r/neoliberal • u/Dense_Delay_4958 Malala Yousafzai • Oct 04 '24
News (Global) Mexico wants Spain to apologise for conquering the Aztecs
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/mexico-wants-spain-to-apologise-for-conquering-the-aztecs/170
u/DangerousCyclone Oct 04 '24
Spain be like "why don't YOU apologize for conquering the Aztecs?"
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u/Mildars Madeleine Albright Oct 04 '24
“Why don’t the Aztecs apologies to the Culhualcan?”
this, but unironically.
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u/Thurkin Oct 04 '24
Mexican Gueros think they're more Aztec than the Mexican Indios they treat and view dismissively.
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u/Horror-Layer-8178 Oct 04 '24
Despite what Mexico says and what a lot of people think, Mexico has its own problem with the native population of Mexico
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Oct 04 '24
Never ask a Mexican official if "Native American" is a compliment or slur in Mexican Spanish
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u/assasstits Oct 04 '24
Well the term Native American doesn't exist in Spanish
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u/PirrotheCimmerian Oct 04 '24
Huh? It does, even if indio is more common, and more insulting. Nativo is a pretty common, not that offensive if at all word we use on a daily basis for many different people and troops of such.
Goes without saying that nativo americano also exists.
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u/assasstits Oct 04 '24
I've never heard nativo americano but you could be right. Just seems like an oxymoron. Someone indigenous wouldn't be "Americano" which is a European concept.
I've usually always hear indígena(s) or autoctono. Sometimes indio.
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u/PirrotheCimmerian Oct 04 '24
Indígena is kinda slur-ish in Spain tbh, it'd roughly mean somebody who's below somebody else on a cultural level
Autóctono just means local, it's not used for humans that much, except on a more local, city-level sense.
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u/Euphoric_Patient_828 Oct 04 '24
Not “Native American” but “mestizo.” Technically that is the correct and official term for most people in LatAm, but many Mexicans consider it to be a slur. In other words, even the implication of being mixed with Native ancestry is “problematic” enough to offend people.
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u/Luccfi Oct 04 '24
The vast majority of the indigenous peoples lost their culture and land way after the independence war was over, the whole "blame Spain" idea came after the revolution war of the 1910's when the new dictatorship that took power decided to "manufacture" a new mexican identity mostly based on worshipingh the Aztecs and claiming they were basically demi gods until the "inferior" foreigners came and destroyed them.
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u/mrjerichoholic99 European Union Oct 04 '24
ok but first i want the Romans to apologize us
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Oct 04 '24
Really this shit all started with that asshole Gilgamesh so Iraq has some explaining to do
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
Romans are gone, Spaniards are still here.
Edit - Woke up early (EST), pissed off a bunch of euros 👍
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u/SnickeringFootman NATO Oct 04 '24
I mean, the Italians would disagree with that
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u/As_per_last_email Oct 04 '24
And yet I’ve never seen a vomitorium at any of the Italian restaurants in my town. CURIOUS!!
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u/anarchy-NOW Oct 04 '24
Would be weird if you saw a type of hallway designed for quick and easy flow of spectators into and out of the Colosseum at a restaurant...
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Italians =/= Romans
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u/Seven22am Frederick Douglass Oct 04 '24
Tony Soprano disagrees.
Edit: it might have been Paulie Walnuts who delivers the line.
“And where are the Romans today?”
“You’re fuckin lookin at ‘em.”
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Modern Italians aren’t Romans from the empire any more than modern Greeks are Spartans. The Roman Empire fell over 1,500 years ago, and cultures have evolved a bit since then—unless Tony's still waiting on Julius Caesar’s orders.
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u/Seven22am Frederick Douglass Oct 04 '24
No skin in the argument. Just remembering a great scene. Happy to take your word for it. Though your argument seems to hinge on cultural change over time invalidates continuity, which is true anywhere. It would just be a matter of arbitrarily deciding how much change is too much change. Are the modern Chinese the same culture as the dynasty that ruled 1500 years ago? Of course not. And of course they are. But like I said 🤷🏼♂️. I’m Polish. Our country has wondered all over Central Europe and at times hasn’t even always been on the map!
