not to respond, like an aristocrat of the old regime , to the uncomfortable requests for favors from an unequal.
Pedro Sánchez considers “unacceptable” and “inexplicable” that Mexico excludes the king from the inauguration of Sheinbaum
Sometimes things are so obvious, even in the baroque world of diplomacy, that they come as no surprise. The non-invitation of Felipe Borbón to the inauguration of Mexico’s first president, Claudia Shainbaum, generated a burst of hyperventilation and patriotic indignation that needs to be qualified.
It’s always good to go beyond the headlines: try to look for the reasons for decisions that are never capricious. And look at 2019, when Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico, wrote to the King of Spain and he didn’t respond. A capricious childish disregard, unbecoming for a head of state, of the minimum diplomatic rules of international relations.
And there are no more. Or yes, actually. We are deepening our investigation and the non-response of our Head of State is relevant in relation to an extremely sensitive issue in Mexican society and which will not be from now on, in the absence of a deep debate in Spain on the conquest of America, apart from certain intellectuals. and academic circles or political organizations.
And the predictable patriotic hyperventilation breaks out: an overaction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, victimizing the figure of the king and requesting an appearance in Congress to explain this incident – the position of the PSOE on the monarchy begins to be worth taking. study in political contortionism – and the PP in search of its lost opportunity as a state party in an identity field of obsolete Spanish nationalism.
The Spanish head of state, who is not unaware of this reality, could have responded with recognition to what López Obrador wrote, by harming his position, by politely rejecting it, by inviting a future meeting on the subject or throwing the ball away. But what one head of state cannot do to another, and even less so to one head of state in Spain to another in Mexico, is not to respond, like an aristocrat of the ancient regime, to the uncomfortable requests for favors from an unequal.
There has been a lack of empathy, as well as education in its required minimum, on the part of Felipe Borbón in the lack of response to an equal, in this case democratically elected by his people, as the president of the Republic of the United Mexican States. . And there was a lot of arrogance on the part of those who base their legitimacy precisely on the legacy of a historical dynasty that dates back more than 500 years since the beginning of the conquest of America and a mere 214 years since the independence of Mexico.
It would therefore be a good idea to start by not being surprised by these reactions coming from other countries and other societies, and to start doing an exercise in humility in our society, starting with the head of the State, taking note of the government and pushing for a meeting of reflection of broad sectors of Spanish society on this pending issue. Only in this way can the heritage received by those, descendants of those who settled in the Colombian territories, on the other side of the Atlantic, who are also responsible for the deep structural inequalities that have devastated these lands and for the exclusion of indigenous communities that have been justified precisely by coinciding with governments like that of Morena and his fourth transformation, whose successes make him a president with 80 % of popular acceptance at the end of his non-renewable mandate. Perhaps we should learn from these political experiences, from which, as president, he launched his cry against corruption, classism and racism and in favor of migrants. We will never hear Felipe Borbón talk about it.
It will therefore be the simple fact of facing a dialogue between societies and between peoples with empathy – putting ourselves in the place of the other – and humility – recognizing past errors for which we are not responsible but of which we are the heirs. –, the beginning of a real overcoming of this dialogue necessary for a multipolar stage of international relations, and which we need in Spain, far from the unreal construction of a figure like that of the monarch which in no way arouses consensus nor the sympathy that is sold from the system.
Even the Catholic Church did it, right?
