Franco, a trend among young people: the price of an unpunished past

Dossier 50 years since Franco's death: the price of an unpunished past 1 article

• Franco: Why does the dictator still divide Spanish politics?

BarcelonaFranco was very good at marketing operationsHe knew how to perpetuate his image and adapt it to changing times. November 20th will mark the 50th anniversary of his death. He never tweeted, of course. However, his ghost is very much present on social media. While the far right puffs out its chest more than ever and praises Francoism with impunity, or hangs the label of murderer on Lluís Companys from a window of the Catalan Parliament, the judiciary remains an insurmountable barrier for the victims of Francoism.

Democracy is fragile, and the polls are not very optimistic. According to interviews conducted by the Catalan International Institute for Peace (ICIP) this November, in Catalonia only four out of ten young men between the ages of 18 and 25 consider democracy to be a preferable system to all others. The gap between men and women is visible: among women, support for democracy rises to 45%. Another survey, this one by the CIS (Spanish Center for Sociological Research), published in October, highlights that 16.8% of Spaniards view the Francoist dictatorship positively. Conversely, when asked if they consider the democratic transition a source of pride, 71.5% answer yes. But what lies behind all these figures? And was the transition really such a model of success?

"Franco is trending topic"," said science communicator Josefina Mesa at the conference Strengthen memoryorganized by the European Observatory of Memory. "I'd like to say I've had to search in the darkest and deepest corners of the internet, but that's not the case," Mesa explained. "Social media plays a key role, not only because it spreads messages, but because it shapes ways of thinking, feeling, and acting politically." Most of the videos and images circulating about the dictator present him as an endearing and fun-loving grandfather. "For many young people, it's their first encounter with the figure, and in these messages, there's no mention whatsoever of the repression, the hunger, or the fear. Franco is an innocent and charismatic grandfather," Mesa says. "There's a crisis of liberal democracy. Young people have precarious jobs, they're frustrated and tired of broken promises, but they're not passive agents. And there are also feminists, environmentalists... The right wing hasn't won; it's competing to get their vote," Mesa says.

If Franco appeals to some young people, it's because the dictatorship is a distant memory for them and because historical memory hasn't entered the classroom in many schools, or if it has, it's been only superficially addressed. "They don't know what it's like to live under a dictatorship, and that's the fault of a society that has refused to transmit or doesn't delve deeply into a traumatic past. It's important to make it clear that this discontent isn't solved by voting for the far right," Mesa asserts.

There are significant gender differences. The majority of those nostalgic for or advocating for an authoritarian government are men. "Masculine stereotypes persist. Women understand the advantages of democracy better because they take into account what their grandmothers, mothers, and they themselves have suffered," says Martí Marín, a history professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). It's also important to remember that, for now, young people who defend democracy and who have mobilized both in the streets and in universities against the far right remain in the majority. Some students have even demanded the opening of mass graves.

"There hasn't been a genuine and decisive policy to transmit, at all levels, the truth and the memory of everything that happened and what the dictatorship entailed. That's why it shouldn't be surprising that it's relatively easy to manipulate a number of people by 'explaining' to them that those years were fantastic, that democracy is one of them, and that the same would be true with a similar dictatorship," explains Javier Chinchón, professor of international law at the Complutense University of Madrid. Chinchón doesn't consider the Transition to have been such a model and is outraged that, in certain circles, no criticism is tolerated: "To criticize, consistently, all the shortcomings that we have carried over from the Transition“This means pointing out what was decided then, which later proved neither exemplary, model, nor successful… It’s not just common sense; it’s another way to defend and advance the democracy we have throughout the country, something increasingly important in these times,” she asserts.

“The left has lost the battle on social media and isn’t reacting well, perhaps also because it holds democratic values, one of which is freedom of expression,” says Queralt Solé, a history professor at the University of Barcelona. “Memory policies should focus more on the freedom we have, on the struggles to obtain rights,” she adds.

“I’ve calculated that since the beginning of the 21st century, nine million people have left the compulsory education system having learned practically nothing about the Civil War, the Franco regime, and the Transition,” Francofacts. Debunking myths about FrancoismWith illustrations by Pedro Vera and published by Pasado y Presente.