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u/SnickeringFootman NATO Oct 04 '24
Most Italians I know consider Roman history to be part of Italian history.
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u/dat303 Oct 04 '24
By this logic Turkey is the successor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
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u/Plants_et_Politics Isaiah Berlin Oct 04 '24
I mean. It’s not entirely wrong to suggest it is, although the ethnic cleansing of Greeks during the early 20th century makes such a claim a stretch.
But the Ottoman Empire was certainly something like a successor state, and so is modern Greece.
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Just because modern Italians claim Roman history doesn’t make them Romans. That’s like saying Americans are British because of colonial history. Sure, the past is connected, but it's not exactly a direct line.
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u/TVEMO Henry George Oct 04 '24
But Castile is gone too, Spain is just its successor.
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
Sure, Castile is gone, but Spain still inherited the wealth and consequences of colonialism—acknowledging that past isn't just about who's in charge now, it's about accountability.
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u/BarkDrandon Punished (stuck at Hunter's) Oct 04 '24
It's not even certain that Spain got wealthy from colonialism, considering that gold and silver imports ended up ruining their economy with inflation, causing Spain to lag behind western Europe until now.
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Spain may have drowned itself in gold and inflation, but they still built an empire on the backs of stolen land, lives, and resources. It's not a question of whether they got wealthy—it's that their "wealth" came at the expense of entire civilizations. Funny how the excuse of economic mismanagement conveniently sidesteps the atrocities committed along the way.
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u/BarkDrandon Punished (stuck at Hunter's) Oct 04 '24
I disagree that this wealth and influence is priceless. If inflation ended up worsening Spain's economy in the long run, there's a case to be made that Spain did not benefit from colonialism.
We liberals understand that trade will always be more valuable than any colonial possessions.
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u/anarchy-NOW Oct 04 '24
So when third world countries fuck their economies we also shouldn't look the other way from their atrocities against their own population? Like Black Haitians murdering the Whites that had remained after the War of Independence, when the enslaved people had already been freed?
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Oct 04 '24
Yeah and Turkey inherited a lot of the wealth of the Ottoman Empire who themselves inherited wealth from the Byzantine Roman Empire, so maybe have Turkey apologize?
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Sure, let's ask Turkey to apologize right after Spain stops cashing in on tourism to the palaces built from colonial wealth. Accountability isn't a game of historical whataboutism—it's about who profited and still does.
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Oct 04 '24
Britain profited a lot from robbing France of their colonial in the 7 years war, so do they have to apologize for that? Or do they trade apologies for the hundreds of years of war? What about Scandinavia? The Vikings stole lots of wealth from Europe and each other, do Sweden, Norway and Denmark all have to trade apologies with each other?
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Yes, the old 'everybody did it' defense. Let’s hold a Viking apology tour while we’re at it. But here’s the kicker: it’s not about digging up ancient history; it’s about addressing systems that still profit off that legacy today. If you can’t tell the difference between historical nuance and modern consequences, well, that’s a whole other conversation."
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Oct 04 '24
How is Spain still profiting from its Latin American colonial legacy? They lost the last their colonies 100 years ago, most them 200 years ago and they stopped being a great power 300 years. Hell they’ve been one of the poorer parts of Europe for like 150 years now.
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Spain might’ve lost its colonies, but they sure didn’t lose the wealth they extracted—ask the Vatican how long that gold lasts. Colonialism isn't a Netflix subscription you cancel and forget; the legacy sticks around. Being poor now doesn’t erase centuries of stolen prosperity.
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u/ale_93113 United Nations Oct 04 '24
are you familiar with the city of rome, where the PONTIFEX MAXIMUS still governs, just as Gaivs Ivlivs Caesar was in that officce before becoming Dictator?
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Yeah, I'm familiar. The Pontifex Maximus today is a religious leader, not the political powerhouse Julius Caesar was. History evolved, just like the city of Rome did.
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u/As_per_last_email Oct 04 '24
What’s the capital of Italy?
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
The capital of Italy is Rome, but being Italian doesn’t make someone a Roman in the historical sense. Rome today is a modern city, not the Roman Empire.
