Manos Unidas: Humanitarianism, Catholic Third Worldism, and Metropolitan Cultures of Decolonization in Spain, c. 1960-1980

Abstract

Given the centrality of African empire to Spain’s history in the first half of the twentieth century, the process of decolonization which followed appeared to have little impact on the Spanish metropole. This article argues that humanitarianism, particularly Catholic humanitarianism, was one of the few ways in which the impact of decolonization was felt within Spain. A new generation of international humanitarian NGOs emerged at the end of the 1950s and grew rapidly throughout the 60s and 70s, including the organisation that came to be known as Manos Unidas. These NGOs sought to place the decolonized world at the heart of Spanish society. But Spanish humanitarians avoided, as far as possible, both Spain’s contested domestic politics and the messy contemporary realities of Spanish decolonization. Instead, Catholic humanitarianism offered a vision of the world, and Spain’s place within it, which could appeal across the political spectrum. It promoted a positive vision of Spain as a modern, developed country by contrasting the consumerist abundance of domestic society with the poverty of the Third World. No longer a semi-peripheral country or a recipient of aid, now Spain could define itself against the Third World; as modern, developed, and humane.