“Jo Labanyi asserted at the beginning of the twenty-first century that Spain’s amnesia about its colonial past demonstrated the country’s refusal to open a process of mourning. According to her, it had taken decades for Spain to confront the trauma of the war and its legacy of oppression, and it was time to pay attention not only to Spain’s suffering but also to the suffering it had caused (and was still causing) in the world.
[…]
It is not necessary to follow Spanish current affairs too closely to know that Spain has neither overcome the trauma of the dictatorship nor has it dealt honestly with its imperial and colonial past. The full history of the Spanish twentieth century is still to be written and, unfortunately, in many cases it continues to be read in a partisan way that accepts persisting epistemological and methodological schemes imposed during the dictatorship of General Franco. When discussing the history of the Peninsula, trying to talk about Spain’s past as a colonizer tends to lead us to the peak of supreme ignorance and the most hackneyed commonplaces, which describe ‘the mother country’ as an exemplary colonizer, spreader of ‘culture,’ ‘civilization’ and ‘true faith,’ as an example to follow and remember with pride.”
Inaki Tofiño. 2021. Guinea: El delirio colonial de España. Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, p. 33.