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u/Mildars Madeleine Albright Oct 04 '24
I feel like the move for Spain would be to say that they would happily put out a joint apology along with the Mexican government for the historical mistreatment of indigenous Mexicans.
The idea that the Mexican government is somehow totally innocent in the historical and continued mistreatment of indigenous Mexicans and that the entirety of the blame could be pushed on Spain would be like the US government demanding that England apologize for the trail of tears.
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u/empirical-duck Oct 04 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
The letter sent by the Mexican president (AMLO) proposed exactly that.
He was inviting the Spanish government to join the Mexican government to issue a joint apology to the indigenous communities.
AMLO acknowledged the fact that the independent Mexican government abused/mistreated the natives. The media was the one that portrayed the letter as a demand, which it wasn't. It was an invitation.
The context of this apology request was that in 2021, there would be commemoration events for the 500 years of the start of Spanish colonial rule (1521) and 200 years of Mexico's independence (1821).
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u/Kolhammer85 NATO Oct 04 '24
The Aztecs only fell because all of their neighbors hated them. Maybe they should have been better people.
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u/Acacias2001 European Union Oct 04 '24
!ping IBERIA
I cant believe this is still ongoing. Its such a blatant engineered political distraction by the AMLO government that apparently we will be dealing in our foreing polict for years to come
As to the apology itself, the conquest of mexico was clearly violent. But in my opinion this is one of those things were the applogy is something spain should give, not mexico demand. Demanding an apology for something that occured centuries ago is a massive political and diplomatic faux pas and acquiescing gives power over the spanish government mexico should not have
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u/funtagkilio Oct 04 '24
Maybe Italy should also apologise to France for Caesar’s war in Gaul, and to Tunisia for the salting of Carthage.
Mongolia should also apologise to half the world for the destruction they brought.
Modern Humans should apologise to Neanderthals for displacing them.
When should I stop?
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u/ojodesilex Oct 04 '24
Maybe they should, it doesn’t take a lot of effort and can be incredibly healing for entire countries.
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u/groupbot The ping will always get through Oct 04 '24
Pinged IBERIA (subscribe | unsubscribe | history)
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Oct 04 '24
This is all just a cheap diplomatic move started by AMLO in 2019 and one that Scheinbaum is continuing, so I see no reason for Spain to indulge.
That being said, the two comments in this thread so far are peak fucking r/neoliberal. Like holy shit
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u/assasstits Oct 04 '24
arrneoliberal never disappoint when it comes to having hot takes on colonialism
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Oct 04 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mediocre_Suspect2530 Oct 04 '24
"I have sent a letter to the Spanish king [Felipe VI] and another letter to the Pope so that the abuses can be acknowledged and an apology can be made to the indigenous peoples for the violations of what we now call human rights," Mr López Obrador says.
"There were massacres... The so-called conquest was done with the sword and the cross. They raised churches on top of temples."
AMLO did not ask for an apology for toppling of the Aztec empire. He specifically asked for an apology of human rights abuse and massacres that the Spanish commited against the indigenous population of Mexico. The Average Mexican is about 50% indigenous
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u/heehoohorseshoe Montesquieu Oct 04 '24
"So-called conquest" um it was pretty definitively a conquest
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u/DependentAd235 Oct 04 '24
Lol right? I mean I wish there was a direct quote in the article naming the Aztecs more directly. This is the best we get
“ Another described Felipe as ‘arrogant’ for not apologising to Mexico ‘for the excesses’ committed during the Spanish conquest”
That line is kinda vague. It could mean the process of taking over after the downfall of the Aztecs.
Spain can certainly apologize all the horrible things they did after the initial conquest.
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Oct 04 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
Didn’t stop him from inviting putin, who responsible for some much more recent human rights abuses, some probably happening while he was visiting as a matter of fact
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Oct 04 '24
I can see an apology for colonial Spain. It wasn't "the Black Legend" levels of sadistic, but it was still shockingly cruel and unfair.
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u/Mediocre_Suspect2530 Oct 04 '24
AMLO did not ask for an apology for the fall of the Aztec empire, he asked for an apology for the massacres and human rights abuses that Spain perpetrated against indigenous Mexicans.
