Nunca Mas: Spanish Words for Noble Somalis and Barbaric Abyssinians

Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis February 25, 2008

For Hispanophones, nunca más are two meaningful words; they stand for ´never again´. The two words have been used by native speakers for thousands of times, and on very different occasions. I am convinced that all the Somalis, and particularly those of the Diaspora who are far from the daily reality as it is being developed in the Horn of Africa country, need to learn the two Spanish words, and even more specifically they need to use them with a very particular meaning, as King Juan Carlos of Spain did a few years ago.

Nunca Más´, ´Never Again´, should be said by all the Somalis in one voice, with reference to a recent development that resembles an incident that took place in the Spanish Court in Madrid in May 2004.

To understand King Juan Carlos´ nuance, one has to know the occurrence on which the Bourbon monarch said the two magic words. As a matter of fact, this is a well known story among the European noblesse, and the event is highly illuminative of the fundamental reality that among all the human beings there are no differences either in terms of skin colour (black, white, yellow, red) or as regards blood colour (red or blue).

Somalia is only indirectly concerned with the event itself, as the Madrid incident did not involve any Somali! However, it is worthy of note that at the epicenter of the episode that made King Juan Carlos of Spain pronounce ´Nunca más´ is an Italian, who was second in line to the Italian throne for the last years of the Italian colonial rule over Somalia (1937 – 1942), namely the grandson of Vittorio Emanuele III (reigned 1900 - 1946), the son of Umberto II (the famous King of May, as he ruled for just a month, in May 1946), Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia.

Before I narrate the incident that took place in the Zarzuela Palace of Madrid on May 21, 2004, at a dinner given by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia on the

eve of their son’s nuptials, I will portray the two main protagonists of the incredible and inaudible affair.

Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia, pretender to the defunct Italian throne

Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia, born in 1937, is a pretender to the defunct Italian throne, as son to the last king of Italy, Umberto III. Highly controversial figure, he opposed his father in order to get married (secretively in Iran) with a commoner. A brief excerpt from the English wikipedia is enough to depict the personality of the self-styled Duke of Savoy: