Leire Martínez is on tour in Mexico presenting her album ‘Stories of that girl’. In an interview, the former vocalist of La Oreja de Van Gogh responded to a question about the controversial statements of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, about Mexico and the Spanish conquest. Ayuso has gone so far as to affirm, in words with a colonialist tone, that “Mexico did not exist until the Spanish arrived” and has praised the figure of Hernán Cortés, known for leading the conquest of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century.
Martínez, as diplomatic as usual, has respected Ayuso’s right to express her opinion, but has indicated that she does not agree with what she has said and that the Madrid leader’s statements do not seem to her to even respond to historical reality.
“The ideology and feelings of each person is a complicated issue; diversity is what it is: each of us feels and thinks in different ways,” he said. “I believe that Ayuso represents a part of Spanish society, but he does not represent me and I do not subscribe to his opinions about Mexico or Hernán Cortés.”
Martínez added: “I think that denying what in that context was a conquest, and what society was like at that time, denying the rapes, the torture, the deaths… I think they were not friendly events, and saying that they were does not respond to the truth or the reality of what happened.”
Martínez has also proposed that Ayuso, as a public representative, should apologize for her words, although she has respected her right not to do so if she considers it appropriate: “It is her opinion, I do not share it; in each person’s sense of truth she will have to consider whether what she has said is worthy of an apology or not. I believe that it was ugly and she should apologize, but she will have to decide what she considers she has to do.”
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