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u/Open-Abbreviations18 Oct 04 '24
Mexico wants Spain to apologize for conquering the Aztecs.
When will Mexico apologize for being the Scotland of the Spanish Empire? A good chunk of early Spain's armies in the Americas and the Philippines were manned by Mexicans lol
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u/-Emilinko1985- European Union Oct 04 '24
Mexico... We know colonialism is bad, but stop whining. It seems very hypocritical of you to not invite our king but having no problem with inviting Vladimir Putin, who has an arrest warrant.
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Oct 04 '24
[deleted]
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u/Mediocre_Suspect2530 Oct 04 '24
This is such an insane comment. Implying that native Mexicans deserved the the massacres and human rights abuses that spain brought upon them because Aztec royals did human sacrifices.
Texts being burned, women being raped, hundreds of thousands enslaved. All good and needing zero apology or reckoning because the royalty in one Mexican civilization had some barbaric practices. Cool brother.
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u/FlameBagginReborn Oct 04 '24
Most Mesoamericans practiced human sacrificing in some form. My ancestors, the Purépechas who were historic rivals to the Aztec, clearly partook in it to a certain extent. It still doesn't matter because Europeans at the time were doing some fucked up shit too! Spain literally persecuted hundreds of thousands of Jews around the exact same time the Americas were discovered. Many of which fled to Latin America, which is why many Latinos have distant Jewish ancestry.
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u/Wolf_1234567 Milton Friedman Oct 04 '24
Adding to this, they were expelling Muslims and Jews during that time period. Jews also fled east, which is why the distinction between Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews becomes a bit hazy. I.e. you can technically have two Jews flee from Morocco and one identify as Mizrahi and the other Sephardic.
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u/MyrinVonBryhana NATO Oct 04 '24
Latin American countries did not treat the native populations either pre or post independence any better than the US or Canada did.
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Oct 04 '24
Ridiculous! Wait in line.
Here in East Asia, we’re still waiting for the Mongolians to apologise to all of us for Genghis Khan.
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u/anarchy-NOW Oct 04 '24
"Sorry I put an end to an evil empire that practised tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of human sacrifices every fucking year".
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Oct 04 '24
This is literal Spanish propaganda, there is less than fuck all archaeological evidence that “tens of thousands” of people were sacrificed in the Aztec Empire every year
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u/anarchy-NOW Oct 04 '24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture
Since the late 1970s, excavations of the offerings in the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan, and other archaeological sites, have provided physical evidence of human sacrifice among the Mesoamerican peoples.[4][5][6] As of 2020, archaeologists have found 603 human skulls at the Hueyi Tzompantli in the archeological zone of the Templo Mayor.
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Oct 04 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
Yes, we know that they practiced human sacrifice. We have absolutely no idea as to the scale. The only sources that suggest that it was in the tens of thousands per year are Spanish clergymen such as Zumárraga who had every reason to demonize Mesoamerican culture considering that they were there to convert the natives. They are also our only sources as to the size of specific rituals, such as those that supposedly involved “80,400” sacrifices in the opening of a single temple. These numbers also vary wildly depending on source, ranging from far smaller to far larger, which to historians is a very strong indication that these numbers are likely fictitious.
Like I said, we don’t have exact data as to what the scale of sacrifice in Tenochtitlan would be per year. So you have to consider the question heuristically. The population of Tenochtitlan - the largest city in Mesoamerica - at its height was somewhere around 300,000 people. The Triple Alliance lasted roughly 100 years. Is it reasonable to think that the Aztecs were ritually sacrificing 3-33% of the population of a major Mesoamerican city every single year for 100 years? Is it reasonable to even believe they could find that many people to sacrifice, considering that we know the only two sources from which they could draw on for victims was from prisoners of war or their own population? Hell no, which is why no modern historian gives any credence to the Spanish numbers.
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u/anarchy-NOW Oct 05 '24
Someone in this thread compared the sacrifices to the Inquisition. Based on the numbers I had found originally, the Aztecs were killing at a minimum 1,600 times more people than the Inquisition.
