Just 10 days after Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide was distinguished with the Princess of Asturias Award from the Arts, a new award from that same institution linked to the Spanish monarchy has traveled to Mexico: the great. The anthropological is a cultural jewel of universal draft, but this recognition has an undeniable political aftertaste at a time when diplomatic relations between Spain and Mexico do not cross their best moment. And the words of President Claudia Sheinbaum have come to confirm it: “It is a gesture by the Spanish crown, they already gave the first step, I hope they continue in that process of full recognition to the great civilizations of the past, to the peoples of today and the great atrocities that were committed in the so -called Spanish conquest.”
As the informative value of the anthropological collection are anchored in the Mexican cultures of yesterday and today, with an eye on the great civilizations that are preserved from the pre -Hispanic past and the phenomenal inheritance that they still currently represent Mexican cultural and social. They are, clearly, two awards that contribute to subtracting the open wounds left by that request for forgiveness that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador launched Felipe VI in 2019 as a symbol of Concordia and assumption of the cruelty that left the invasion of Hernán Cortés and the subsequent viceroyalties in Mexico, whose native peoples were wildly battered. The private letter of the Mexican president came to light in the media and for every response he received the “firm rejection” of attending the petition.
The discomfort between the two countries was gradually healing with diplomatic efforts when a new blow broke the first bricks on October 1. That day, Sheinbaum, successor of López Obrador, took possession of his position at a solemn ceremony with half world authorities where the absence of the king stood out, who was not invited for the same reason: the displays and contempt that, according to the president, had dedicated the monarchy to Mexico. The revolution in the relations of the exclusion of the king from the inauguration also left the ceremony without the presence of President Pedro Sánchez,
Spain is the second investment country in Mexico after the United States. There are many Spanish companies and banks that work on the other side of the Atlantic today, but the relations between the two countries go beyond the economic and the time of the conquest and the viceroyalty. The arrival in Mexico from more than 20,000 Spaniards fleeing from the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship wrote one of the most successful pages in the history of the exiles. Both peoples that sowed new roots in the political relationship. This legacy is still very present today: many of the positions that have participated in the administration of López Obrador, first, and Sheinbaum, now, are grandchildren or direct relatives of those Spaniards expelled by fascism. And that has been one of the reconciliation routes that have been handled in these months of frozen diplomacy.
In June of last year, the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres Pérez, visited Mexico to celebrate the exiles and their legacy and the Spanish Athenaeum received the First Prize for Democratic Memory that was delivered outside of Spain. Between both countries that were straightening the diplomatic altercation, to the October Batacazo. Another minister, this time that of culture, Ernest Urtasun, of Guadalajara, who in 2024 had as a special guest to Spain. Urtasun met with his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Curiel, precisely in the anthropological museum now awarded. From those contacts came out future bilateral collaborations in culture. The princess of Asturias that is granted today must be framed in these approaches.
The statements of President Sheinbaum on Wednesday mentioned the prohibited word: forgiveness. “Well, let’s see if they start thinking about asking for forgiveness,” he began his answer to questions from journalists. But immediately spoke of the “crown gesture.” And that message has not gone unnoticed for anyone. Mexico and Spain cannot turn their backs, the glue that unites them is strong. Even to the descendants of the exiles, who still carry in Mexico the flag of the Spanish Republic in their hearts and always manifest it, the anger of the Mexican government with Felipe VI hurt. It would seem a contradiction, but given the King’s visit to the Mathausen concentration camp on May 11, where Spaniards, it seems that the story comes to the aid of understanding between brothers and countries.
