Tsunami, 16. Democracy Under Construction

There has been talk these days about whether or not Spain is a full democracy. The leftist partners of the Spanish government, Podemos, brought up that ghost in a comment. Since then, they have been criticized, ad nauseam. The Socialist half of the government even came out and contradicted the leader of Podemos, Vice President Pablo Iglesias.

What is a full democracy? One view of it is a society where one can express their opinions without being jailed. Also, where there is no exaltation of a dictatorship, nor calling out that a certain minority, long ostracized, is the enemy of Spain. If that view of what a full democracy is, is correct, then, no, Spain is not a full democracy.

The first problem is the rapper Pablo Hasel, who was condemned for expressing his opinion about the state and the monarchy. The second is a march last Saturday in Madrid. The march was to honor the Blue Division that fought in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. It was held on Saturday because it was the closest to the date of the battle of Krasny Bor, 10 February, 1943, during the Siege of Leningrad. After the battle was over, the Spanish division reported almost 3,500 casualties, and around 300 soldiers taken prisoner. Almost the entire number of battle deaths of the Blue Division happened that day. Those prisoners that survived were returned home as late as 1954. Shortly after Krasny Bor, Franco saw that the tide was turning against Hitler, and he began appeasing the Allies. The Blue Division was presently ordered back to Germany and disbanded. 

The march on Saturday consisted of about 300 neo Nazis, including a priest and the lawyer of one of the convicted murderers of the massacre of leftist labor lawyers in the Calle Atocha, back in 1977. It ended at the Almudena cemetery, with a Mass and the laying of wreaths at a moument to the fallen of the Blue Division. Of course, there were speeches, including that of a young woman, dressed in a blue shirt. "Es nuestra suprema obligación luchar por España, luchar por Europa, ahora débil y liquidada por el enemigo. El enemigo siempre va ser el mismo, aunque con distintas máscaras; el judío. El judío el el culpable, y la División Azul luchó por ello." (It is our supreme obligation to fight for Spain, fight for Europe, now weakened and liquidated by the enemy. The enemy will always be the same one, though with different masks: the Jew. The Jew is guilty, and the Blue Division fought because of that.) She also affirmed that communism was a Jewish invention to confront workers against each other.

Apparently, they were given a license to march because the office in charge of permits said it had been told there wouldn't be more than 200 people. They have been marching for quite a few years on this date. Yet, despite theirs being speeches filled with hatred, and urging people to hate others, and this year, to ignore the restrictions imposed because of the pandemic, they are still allowed to march their hatred through the streets, honoring those they see as heroes. Pablo Hasel, however, for mentioning his opinion of the monarchy, goes to prison.

But, not all those who fought in the Blue Division would have liked the homage paid to them last Saturday. Not all shared Franco's ideology.

The Blue Division was created after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Franco's bugbear wasn't the Jews, like Hitler, but Communists. Franco owed Hitler, and had been putting him off, including Hitler's idea of a land invasion of Gibraltar, with Franco's permission. So, upon the invasion of Napoleon's nemesis, he sent volunteers to Hitler.

Many who volunteered were admirers of Franco, and haters of communism. But there was a certain number of them who volunteered to expiate family political sins. The film maker Luís García Berlanga signed up to avoid his father's execution for having been involved in Valencian politics during the Republic. Others signed up to expiate past political sins of their own, yet others because, if they survived, they would still have their job at the end of the war, and because their families would be paid their wages, which were pretty good for the times, seven pesetas, thirty centimes a day. A few did so in order to desert once they reached the Soviet lines, and escape to the proletarian paradise.

The fascist groups' appropriation of all the dead of the Division shows they know nothing about history. They merely use it for their own twisted reasons. But if Spain were truly a full democracy, direct hatred such as these ignorant people spewed would not be given sound. 

Life continues.