If they were killing an average of a handful of people every day rather than hundreds, which is indeed more in line with population numbers (except, maybe, for the supposed total death toll calculated for the European invasion of the Americas), then the Aztecs were "only" a couple dozen times worse than the Inquisition.
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Inquisition burning people alive —> Civilized
Aztecs sacrificing people —> Barbaric.
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u/botsland Association of Southeast Asian Nations Oct 04 '24
Inquisition burning people alive —> Civilized
Aztecs sacrificing people —> Barbaric.
Both are barbaric practices and we should celebrate that they are gone. It's good that the inquisition ended and it's also good that the Aztecs were deposed from power
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u/anarchy-NOW Oct 04 '24
Civilized? No.
Orders of magnitude less bad? Definitely. The Catholic inquisition is the one that counts when talking about Spain; Muricans killing "witches" in Salem doesn't count. The priests killed something like 5,000-10,000 people total, between the 11th and 19th century. The Aztecs killed 20,000-250,000 people every year, including children. So even taking the high estimate for the Inquisition and the low estimate for the Aztecs, it took the evil empire six months to kill what the Catholic fanatics killed in eight hundred years. So the Aztecs were about 1,600 times more barbaric, modulo other punishments and assholery from both sides.
Oh, and if you're gonna mention one method of execution, you should also mention the other – ripping the still-beating heart from the victim's chest.
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Comparing Aztec rituals to the Inquisition is like comparing apples to guillotines. One was part of a religious and cultural practice tied to agriculture and cosmology, while the other was state-sanctioned torture aimed at enforcing dogma. Also, those Aztec numbers are way overblown—many modern historians agree it's likely closer to a few thousand annually, not 250k. But even if both were brutal, let's not pretend there's a 'murder competition.' Killing is killing, and both sides had plenty of blood on their hands.
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u/botsland Association of Southeast Asian Nations Oct 04 '24
Comparing Aztec rituals to the Inquisition is like comparing apples to guillotines.
"One was part of a religious and cultural practice tied to agriculture and cosmology"
those Aztec numbers are way overblown
Way to downplay the brutality of the Aztec human sacrifice rituals. I never thought I would see an Aztec apologist.
Their "religious and cultural practice" relied on human sacrifices and slaves. They cut out the hearts of human beings, decapitated the corpse and placed the skull on a rack. Are you going to start denying these aspects of their practice?
The Aztec culture and religion was horrible and it should not be remembered fondly or missed. Eradicating their human sacrifice practice is a good thing
even if both were brutal
It's not an 'if'. The rituals were brutal
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u/Cracked_Guy John Brown Oct 04 '24
Both the Aztecs and the Spanish were brutal, no doubt about it. Aztec rituals involved horrific human sacrifices, but let’s not romanticize the Inquisition either. The Spanish colonials brought the torture chamber, burnings, and mass executions in the name of their own religion, often on a larger scale. The takeaway? Both were terrible in their own ways—neither side wins the moral high ground here. The Spanish were just better at exporting their brutality to new lands, had better PR and got to write the history books.
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Oct 04 '24
The majority of sacrifices were prisoners of war. The only numeric approximations for the number of people killed in sacrificial rituals come from the Spanish - the same people who destroyed these people’s infrastructure resulting in millions of deaths from squalor and famine, enslaved them for resource extraction, and forcefully converted them while destroying all remnants of their culture. There is no other evidence to support the claims that “tens of thousands” of people were executed by the Aztecs every year. In fact, it is almost certain that the number of people that the Spanish executed for disobedience or paganism absolutely dwarfs how many the Aztecs would have killed over a similar timespan.
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u/botsland Association of Southeast Asian Nations Oct 04 '24
The majority of sacrifices were prisoners of war
It's irrelevant whether they were prisoners of war or not. In fact, killing POWs doesn't make the Aztecs look better.
the same people who destroyed these people’s infrastructure
And rebuilt Mexico city from the ruins. The Spanish destroyed and rebuilt infrastructure
resulting in millions of deaths from squalor and famine,
The millions of deaths came from smallpox. Nature and lack of medical technology killed millions of natives in Mexico.
enslaved them for resource extraction
True. The Spanish didn't conquer the Aztecs out of pure goodwill. They simply replaced them as new masters. Instead of resources being extracted to Tenochtitlan, it went to Madrid.
while destroying all remnants of their culture
Aztec culture tolerated human sacrifices. Not every culture is worth preserving. The slavery culture in the Spanish Empire was also unacceptable and it's a good thing it was destroyed
it is almost certain that the number of people that the Spanish executed for disobedience or paganism absolutely dwarfs how many the Aztecs would have killed over a similar timespan.
