History's Dogs Can Bite
He who forgets history is condemned to repeat it. Then Spain is going to repeat a lot of stuff. Beginning with Franco. Yes, you would think that a dictator who died just forty years ago would be remembered along with his deeds, but not in this country. Older people will sometimes talk about him, usually with nostalgia. They'll say that under Franco the Guardia Civil would patrol all the villages on foot and if anything ever got stolen it would appear the next day, etc. Yes, the quasi-military police force would patrol on foot, but they wouldn't be looking only for thieves. They would be listening to people talking around them and if someone were acting suspiciously. They could bring someone in for questioning on a whim. That, the older people choose to forget.
But younger people mostly don't know anything about Franco. Some don't even know he was Spanish. That can be because of two things. Parents our age and older, who have had it with grandparents who never stopped repeating Franco's glories, decide not to speak about a dark period in our country's past. And schools that don't teach contemporary Spanish history until the last years of high school, which are not obligatory and not everybody attends. And when the Spanish Civil War and the consequent forty years are broached in history class, the language is barely condemnatory and much is skimmed over. There have been movies about the dictatorship and the war, but younger people watch them only in the context of the human story. Many probably don't think they were based on fact, but that they are an over-romanticized version of history.
The present right-wing government hasn't helped things, either. They prefer not to talk about Franco, but to let sleeping dogs lie. But sleeping dogs have a tendency to wake. The last, leftist government brought about a law before being defeated. It's called Ley de Memoria Histórica (Historical Memory Law) and it meant to right some injustices of the dictatorship. One of the most visible aspects is the retiring of fascist and Francoist symbols staring everyone in the face everywhere, from the fascist eagle holding arrows that still crowned many official buildings, to the renaming of streets that had been honoring Franco and his generals. Another aspect was that of digging up the bones of those shot to death in glades, outside cemeteries, and forgotten ditches. Including finding the bones of Federico García Lorca, shot by the Nationalists. Many families of ajusticiados would like to find the bones of their ancestors to bury them next to loved ones who had waited to find them all their lives but were denied that satisfaction before their death. That law is still on the books, but with this present government most work has stopped. There are still streets named for the Nationalist generals and fascist symbols on buildings, especially churches. The bones of innocents still lie unfound. This government doesn't consider these things a priority.
That's funny. Germany did. But Spain is different. I suppose Franco isn't considered a monster because he died in his bed and he didn't kill as many people. But if we forgive the monster by forgetting him, when the next monster appears we won't recognize him as such until it's too late.
But younger people mostly don't know anything about Franco. Some don't even know he was Spanish. That can be because of two things. Parents our age and older, who have had it with grandparents who never stopped repeating Franco's glories, decide not to speak about a dark period in our country's past. And schools that don't teach contemporary Spanish history until the last years of high school, which are not obligatory and not everybody attends. And when the Spanish Civil War and the consequent forty years are broached in history class, the language is barely condemnatory and much is skimmed over. There have been movies about the dictatorship and the war, but younger people watch them only in the context of the human story. Many probably don't think they were based on fact, but that they are an over-romanticized version of history.
The present right-wing government hasn't helped things, either. They prefer not to talk about Franco, but to let sleeping dogs lie. But sleeping dogs have a tendency to wake. The last, leftist government brought about a law before being defeated. It's called Ley de Memoria Histórica (Historical Memory Law) and it meant to right some injustices of the dictatorship. One of the most visible aspects is the retiring of fascist and Francoist symbols staring everyone in the face everywhere, from the fascist eagle holding arrows that still crowned many official buildings, to the renaming of streets that had been honoring Franco and his generals. Another aspect was that of digging up the bones of those shot to death in glades, outside cemeteries, and forgotten ditches. Including finding the bones of Federico García Lorca, shot by the Nationalists. Many families of ajusticiados would like to find the bones of their ancestors to bury them next to loved ones who had waited to find them all their lives but were denied that satisfaction before their death. That law is still on the books, but with this present government most work has stopped. There are still streets named for the Nationalist generals and fascist symbols on buildings, especially churches. The bones of innocents still lie unfound. This government doesn't consider these things a priority.
That's funny. Germany did. But Spain is different. I suppose Franco isn't considered a monster because he died in his bed and he didn't kill as many people. But if we forgive the monster by forgetting him, when the next monster appears we won't recognize him as such until it's too late.
But if we forgive.... That is the problem. There will never be forgiveness and always a desire for revenge in Spain. They want to rename streets with names of those from the Republic in place of those who followed Franco. Tit for tat as one would say. It was a civil war and there never is a complete break when you read the history of those countries that had a civil war.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Spaniards love revenge. But if wiser heads were to ever prevail, names from the Republic would not be used. And if anyone would ever learn from past traumas, neither side in a civil war would ever be exalted. Look at the flap now in the southern states over the Confederate flag and statues of generals. Same problem.
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