Fifty years after the death of the head of a regime corrupt to the core, the fact that the Government promotes a series of acts to bring the new generations closer to the reconstruction of broad aspects of its tyranny is highly praiseworthy.
It is impossible to know if Franco would have liked it if fifty years after his inglorious death the Spaniards remembered him as they do today: divided. It probably wouldn’t have kept him awake. During his “glorious reign” he already did everything possible to make such a memory pleasing to him. Not in vain did he keep his country, the no less glorious Spain, deeply divided. Despite the tons of praise, ecclesiastical included and not least, he always imagined, or acted as if he felt it, that he had been sent by divine Providence to save the COUNTRY. Hence, this, at least in its “good” part, should be eternally grateful, that is, until the end of time.
It is useless for a large part of us historians and a wide range of other social scientists to bring to light their sins (which the ever grateful Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church insisted – and, in part, insists on ignoring –). We must not forget that a sect that abjured it declared him a “saint” and that the Institution as such has never condemned it (nor did it condemn, except with small mouths, other totalitarian or pseudo-totalitarian regimes as long as they were sufficiently pro- -western. That’s what it was called and is called. Realpolitik.
There are a few turning to secular justice (in turn impregnated with national longing) to keep up the flag of the only possible religion in a “desecrated” valley near Madrid. Or the strange reluctance to irrigate with its sacred water the countless fields in which the victims of the civil war and the harsh post-war period lie. There must be a reason they received the punishment they deserved!
Fifty years after the death of the head of a regime corrupt to the core, the fact that the Government promotes a series of acts to bring new generations closer to the reconstruction of broad aspects of its tyranny is highly praiseworthy. Although there are still many aspects to discover, it is, however, enough to lead a part of the eternal Spanish right to be scandalized. They all did stupid things! On to something else, butterfly.
What is unique about the Spanish case is:
—the delay with which the teaching of the past to new generations is approached.
—the under-provision of the necessary means, material and human, for transmission through public, charter or private schools.
—the maintenance of ambiguity in the face of distortions of the past that the right generally spreads through social media.
In our case it is worth noting that the above is now supported by foreign examples. German, Italian and even French. They have all had their repellent pasts. And in all of them what is obscured is what does not agree, apparently, with the pulse of time. In German, it seems that the aberration of Hitlerism is already on its way out. In Italy the government has welcomed numerous representatives of the forces that were not at the origin of the Constitution. In France the heroes of the Resistance, but increasingly with a small mouth.
Bad examples that the Spanish patriotic extreme right is proud to follow and apply to their case. It is true that they have not yet recovered their brainless Führer, Duce or equivalent (except for a minority that wanders along the narrow path marked by the Constitution), but everything will work out. Mr. Musk, who knows about German history as much as he does about Ugandan history, has no problem insulting the social democratic and CDU leaders. That is to say, the dark years continue to cast a shadow over our future, in Spain and Europe, with few exceptions.
Why should we Spaniards be different? In my humble opinion, for one essential reason. All Western European countries went through, with interested American help, the experience of the “glorious thirty.” In Spain, there were none at all. It is true that since the sixties there has been (too delayed) economic growth. Consent had to be extracted from Franco with the tools of medieval toothpicks and, in particular, thanks to the alienation of considerable dimensions of national sovereignty to the United States. The negotiations that led to this are still unknown. I have a suspicion that not even the long-delayed renewal of the Official Secrets Law (the only one available dates back to 1968) will sink its teeth into it.
Will Spanish historians and other researchers be less fortunate than our foreign colleagues? Will we have another “reason of State” different from that of Germany, France, the United Kingdom?
Also from this point of view, a possibility in the hands of the Government in celebrating the recovery of democracy lies in accelerating the opening of archives that still remain inaccessible.
A colleague and friend and servant, well aware of this, we will offer at the end of this new year a demonstration of what can still be done to explain Franco’s victory in a half-civil, half-international war, which the majority of our colleagues have not explored. To the greatest glory of History with a capital letter.
#Franco #Franco