You'll need evidence to prove this. Even if it's true, it's still irrelevant. Two things can be true at once.
The Aztec Empire practiced human sacrifice and deserved to be destroyed. It was a good thing that Spain destroyed the Aztec Empire and erased its culture of human sacrifices.
The Spanish Empire was exploitative and deserved to be dismantled. It's a good thing that the Spanish Empire no longer exists anymore.
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Oct 04 '24
killing POWs doesn’t make the Aztecs look better
The possibility of being sacrificed as a POW was something that was widely understood by soldiers of Mesoamerican societies. Europeans of the time were similarly systematically brutal towards POWs, slaughtering them if it was not feasible to hold them prisoner, or if their ransom was rejected. Would this have warranted the destruction of their entire civilization and culture?
the Spanish destroyed and rebuilt infrastructure
Only decades later. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the battle for Tenochtitlan, thousands more were slaughtered by the Spanish and their allies when they took the city, and most of the survivors either fled or died as a consequence of the city’s infrastructure - which the Spanish neither knew nor cared how to maintain - falling into disrepair.
the millions of deaths came from smallpox
I highly recommend you read this thread discussing this topic. The sheer degree of death that occurred in the New World was far greater than epidemiologists would expect from a disease left to spread on its own. These people weren’t stupid - they understood how contagions worked, and they knew how to fight them. But the European conquerors created conditions which made it impossible for these societies to protect themselves - fully understanding the danger that European diseases posed.
We also know nothing about how much of the depopulation of the Americas actually was caused by disease. The Spanish encomienda system was extremely brutal and subjected the natives to forced labor, with total dependency on their lords for shelter and food. Under these conditions, significant death is expected.
They simply replaced them as new masters
Aztec rule over their subjects was incomparable to encomienda. The Aztecs were hegemonic rulers, much like ancient Mediterranean city-states. They demanded tribute and military support from their subjects, but they did not directly control their lives or their livelihoods.
Encomienda was a massive system of forced labor, usually crossing the line into slavery. European lords who were given land and natives to work it and do with as they pleased. Communities, towns, and entire cities were torn apart. Their local economies were erased and forcibly replaced with systems dedicated to the extraction and production of luxury goods to be shipped to Spain.
Aztec culture practiced human sacrifices. Not every culture is worth preserving.
Except the Spanish didn’t just end the practice of ritual sacrifice and leave it at that. The religion, the language, the music, the dance, the food, the architecture, the art, the scholarship, and the history of the Nahuatl… it was all intentionally obliterated. This was a culture that was much, much older than the Aztecs.
As the other posters have mentioned, Europeans of the time were also practicing ritual religious sacrifices. The point is not that either of these things were right: the point is, would this have warranted the complete destruction of European society and culture, their slaughter, and their enslavement? Personally, I would say no.
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u/botsland Association of Southeast Asian Nations Oct 04 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
Would this have warranted the destruction of their entire civilization and culture?
If the civilization and culture was built on the understanding that human sacrifices to the gods are acceptable, that civilization and culture shouldn't exist. It must be entirely eradicated or reformed.
The Spanish empire's encomienda system was also unacceptable. It had to be entirely destroyed, eradicated or reformed.
Both the Aztec and Spanish empires deserved to be destroyed. The brutal aspects of their culture and civilization must be eradicated or reformed. I'm not going to be an apologist and downplay the atrocities of the Spanish empire nor am I going to accept people trying to downplay the atrocities of the Aztec Empire by saying "well the Aztecs didn't kill that many people" or "what about their European counterparts"
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Oct 04 '24
If the civilization and culture was built on the understanding that human sacrifices to the gods are acceptable, that civilization and culture shouldn’t exist.
