Postcolonial Citizenship in Hispanic Africa: The Case for Granting Nationality to Former Colonial Subjects by Alicia Campos Serrano

On April 25, 2022, I had the honor to be invited by the Department of the Romance Languages and Literatures, the African Studies Program, and the European Studies Program to deliver a session at Hofstra University on my proposal to grant Spanish nationality to former colonial subjects in Africa. It was a real pleasure to share and discuss it with the students of the course on “Borders, human mobility, and migratory experiences across the Spanish-speaking world”, offered by Professor Benita Sampedro, and to be joined by other students and faculty on campus and via Zoom.

The idea that was the focus of this presentation was first advanced in 2014, when the Spanish government was preparing a law that offered Spanish nationality to Sephardic Jews who were living in different parts of the world. The reason for this was to give some kind of reparation to the descendants of those people who—having refused to convert from Judaism to Christianity—were expelled from the old kingdoms of Castille and Aragon in 1492. During the discussion of the law by the Spanish Congress and the press, there appeared claims that other people also deserved the same offer. I also wrote a short text suggesting that the government might offer Spanish nationality to the inhabitants of Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara. These African territories had been Spanish colonies since the end of the nineteenth century, and in 1959 both of them, along with the Moroccan enclave of Ifni, had been declared provincias, the basic territorial administrative unit of the Spanish state.

By making these territories an integral part of metropolitan Spain, the authorities in Madrid tried to conceal the colonial character of their government over Africans, and to circumvent the demands for decolonization that were increasingly expressed on the international stage. In practice, the norms of provincialization did not work to completely incorporate African subjects into the Spanish citizenry, but they created the imaginary of a nation spread between two continents, which was embraced by many in Europe and Africa.

None of these changes worked, however, to maintain these territories under Spanish rule: By 1968, Equatorial Guinea became a sovereign state after a negotiated process between the government and a variety of nationalist groups. Shortly after, the new independent rulers of Equatorial Guinea stablished an authoritarian regime in the country that continues to hold power until this day.

A few years later, in 1975, Spain withdrew from Western Sahara after Morocco (and later Mauritania) invaded the territory: the three governments proceeded to sign a secret agreement through which Spain relinquished any responsibility over the Saharaui people of the former colonial territory. Meanwhile, half of the population crossed the border into exile in Algeria, where they established refugee camps near the Algerian town of Tindouf. Today, Western Sahara is still a territory under surveillance by the UN Committee on Decolonization, as a Non-Self Governing Territory whose political and juridical status is still to be decided by referendum.

My argument is that, if those people from Western Sahara, and their descendants, had acquired the Spanish nationality that was promised to them during the provincialization and the late colonial years, they would now enjoy a broader citizenship, and their human rights situation would not be as catastrophic as it currently is. Were their present ruler (that is, Morocco) to be dealing with people who enjoyed the status of citizens of another state, they would be much more cautious about denying the most basic political and social rights to them. Moreover, Western Saharan refugees in Algeria would also have another place to rebuild their lives (if they wished to do so): lives which have been in suspension, in the most inhospitable desert, for some forty years.

On what basis could the Spanish government have adopted such an unusual measure? My answer is that, because the current situations have origins that include recent Spanish rule, contemporary Spaniards should offer some kind of reparation to former colonial subjects, one that goes beyond granting independence. The main reason to offer (or to restitute) Spanish nationality to former subjects and their descendants is the political and moral responsibility that the Spanish state has for abuses perpetrated during colonial domination, and the errors committed during the decolonization process, including consequences which continue to reverberate in the present.

In the case of Western Sahara, the rationale is clear cut: the Spanish government did not comply—in 1975—with international rules of decolonization, and its withdrawal left the Saharaui people illegally occupied by their neighbors. Moreover, those who went into exile became stateless, after having been Spanish subjects (if not nationals) up until independence.

But we can also argue in favor of those from Equatorial Guinea. If decolonization was about putting an end to an unjust and abusive order, maybe independence is not enough to assure the enjoyment of the rights for which anticolonial movements struggled. The claim for the maintenance of some links with old metropoles, with the recognition of individual rights and a fairer redistribution of wealth, was always part of those struggles. Yet except for some cases (such as the French overseas départments) the solution that was adopted during the decolonization of Africa was the almost entire juridical disengagement between colonial and metropolitan populations, albeit one that did not prevent the maintenance of political and economic connections, often to the benefit of a local minority.

I am well aware of the difficulties of making these ideas part of the social debate, in Europe, in Africa, or elsewhere. But what are the impediments that such a claim may find? Why has it been easier to imagine offering Sephardic Jews a nationality without residency than to extend it to more recent colonial subjects?

a) On the one hand, the expulsion of Jews is seen today as a historical injustice, whereas colonialism has not received such a moral rejection. The idea of the ‘civilizing mission’ still permeates some popular views of the Spanish Empire, as we could see recently in the furious reactions of Spanish conservative politicians towards Pope Francis for having apologized to indigenous peoples for the “Grave Sins of Colonialism”.

b) On the other hand, since the end of the Second World War, citizenship involves more and more social and economic rights, in a way that previous concepts of citizenship did not imply. That means that the recognition of nationality to populations with lower standards of wellbeing would probably provoke a small rise in public expenditure. Incorporating usually middle-class Sephardic Jews is not so costly to the Spanish State as it would be to grant citizenship to most of Equatorial-Guineans, for example, many of whom live below the poverty line.

c) The independence of Equatorial Guinea and the return of the territory of Ifni (although not the withdrawal from Western Sahara), along with aid politics, are seen as enough compensation for whatever evils colonialism brought about. In fact, the discourse of national sovereignty became the hegemonic language with which anti-colonial activists claimed justice against European metropoles in Africa. Additionally, the current African governments in question would hardly be happy with a decision such as the one proposed here. The potential conflicts for the Spanish government with the Equatorial-Guinean or Moroccan governments is a powerful deterrent of this idea.

d) Finally, this proposal poses some questions which are difficult to answer: When do responsibilities (and the need for reparations) for acts committed by our ancestors cease to exist? Would it be fair for Latin American people, especially those of indigenous or African descent, to launch a claim for reparations to Spaniards today? Or has too much time passed since Spanish colonial rule and the reaching of independence?

The unlikelihood that this proposal might became a policy or even a social demand is evident. I have pushed it here more as a provocation, and as an excuse for thinking differently about postcolonial relations. It is also intended to work as a reminder of the unequal relations that linked Spaniards with people in Africa not so long ago; it is also a reminder of some of the imaginaries that appeared at the end of Spanish colonial rule, which conceived a commonality between Europeans and Africans. It is also a call to the Spanish state to assume some sort of responsibility towards those people and their descendants whose situations--in terms of both human rights and welfare--remain well below those in the former metropole.

On the other hand, I also want to highlight the paradox that independence did not always bring the justice and development that it promised. Furthermore, once it was acquired, it prevented old colonial subjects from claiming rights or services to previous colonial powers, even if economic, political, and personal connections persisted. Imagining double nationality as the rule, and not as the exception, could be one way of compensation, and of questioning the very political model of fragmented citizenships (and people's disempowerment) that became generalized with decolonization, and that is at the base of the global apartheid in which we live today.

Note: these arguments have also been developed in Spanish (see here) under the title of “Ciudadanía metropolitana como reparación poscolonial”.

Alicia Campos Serrano is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid and develops her work within the framework of African Studies and International Relations. She is the author of De colonia a estado: Guinea Ecuatorial 1955-1968 (2002), and has published extensively on Spanish colonial history in Africa, oil extraction and the resource curse, and the international relations of post-colonial African states. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora at NYU.