A world without Spain: from liberal fantasy to human extinction

A world without Spain: from liberal fantasy to the extinction of the species

Erasing Spain from the map proves seductive for half of Europe. The results, however, range from a Nordic utopia to the end of humanity, and neither holds up for long.

The question, raised after a video, produces answers that swing between slogan and paleontology. Some argue that, without the Catholic monarchy, America would have been discovered by another power — the Swedes, to stick with the stereotype — and we would live in paradise. Others, less poetic, point out that the territory does not simply vanish without consequences.

The hypothesis of a Visigothic kingdom taking its place

The most rigorous reading is not to eliminate Spain but to replace it. A different political entity, probably a Visigothic kingdom covering the Iberian Peninsula, would have taken its place. History, they say, abhors a vacuum: it would have been something like Spain on steroids, depending on how the centuries played out. The peninsula is not left ownerless; one empire is swapped for another with a different accent.

The question stings because even the independence movement comes out badly: in that world without Spain, Catalonia and the Basque Country would also be wiped off the map. Even in the alternate timeline, independence does not exist without a state around it.

The butterfly effect that ends humankind

The most radical version speculates not about flags but about stratigraphy. If Spain disappears as a physical entity, the route by which homo ergaster and erectus crossed from North Africa is altered. One small change is enough for Europe to never be populated, and with the human species out of the game there is no America, no Swedes, no Macarena. It is the favourite argument of those who think any cheap alternate history crashes into biology.

In the end, the exercise does not clarify whether the world would have been better. It only confirms that history is a chain of accidents so fragile it allows no reset button. Most likely, without Spain something similar would have existed: another empire, with different saints and the same ambitions. The rest, with poetic licence, is left for a night at the bar.