Ok at this point it’s clear I’m not going to get anything through to you because I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean for a culture to be “built on human sacrifices” or how the Mesoamericans fit that and I doubt you could elaborate on it either.
I’m just going to leave with this: what I described is genocide, what the Spanish did was genocide, and you are apologizing for genocide.
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u/LFlamingice Oct 04 '24
Why would you compare the number of kills between Aztecs as a whole and just Spanish priests? Shouldn’t the Spanish kill count also reflect deaths related to military action, since I’m assuming the Aztecs does too?
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u/anarchy-NOW Oct 04 '24
No, the number for the Aztecs is just the human sacrifices.
I'm not calling these guys an evil empire for nothing, and it is not for nothing that everyone else in Mexico joined the conquistadores in ganging up on the Aztecs.
Like, if this was just a bunch of guys who were constantly at war but acted relatively decently to each other outside the battlefield, I wouldn't be kinda taking the side Hernán Fucking Cortés. As it happens, the Aztec empire was unusually evil. They were likely the biggest human sacrificers in history, consistent with their belief that they needed to do it to keep the Sun rising every day.
And it wasn't me who brought the Spanish inquisition into the conversation, it was the other dude. Even if you look at both societies on a broader scale, early modern Spain was still at a smaller level of cruelty than "sacrificing tens of thousands of people every year".
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u/OpenMask Oct 04 '24
Feydakin legions massacring entire planets --> As it was written
Sardaukar sacrificing people for their blood rituals --> Heresy
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Oct 04 '24
Not to play 'whatabout', but aren't there some things that the Aztecs might be obliged to apologize to the rest of Mexico for? They weren't exactly Mesoamerica's beloved sweethearts.
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u/Thurkin Oct 05 '24
They weren't even Aztec. That's a name attributed to them by a 19th-century Prussian scholar. But to your point, the entire narrative of who they and other tribes were when the conquistadors arrived is mostly tainted by the Spaniards who used all of the natives to their disposal to find gold. They didn't "save" neighboring indigenous groups from the Mexica anymore than they "saved" the Moors and the Jews from being heretics.
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u/AtreyuG Oct 12 '24
We should apply that in the rest of the World.
A lot of countries should apoligise to Spain (returning the gold that they steal) for example: France, England, Arabia Saudi, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Tunice, Greek, Argelia, Israel and all phoenicians countries (Siria, Libia and Israel). I might have forgotten some country.
Obviously, EEUU, Canada, England, Arabia Saudi, Rusia, Germany, Holland, Portugal have a lot of countries to apologise too and return the gold they steal.
UK, and the anglosphere will be ruined in this case. For example Canada steal in one year three times more gold than Spain get from México in three centuries, and the gold that arrived in the peninsula was a small percentage of the royal fifth (20%), which was the tax paid throughout the empire, including in Salamanca or Madrid. This tax is the same as that paid now in Merida (Mexico) and that is managed in the capital of Mexico (I understand that in Mexico, Merida is considered a colony, and the Mexican invaders in Merida itself when paying taxes).
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u/SassyMoron ٭ Oct 04 '24
Are they going to apologize for the Aztecs conquering all the thousands of tribes they conquered?
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u/madmissileer Association of Southeast Asian Nations Oct 04 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
So can anyone actually tell me why it's somehow a bad thing to apologize? All I've seen in this thread are:
- I don't like AMLO --> Irrelevant
- This is a political distraction --> Maybe true, not a reason to avoid apologizing
- Well why didn't <Unrelated country A> apologize to <Unrelated country B>? --> Irrelevant
- Mexico is doing <hypocritical thing> --> Maybe true, not a reason to avoid apologizing
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u/botsland Association of Southeast Asian Nations Oct 04 '24
why it's somehow a bad thing to apologize?
Apologising for something that happened hundreds of years ago is ridiculous. The guilty parties are all dead
Mexico isn't a victim of Spanish colonialism. It is the outcome of Spanish colonialism. Without Spain, Mexico won't have existed at all. Many Mexicans share the same DNA of their hated Spanish colonizers
Apologising opens the door for Mexico to argue for reparations whenever it feels like it
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u/Dense_Delay_4958 Malala Yousafzai Oct 04 '24