Rodolfo Gil Benumeya and Carlos de Baraibar: Two Spaniards in the Rapprochement between Spanish America and the Arab Islamic World

Abstract

To understand the Arab–Latin American rapprochement under Spanish mediation, it is important to consider the roles of Rodolfo Gil ‘Benumeya’ and Carlos de Baraibar. Both journalists played significant roles as actors, witnesses and interpreters of Maghrebi and Middle Eastern realities. Throughout the 20th century, their public trajectories ranged from journalism and espionage to academia, cultural diplomacy, political action, and propaganda. Against this backdrop, they initiated a series of exchanges that demonstrate the formation of innovative transnational networks, bringing together cultural and political movements as diverse as Arabism, Spanish Africanism, Andalusianism, and the ideas of Arab-American diasporas.Throughout this chapter, we observe the unfolding of discourses, identifications and representations developed within the framework of the interregional encounter. We assess the comparisons and articulations presented here, together with the construction of new cartographies and imaginary geographies that justify this approach.To effectively reconstruct transnational circuits and verify essential data, the analysis relies mainly on sources from Spain and Latin America. These sources include articles, books, and various publications by both journalists spanning a long period of time. Official documentation on the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco, held at the General Administration Archive, and on the Spanish Civil War, held at the Historical Memory Documentation Centre, has also been consulted. The research also incorporates newspapers and magazines dealing with Spanish colonialism in Morocco. It also incorporates Chile’s most important Arabic magazine, Mundo Árabe.