Taking a critical look at pictures that we assume are self-evident and true is not a challenge that we normally face. Nevertheless, the first step in the process of recognising genuine equality of rights involves finding out how representations of groups of people marked by some form of discrimination were historically produced and then reflecting on how many implicit prejudices are involved in them. Unless an effort is made to eliminate the presuppositions held by the social majority about what these “others” are like, legislation will make no difference. This is of course an uncomfortable task, because it brings us brought face to face with how far we are prepared to go to live in a society that is inclusive and just, and also a complicated one, because the objectives are not always obvious, even in the fight against discrimination. A case in point is the marked hierarchization of victims shown in the history of the way the Allied countries came to terms with the horror of the massive violence perpetrated under Nazism after the Second World War was over. A picture may help us penetrate the cultural underpinnings of our political attitudes. Among the best-known and most often reproduced photographs of Nazi terror is that of a young girl, her head covered with a scarf, looking apprehensively out of the wagon that will carry her off to Auschwitz, just moments before a soldier seals the door. In reality, this is not a still photograph, but a fragment of a short film that Rudolf Breslauer was forced to film; Breslauer was a Jewish prisoner from Westerbork, the transit camp that the train was leaving from.

Observar críticamente las imágenes que damos por obvias y reales es un reto que no solemos afrontar. Sin embargo, conocer cómo se han fabricado históricamente las representaciones sobre aquellos colectivos marcados por cualquier clase de discriminación y reflexionar sobre la carga de prejuicios implícitos son los primeros pasos en el proceso del reconocimiento de una auténtica igualdad de derechos. Sin el esfuerzo de limpiar la mirada social mayoritaria de presunciones sobre la forma de ser de los “otros”, no hay ley que valga. Se trata, es cierto, de un trabajo incómodo, porque nos enfrenta con los límites de nuestra propia intención de vivir en una sociedad inclusiva y justa. Es también un trabajo complejo, porque no siempre son evidentes los objetivos, incluso desde la lucha contra la discriminación. La historia de cómo, después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, los países aliados asumieron el horror de la violencia masiva perpetrada por el nazismo muestra una jerarquización victimaria bien expresiva en este sentido. Una imagen puede ayudarnos a entrar en los sótanos culturales de nuestras actitudes políticas. Entre las fotografías más conocidas y reproducidas del terror nazi está la de una niña que, con la cabeza cubierta por un pañuelo, se asoma asustada al exterior del vagón que la llevará a Auschwitz, instantes antes de que un soldado selle la puerta. En realidad, no es una foto fija sino un fragmento de una breve película que fue obligado a filmar Rudolf Breslauer, un prisionero judio de Westerbork, el campo de concentración de donde partía el tren.

Can citizenship rights be denied to significant groups in a society that regards itself as civilized and self-governing? Is it possible to exclude such people in the name of freedom and reason? Is it plausible to explain classifications that differentiate between first- and second-class citizens as “natural”?

This is the paradox inherent in modern politics, born of the revolutions that ended the Ancien Régime in the western world. Throughout the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth, liberalism inspired a representative form of government that appealed to citizenship, yet marginalized many social groups, including natives, women, immigrants, workers, slaves and nomads. In the Hispanic dimension of the Atlantic world that this book deals with, modern politics was based on exclusions explained as natural and necessary. In both Europe and America, a distinction was made between the responsible citizen and those “others” in society, potential “enemies within”, who had to be controlled and supervised.

Sometimes, the most “innocent” images are the most dangerous.

Confirmation of this statement can be found in the children’s stories that have for many years employed characters taken from the world of the gypsies in order to indoctrinate children and teach them obedience. During the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some of the teaching designed to inculcate the values of the official culture and promote family discipline was carried out through stories in which rebellious children—those who dared to disobey their parents and leave their comfortable homes—frequently ended up being stolen by bands of gypsies and vanishing into thin air.

These kidnappers, described as living on the fringes of civilized society, represented all the evils of barbarism—pagan, immoral, uncouth and criminal—in contrast to the alleged virtues of the national culture. Heading the long list of illegal actions attributed to gypsies in these stories, that of child stealing is a hackneyed theme that appears over and over again in European children’s literature.