Philip VI and the disappeared Mexican cannibals

The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have insisted in recent years on Spain's moral duty to acknowledge the atrocities committed during the conquest. These claims were met by the most reactionary press with considerable scandal and a florilegium of very learned articles that emphasized the cannibalistic nature of the Aztec population – an occasional practice linked to rituals, not daily life – to impress the idea that the Spanish had brought them civilization. They also denied any trace of genocide, without clarifying why it is estimated that up to 90% of the indigenous population disappeared (largely due to diseases, but also to the massacres practiced). Now Felipe VI has taken a timid step towards this recognition, which certainly contrasts with the utterance made by his father, according to which Castilian was never an imposed language. (Canned laughter.) The cannibalism folklorists have been silent this time and, in order not to completely discredit the current monarch, they are writing headlines such as "Felipe acknowledges that there was 'a lot of abuse' in the conquest of America" (La Razón).

But some continue with the nagging. In El Mundo, they cannot stop chewing between their teeth and headline "The king seeks to save the Ibero-American summit by recognizing 'abuses' in the conquest" to suggest that his words are not sincere. And also Losantos, who was again approaching Vox's positions, shook the cannibal scarecrow and launched a furious harangue: "The king of Spain cannot criticize the memory of the Catholic Monarchs." And he added: