Translated by Andy Barton
Eduardo Madroñal Pedraza (Madrid, 1951) is a pedagogical advisor, author of poetry, writer of articles, member of the National Platform for the Constitutional Protection of Pensions (Mesa Estatal por el Blindaje de las Pensiones-MERP), member of Zero Budget Cuts (Recortes Cero) and activist of Unificación Comunista de España (UCE) Author of : Prosas y otros versos (2012), Versos y otras prosas (ed. Contrabando, 2014) and Anomalías (ed. Contrabando, 2018).
“From the deepest basements to the highest attics, it was possible to admire different regions and traditions superposed over one other, societies in various states of existence that slotted in and out of each other like a global chest of drawers” (Benito Pérez Galdós in Los ayacuchos)
A spectre haunts the consciousness of world’s Hispanic communities. It is the spectre of their own identity. Meanwhile, united in holy alliance, the world’s imperialist powers crow out in unison: “the blame for your underdevelopment lies with Felipe II.” From Wall Street to the French intellectual left-wing, stopping by the German radicals along the way, all tirelessly repeat that “Spanish colonisation, with the repercussions of its fanatism and intransigence, its greed and its sheer idleness, its arbitrariness and its despotism, is the root of all your current ills”.
Which city in the Spanish-speaking world with a sense of self worth does not have its own museum dedicated to the Spanish Inquisition to demonstrate the supposedly undeniable truth that it is all Felipe II’s fault? How many seemingly lucid minds in the Hispanic world are not plagued by the plaintive “if only we were Anglo-Saxons”?
After nearly two centuries of Anglophone-led division and exploitation of Ibero-American nations, including wars, annexations, interventions, invasions, “Panamization” and “Pinochetization”, an unbelievable, incredibly ambitious exercise in subverting the collective memory and alienating individual consciousnesses is currently underway. Its goal is to ensure that Hispanic nations renounce their shared history, their common cultural universe, their blood, family and ancestral ties, in a word, their own existence, to become mere spectres in search of a fate of exploitation, looting and destruction, a fate which the indigenous people of North America know better than anyone.
This reality has two consequences: firstly, the identity and unity of Hispanic nations is highlighted by the great imperialist powers as a force to be controlled and neutralised; secondly, as a reaction to the first consequence, it is now time for Hispanic nations to reconstruct and expose, both to the light of day and to the entire world, their own history, a history read from objective facts and data, grounded in reality. In short, a rigorous and accurate reading of our history, not the version of history that suits General Motors.
We need an objective, materialist vision of what we are and how we arrived at this point, starting with the social classes and their struggles. May this exercise reveal and shine a light on the enormous potential of what we could be. The task of writing the history of Hispanic nations is a prerequisite for us to freely decide our destiny.
This revolutionary undertaking is as relevant today as over. The sharp edges of an externally imposed imperial past, paid in fire and blood just like all others, are used to generate divisions and confrontations between Hispanic nations, something that always benefits the powers that have dominated these nations from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for centuries. We must forge a unified, revolutionary mass that uses individual differences and plurality to reposition each member of the Hispanic world so that, in the face of the USAmerican hegemon that causes so much suffering for Ibero-America, as well as Spain and Portugal, we may defend our own interests and freely decide our destiny.
The shaping of today’s USA
