Mexico picks a fight with Spain

By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Down in Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum will assume the presidency on Oct. 1.

She will replace President Andrés Manuel López-Obrador who was her mentor, as they tell me south of the border.

A few days ago, President López-Obrador called on Spain to "acknowledge the grievances Spain committed to Mexico."

He sent the message to the King of Spain who didn't respond. It was sort of like saying stick your grievances in your know what.

President-elect Sheinbaum, a very white woman of Eastern European ancestry, did not like the way that the King of Spain treated the incumbent president, another very white man of Spanish ancestry. So she didn't invite him to her inauguration. She invited dictators like Vladimir Putin, and Nicolás Maduro. But not the King of Spain. That's a lot white people angry at whatever the "conquistadores" did centuries ago, as a Mexican friend told me on the phone.

Of course, the question in Mexico and Spain is simple or "what's the point of all of this, Claudia?" Is anyone in Mexico really angry about those grievances? I don't think so, because Mexicans love Spanish people and vice versa.

Again, so what's going on here? My guess is that the López Obrador and Sheinbaum know that all of those judicial reforms now being instituted in Mexico are not going down well with Mexicans who don't want one-party government to return. The international investors are concerned, too.

No one is happy in Spain, either, not even the socialist prime minister. Check this out:

Prime Minister Sánchez — who is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) — has described Sheinbaum’s government as “progressive,” and lamented her snub of the Spanish monarch.

“We cannot accept this exclusion,” he said in a press conference on Wednesday in New York, where he was attending the United Nations General Assembly. Sánchez said that not sending a diplomatic delegation to Sheinbaum’s inauguration is “a sign of protest against an exclusion that we consider unacceptable and inexplicable, given the level of relations between Spain and Mexico, two ‘brother’ countries.”

The point here is that no one understands why the president and president-elect decided to pick a fight about all of this at this moment. Early in the 20th century there was anti-Spanish sentiment in Mexico by its tyrannical rulers, which this seems to hearken to.

And of course, everyone recognizes that atrocities were committed centuries ago. At the same time, the Aztecs did not read their fellow Indians their Miranda rights when they captured them as enemies. There are a lot of grievances to go around!

So a total waste of time, as a Mexican friend said. Yes, a total waste of time that confirms that the lady about to become president is one gal who must show total allegiance to her mentor.

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Image: Pixabay, via Picryl // CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication