In defense of Elvira Roca

In the last week we have attended with stupor a public discredit campaign directed against researcher Elvira Roca Barea. The harassment was initiated by the newspaper El País , with weapons and baggage, but it has been continued by other means, and it is easy to see that there is a common line that seeks to disallow the uncomfortable, but very revealing, thesis that the author defends in her books Imperiophobia and black legend - supermarkets with more than 100,000 copies - and the most recent Fracasología , of which an unusual first initial edition of 20,000 copies has been launched.

The most surprising thing is that it is intended to accuse the author of defending a vision of the history of Spain that throws balls outside and blames our ills on others, on other nations and countries, when it is just the opposite. Already in Imperiophobia , but very emphatically in Fracasology , Elvira Roca defends that many of Spain's problems have their origin in the servile attitude of their elites, who reneged on their country with an uncritical admiration for everything outside. The novelty of Spain is not that it was a victim of a black legend - all the empires suffered them - but that their elites assumed it and believed it.

The start of the campaign in El País motivated a collection of signatures in response to the newspaper, and in defense of the author, to whom personalities such as the writer Fernando Savater have subscribed; the journalist Arcadi Espada; playwright Albert Boadella; the philosopher and education expert Gregorio Luri; Carmen Iglesias, director of the Royal Academy of History or the novelist Javier Moro, for highlighting only a few of the members of a list of 101 people who deserved no more than a brief self-justifying response from El País , and without reference to the signatories that supported the writing, despite its obvious notoriety.

Signatories that also included other journalists and columnists such as Isabel San Sebastián, Cristian Campos, Julio Valdeón, Antonio Pérez Henares, Jorge Bustos, José Pardina, Enrique García Maíquez, Rebeca Argudo, Berta González de la Vega, Jesús Nieto Jurado, Alfonso Basallo, Pepe Albert de Paco, César Cervera, Dolores Canales or Aurora Pimentel, among others. As well as prominent people from the world of culture such as Pedro Insúa, Mikel Arteta, Teresa Giménez Barbat, Francisco Sosa Wagner, Júlio Béjar, Roger Domingo, Jorge Ferrer. Ilia Galán, Ignacio Gómez de Liaño, José Luis López Linares, José Antonio Martínez Climent, Fernando Navarro García, Iván Vélez, or Sofía Rincón, among many others that can be consulted in the final list.

Below we reproduce the writing that we sent to El País and that did not even deserve to be published entirely on its website.

Open letter

The undersigned have read with sincere stupor the broad article that the newspaper El País dedicated on December 20 to disallow the book Imperiophobia and black legend , by researcher Elvira Roca Barea, and we can only show our surprise and outrage at the tone and approach of the journalistic text of this newspaper.

Let us say, to begin with, that it is unusual to submit a screen similar to a historical essay that, in any case, should be subject to contrast of opinion and controversy in the academic field, or in the field of cultural criticism. But giving informative treatment to the details made by El País , easily corrected in any of the new editions of the book, without affecting the least the main thesis that Imperiofobia defends, is something we do not remember seeing before.

Pretending to disassemble a thesis as solidly constructed as that of the book by Roca Barea with 14 isolated nuances, whose relevance, in addition, is greatly exaggerated by the author of the report, seems more an attack on men (in this case on women) than a true History debate. That the report also states that Roca Barea has become a reference in Spanish conservative thinking seems to point clearly to the type of political interest that motivates the article.

However, if it is a new journalistic line that the newspaper considers valid, it should be extended to more authors. They could start, for example, by another book to which the newspaper El País has given wide coverage in its pages, Imperiofilia , by José Luis Villacañas; book full of value judgments without any foundation that has not deserved criticism or criticism in its newspaper. On the other hand, probably not even many of the bravest academic historical works would pass a sieve like the one that has been applied to Elvira Roca. And it should be remembered that Imperiophobia never intended to be more than what it is: an essay. Of course a very well defended and argued essay; Maybe that's just what bothers you so much.

The effort of the report to question the book Imperiophobia leads its author to even deny a certain fact: indeed, the BBC documentary Los Andes. The back of the dragon manages in its version in Castilian the impossible figure that the Spaniards finished with 1,500 million Incas, as Elvira Roca collects in his book as proof of the survival of a black legend according to which everything bad is possible When it comes to Spain. That the error is in the Spanish version of the documentary, and not in the English original, does not invalidate the thesis, much less authorize Elvira Roca to be labeled light or liar.

Likewise, all the controversy that the El País report raises about the figures related to the percentage of prisoners of the Inquisition who suffered torture, questioning that the expert Haliczer said what Elvira Roca affirms, is dismantled by a video available on youtube (El Mito of the Spanish Inquisition, part 2 of 3, minute 1, approximately) in which the expert himself, in a loud voice, corroborates the data that Imperiofobia attributes to him.

But we must also insist that even if we consider all the corrections that the report poses - many of which could be the subject of legitimate debate - none of them would affect the main thesis that the book defends. They would hardly suppose more than slight scratches in the very solid plot building that Elvira Roca Barea has built with his work.

Paradoxically, El País's own article, in its effort to disallow the book Imperiophobia, does nothing more than confirm one of the thesis that the author defends: the resistance of a part of the Spanish intellectuality of the present to admit the survival of the black legend among us.

Signatories :

1. Juan Abreu, writer

2. Pepe Albert de Paco, journalist

3. Rebeca Argudo, journalist

4. Vidal Arranz Martín, journalist

5. Mikel Arteta, doctor of Political Philosophy

6. Mariano J. Aznar Gómez, Professor of Public International Law of the Jaume I University

7. Juan Barrionuevo, lawyer

8. Alfonso Basallo, journalist

9. Julio Béjar, writer

10. Pilar Bensusan Martín, Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Granada

11. Oscar Bermejo, economist

12. L. Blanco Valdés, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Santiago de Compostela

13. Albert Boadella Oncins, playwright

14. Jorge Bustos, journalist

15. Enrique Caballero Madera, economist

16. Juan Cabrera Cabrera, doctor and former dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Las Palmas

17. Cristian Campos, journalist

18. Dolores Canales Bustamante, journalist

19. José Luis Castrillón, writer

20. César Cervera Moreno, journalist

21. Ramiro Cibrián, Former Reader PH Yale University

22. Miguel Angel Clavijo Redondo, professor at the University of La Laguna

23. Fernando Company Cera, technical architect

24. Roger Domingo, editor

25. Aquilino Duque, poet

26. María Escribano, art critic

27. Arcadi Espada, journalist

28. María Luisa Esteban Hernández, librarian

29. Jorge Ferrer, translator

30. Mercedes Fuertes, University Professor

31. Ilia Galán Díez, Professor of the Carlos III University and poet

32. Enrique García Maiquez, journalist and poet

33. Carlos García Mateo, writer

34. Fernando García Romanillos, journalist and professor

35. Teresa Giménez Barbat, writer

36. César Girón, Academic of the Royal Andalusian Academy of History

37. Ignacio Gómez de Liaño, university professor

38. Sergio González Ausina, journalist

39. Berta González de Vega, journalist

40. Jesús González Maestro, University professor

41. Alberto G. Ibáñez, writer and essayist

42. Ricardo Graziani, doctor

43. Rosario Herrero Pérez, librarian

44. Carmen Iglesias, director of the Royal Academy of History

45. Pedro Insua, Professor of Philosophy

46. ​​Pilar Irureta-Goyena Sánchez, librarian

47. José Miguel Jaubert Lorenzo, lawyer

48. David Jiménez-Blanco, economist

49. Fatima La Roche, doctor

50. Larry Levene, producer and director of documentaries

51. José Luis López Linares, film director

52. Gregorio Luri, Professor of Philosophy and Expert in Education

53. Casiano Manrique de Lara Peñate, economist

54. Francisco Mansur Nauffal, entrepreneur

55. Agustín Marrero Quevedo, engineer

56. Luis Martín Arias, Professor of the University of Valladolid

57. José Antonio Martínez Climent, writer

58. Juan José Martínez Jambrina, psychiatrist

59. Ignacio Martínez Lagares, lawyer

60. Luis Méndiz Marín, sociologist and educator

61. Óscar Méndez Pirez, lawyer

62. Rafael Molina Petit, official

63. Mario Virgilio Montáñez, cultural manager

64. Tomás Morales, business administrator

65. Javier Moro, writer

66. Lorenzo Muñoz Sardinia, economist

67. Fernando Navarro García, president of the Center for Research on Totalitarianisms and Authoritarian Movements

68. Jesús Nieto Jurado, writer, actor and columnist

69. Francisco Oya Cámara, Professor of History

70. José Pardina, journalist and editor

71. Antonio Pérez Henares, journalist

72. María Jesús Petrement, official

73. Aurora Pimentel Igea, journalist

74. Rafael Pombriego Castañares, business leader

75. Miguel Angel Quintana Paz, University Professor of Ethics

76. José Matías Ramos Trujillo, industrial engineer

77. Manuel Rebollo Puig, Professor of Administrative Law

78. Sofía Rincón, plastic artist

79. Antonio Robles Almeida. Professor of Philosophy and writer

80. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, writer and engineer of Public Works

81. Carmen Elena Rodríguez Zurita, Professor of History

82. Carlos Ruiz Miguel, Professor of Constitutional Law

83. Marlene Sáez Díaz, psychologist

84. Isabel San Sebastián, journalist

85. Javier Santacruz Cano, economist

86. Fernando Savater, writer

87. Juan Carlos Savater, painter

88. Nicolás Socorro Ortega, businessman

89. Francisco Sosa Wagner, University Professor

90. Maximiliano Trapero Trapero, Professor of University

91. Julio Valdeón Blanco, journalist

92. Tomás Van de Walle, agricultural entrepreneur

93. Rodrigo Vázquez de Prada y Grande, journalist

94. Eduardo Vega de Seoane, painter

95. Mario Velasco Pérez, engineer

96. Iván Vélez, writer

97. Mariano Vergara Utrera, lawyer

98. Manuel Wood Wood, University Professor

99. José Antonio de Yturriaga Barberán, ambassador of Spain. Professor of Diplomatic Law of the UCM

100. Jesús Zorita González, lawyer

101. José A. Zorrilla, ambassador of Spain

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• Opinion
• history
• Spain

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