Every two minutes, someone curious stops in front of the display case. It is a Wednesday afternoon and the sun falls on Bravo Murillo, a busy street in Madrid. A man has just left the Tetouan metro and, before continuing on his way, he stops for a moment next to the exhibitor. Big-eyed, he takes a photo and leaves. In the screenshot you can see the cups decorated with a Spanish flag presided over by the eagle, last used during the Franco dictatorship.
Also some plaques that show José Antonio Primo de Rivera. In reality, it was the name of the avenue that we know today as Gran Vía. Just above there is a sign that does not seem to fit with what you see: “Pajarería Selva. Exotic birds. Reptiles. Fish. Dogs. Cats.” The strange thing is that inside the store there is everything except animals in abundance.
Its owner is called Andrés, and he says he is used to those eyes that judge and the “prejudices” of those who look at them. “They say it is the Franco flag, but I only see the eagle that was used in the time of the Catholic Monarchs. “I do not support any dictator, whether his name is Fidel Castro or Hitler,” he defends himself. The first was a communist leader and the second, a national socialist. The shield displayed during the times of Isabella and Ferdinand in 1475 did indeed carry this badge with an eagle whose body represented the Crown of Castile and Aragon. Francisco Franco reused it after the Civil War, and today the first impulse is to relate it to the rebels.
In fact, he says that his choice of products has earned him some threats. “One day two came in dogflutes and they started to tell me everything but nice. I recorded it from beginning to end and immediately called the Police,” Andrés recalls, specifying that the incident occurred this year. He explains that he started opening a pet store years ago in that same area of Tetouan, but the business did not end up making him money. “Much less after the animal welfare law,” he says, referring to the new regulatory framework that at the request of Unidas Podemos – when it was still in coalition with the Government – was approved to increase the rights of animals and recognize them as sentient beings. . That limited the conditions under which they could be sold or held.
In the end, Andrés ended up redefining his business and began to sell mainly products of ultra-nationalist inspiration or with political slogans that supported more current leaders. Right at the entrance there is a cup painted blue with the PP logo and the phrase “With Ayuso you always win”, in mention of the current president of the Community of Madrid. A few months ago a proposal came to the Tetuán District Board, in which direct mention was made of the Pajarería Selva. The initiative called for requiring the business to remove any product with Francoist symbols from its display, since it was considered that maintaining them violated one of the articles of the Democratic Memory Law approved last legislature.
The request was unsuccessful, although Andrés assures that “he feels like war” after “all the insults” he has received. He wouldn’t mind if they attacked his store again, so he could defend himself. “I have never received anything official, nor any communication demanding that I close it. Let them try, see if they can,” he says. With the departure of Minister Félix Bolaños, promoter of the norm to shield historical memory, the Department of Justice’s obligation to ensure compliance with the 2022 law was left in the hands of the Ministry of Territorial Policy. Its manager is Ángel Víctor Torres, former president of the Canary Islands.
Sources from his ministry assure that they have not received any reports on this matter, and that they need the reported facts to be previously accredited in order to open a sanctioning file. However, you just have to walk through the window or inside the store to see it. Does he breach article 35.5 of the memory law, as his own party (the PSOE) said in a district plenary session? “It will depend on whether there is exaltation, personal or collective, of the military uprising and the dictatorship or its leaders,” responds the ministerial body.
A history marked by controversy
This summer the Pajarería Selva returned to the spotlight in a district plenary session. The Socialist Municipal Group in Tetuán asked to apply the Democratic Memory Law, definitively approved in 2022 and promoted by its own party, to remove the “Franco elements” from the shop window. They then pointed out that exposing them violated article 35.5 of the recent norm, which reads as follows: “When the elements contrary to democratic memory are located in buildings of a private or religious nature, but with projection into a public space or use, the people or institutions their owners must withdraw or eliminate them.”
The proposal was rejected thanks to the 13 votes of the PP in the district, which in Madrid has an absolute majority and heads both the City Council and the Community, along with the two positions against Vox. In total, 13 negatives compared to the 11 yeses that the PSOE (5) and Más Madrid (6) combined. Neither the express legislative order nor the sum of their votes were sufficient to withdraw the merchandising national style of a display that faces the public road. The spokesperson for Rita Maestre in Tetuán, Santiago Navas, explains to this newspaper that he has never entered the establishment, but that it is enough to walk right in front of it to be surprised by the character of its products.
“At first they only sold birds or fish, but little by little and without us realizing it, the business changed to what it is today.” Currently there are some animals for sale that can also be purchased at the establishment, but without a doubt its fame comes from the nostalgic product that commemorates the rebellious side and the dictatorship after the Civil War. The fact that it is next to the Tetuán metro station, so busy with residents of the neighborhood, tourists or residents from other areas of the city, makes it more worrying in the eyes of the representative of Más Madrid. “They have maintained the name, but not its origin,” says Navas, who considers that the memory law is in itself “somewhat lax,” but it does expressly prohibit this type of situation.
“We have not been able to raise it to the central government because our work focuses on the local, on what is born and dies in the district. That is why we have not used the party’s legal services to raise the issue,” says the neighbor and politician. An opinion that coincides with that of the Cuatro Caminos-Tetuán Neighborhood Association, which is concerned about the existence of this business. “It is a showcase that horrifies you as soon as you see it. We have come to find Desokupa t-shirts or logos with the ‘I like fruit’ from [Isabel Díaz] Ayuso,” adds its president in a conversation with Somos Madrid.
In the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory they are much more critical. Its president, Emilio Silva, knew what business it was just by hearing the word “pajarería.” According to his understanding, there are no precedents since the law promoted by Félix Bolaños was approved in which items with a markedly Francoist tone have been removed from a public exhibition area. “It is true that the rule clearly prevents it, but what is done later is another thing,” he reasons. In his opinion, the usual thing is that if someone makes a complaint, a disciplinary file is opened which, in most cases, does not reach any point.
“If this happened with symbols of support for ETA and not an apology for Francoism, we wouldn’t even have to wait for the complaint. The judge would appear there to protect the victims,” Silva ironically, alluding to an imbalance in the judicial balance depending on the type of political terror that is exercised. As he sees it, the State should be “the watchful eye” that pursues these crimes on its own initiative. It has become night in Madrid and at the exit of the Pajarería Selva you can still notice the traffic of those returning home or going down to the bar to take a break after a day of work. In the background of this scene, it almost seems that the beginning of that song by the Madrid trio, La Paloma, which has the same name as that street, is playing: “On a terrace in Bravo Murillo I wait for death…”.
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