Thursday, March 28, 2019

"No" Is The Appropriate Answer

I suppose the indigenous people of Mexico-500-years-ago never made war on each other:
Spain's government has refused a demand from Mexico's new president that it apologise for conquering the country five hundred years ago.

Firing the first shots in what threatens to become a diplomatic row, the Left-wing Mexican leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced on Monday that he had sent letters to Spain’s King Felipe VI and Pope Francis urging them to apologize for crimes committed against the indigenous peoples of what is today Mexico.

“There were massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and the cross. They built their churches on top of the temples,” Mr López Obrador said in a video message. link
I'm not quite sure from whom I should seek reparations. If I'm descended from the pre-Roman Britons, and I no doubt am, then I can whine to Italy (the Romans), Germany (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), Denmark (those darned Vikings took over a healthy percentage of that island with the Danelaw), and France (William the Conqueror, who was Norman/French). Those governments should have deep enough pockets to satisfy my need and desire for historical recompense.

Does it make sense today to ask any government or organization to apologize for what others did 500 years ago?

No comments: