OPINION | Justice for Samuel or the historical reluctance of Spain to call things by their name

Editor’s note: Mateo Sancho Cardiel (Zaragoza, Spain, 1983) is a writer, journalist and doctor in Sociology. Linked as a journalist to Agencia Efe from 2006 to 2015 – he was a correspondent in New York in the last two years – and a contributor to media such as El País, El Confidencial, Vogue, GQ or ICON, he currently teaches Sociology classes at the University of the New York City (CUNY); in Journalism at Fordham University, and in film writing at the Pratt Institute. Finalist for the Anagrama Essay Award, in 2012, for “The sexual revolution” and co-author of the essay on cinema and lies “Ceremonias de lo falsi” (2016). In 2019 he published his first novel, “New York at a stroke”. In addition, he participated in the Fuerza Fest theater festival in New York with his work “Anticlimax” (2018) and his field of research is the intersection of homosexuality and aging. The opinions expressed here are solely his.

(CNN Spanish) – Spain, the cradle of Spanish, headquarters of the Royal Academy of the Language, and often inflexible or even arrogant with the different variants that enrich the language beyond the seas, continues to have, in 2021, a serious problem in calling things by their Name.

These days, the streets of several Spanish cities have been filled with people asking that the murder of the young man, 24 years old, Samuel Luiz, be understood as what it was: a hate crime, which by definition is one in which someone is attacked for who he is, not for what he has done. And Samuel Luiz was gay and they killed him by insulting him for being so. As Begoña Gómez pointed out in her viral article for La Vanguardia, “what they call you when they kill you matters.” The police authorities, in a flagrant ignorance of the terminology, assured that if the murderers did not know the victim, how would they know that he was homosexual?

The mainstream media cling to the words of his father, who does not want flags on behalf of his son, without understanding that the euphemism within the family is one of the great stressors and discomfort for LGTBQI people. The words that are bypassed with those who know you versus how those who don’t know you throw them in your face while they beat you up. And thus, another armor is being built for Spain to continue with a clear conscience, since it is inadmissible that its quality as a tolerant country, capital of LGTBQI Pride and one of the first countries in the world to legislate the adoption by same-sex couples. According to this denialist discourse, Spain is not homophobic and, therefore, the death (milder than murder) of Samuel cannot be a homophobic crime. It was from a misinterpreted video call. And, meanwhile, other attacks on the group take place in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. And up.

This reluctance to take charge of the less favorable reality of Spain and its Spaniards and give it a name and surname is, unfortunately, neither new nor exclusive to sexual or gender diversity. We would like to be the only victims, but we are not. It is a less showy tradition than flamenco and paella. It is the special dish of the house: the flight forward and the compliment to our ability to turn the page with elegance and without grudges. Not to dramatize. Dirty clothes are washed at home.

This is how Spain entered democracy. With such an exemplary transition that he buried Manuel Fraga, Franco’s minister, with honors, in 2012. He did not judge anyone and gave himself up to the Madrid movement. That he let Franco die in bed, in 1975, and didn’t unearth him until 2019. After all, the dictator gave modern Spain infrastructure and both sides committed atrocities. The peaceful Spain in which we live has cost us a lot, it is better not to remove the ghosts of the past. As if getting beat up being LGTBQI wasn’t exactly that. As if the numbers of abused and murdered women were part of that peaceful balance and not the daughters of an unresolved systemic machismo. Franco was not Hitler, but the most contested feminists are feminists. Words more, words less.

OPINION | They stole Samuel from us and they took his time to see that everything improves

But it’s true. Not everything starts with Franco. Let’s go further back in history. Let’s talk about how the Spanish “discovered” America in 1492. About how we carry civilization and creeds, but the word genocide is best left to other colonizations. We were conquerors. How beautiful is the colonial architecture! What a high rate of miscegenation! Nothing to do with the geographical conquests of England, much more uncouth and class, or the French, much less amalgamated. Because, it is also well known, Spain –according to this alternate reality– has never been a racist country. There is no feeling of superiority towards Latin America. The Arabs came to Spain one day, built the Alhambra and left, but they hardly have any weight in our identity and our physiognomy. And, both they and the Jews were given the opportunity in the Edict of Granada to convert to Christianity and go about their lives quietly. All very friendly. Today, 529 years later, Spain is a diverse country again, but ask him to see what he thinks that, as in Spain, you don’t live anywhere. Look for the social mobility figures of those who come to Spain in search of opportunities. Look at the representation of minorities in the economic and political elites. Take it home as a couple to one of your relatives. Or tell a Spaniard that Antonio Banderas is an Oscar-nominated actor of color. You will see what a laugh.

For this reason, the change that the murder of Samuel has generated in the LGTBQI community is important and, hopefully, it will operate in other pending subjects in Spain with its own contemporaneity, conquered at full speed with dazzling, but misleading results. After this heinous crime, people have started to tell their true story. The gay community, specifically, has rewound its strategies of hedonism and avoidance to open its wounds and traumas. He has realized that by calling things by name, he can save lives and improve the society in which he lives. And it is fair to say: many other countries suffer from this same syndrome. But Spain is mine and, for that, it hurts more.