Hernández was a high school teacher for 23 years and is currently a professor at the Teacher Training College. "My experience as a teacher shows me that the most recent periods are never covered, and the education system itself conspires to discourage students from choosing the most recent parts of history," he says. For example, according to Hernández, it's very difficult to get questions about the Spanish Civil War included in the university entrance exams—the questions are decided by each autonomous community. There is, according to Hernández, a certain fear. "There's a fear that this could cause problems. Nobody protests about evolution being taught in a biology class, but everyone has an opinion about history, and all opinions are considered valid, whether you're a layperson or an expert," Hernández laments.

At the historiographical level, much research has been done and much struggle has been waged to explain certain episodes of the recent past. "The first difficulty was accessing the documentary sources of the Franco regime. Adolfo Suárez, the first president after the dictatorship, ordered the civil governors to destroy a great deal of documentation," explains historian Borja de Riquer. Over the last fifty years, archives have been opened, but some remain inaccessible. "There are still many difficulties in accessing, for example, information on the persecution of the maquis, because the Civil Guard archive functions as a private archive, and many documents from the political-social brigades also remain inaccessible," Riquer states. Almost forty years after the attempted coup of February 23rd or the dissolution of the GAL, in Spain it is still not possible to consult any document containing classified information about these two dark episodes in history, because The Francoist official secrets law is still in forceHowever, there are syntheses and hundreds of studies. "The problem is how all that knowledge reaches the general population," says Riquer.

Everyone is shocked when surveys are published showing that support for the far right is growing among young people, and memory policies don't seem to be having much of an effect, at least for now. "There's no clear policy to reverse it. Whether it's a passing trend or not will depend on institutional policy. There needs to be a practical approach to reversing it, just like there's a housing policy or a policy for improving working conditions. I'd be happy if people simply learned what rights and responsibilities mean, how the political system works," who also emphasizes the importance of transmitting values, testimonies, and experiences within the family. "There shouldn't be silence, and fear can't be used as an excuse; the dictatorship was far more frightening," says Marín. Family silence has its dangers. "It's a mistake. What such a long and bloody dictatorship does is not something to forget, it's something to reflect on. It's not a positive precedent, and we have to explain why. Not doing so is a mistake," Riquer emphasizes.

Since 2007, they have been approved historical memory laws Both in the autonomous communities and at the national level. "Passing the memory laws so late was a huge mistake. Why weren't they passed in the 80s? Now there's no consensus, and they've become a political weapon between the parties," laments Marín. "The memory laws are insufficient," states Raül Digon, a lawyer and professor of Political Science at the University of Barcelona. According to Digon, a curious phenomenon has occurred. Many autonomous communities, like Valencia, passed pioneering laws that have been repealed in recent years with the rise to power of the People's Party (PP). "Perhaps many laws came late, but they have a declarative and symbolic value. When they have been repealed, it has been done by whitewashing Francoism and criminalizing the Second Republic, with a symmetry between perpetrators and victims," says Digon. "There's a very visible lack of inhibition on the part of the far right. There's a reactionary wave that whitewashes and normalizes atrocities that wouldn't have been tolerated not long ago," Digon adds. In contrast, Solé values everything that the recently approved Spanish Historical Memory Law has entailed: "It has been possible to exhume and identify victims of Cuelgamuros, and this place has been given new meaning, and policies have been implemented to exhume mass graves," he asserts.

"In the early days of democracy, many progressive city councils removed Francoist symbols without any legal requirement, and nobody said they should put them back."Caudillo Avenue"For example. Now, however, the far right is more assertive than ever," says Marín, who believes there was no purge after the dictatorship and that there has been continuity both in ideologies and in ways of doing things.A judge lives where he lives and associates with whom he associates", says Marín.

For decades, there has been a well-established international legal doctrine according to which any state undertaking a transition after a dictatorship marked by serious and multiple human rights violations is obligated to adopt measures in the areas of truth, justice, reparation, memory, and guarantees of non-repetition. "In Spain, however, since the beginning of the Transition, virtually no effective action has been taken in any of these areas. There was no purge of the police forces or the judiciary. Specifically regarding the judiciary, expecting it to suddenly become responsive to demands after forty years of dictatorship, to play an impeccable role as guarantor of a social and democratic state governed by the rule of law, based on freedom, justice, equality, and political pluralism—was a pipe dream," argues Chinchón.

To date, 115 lawsuits have been filed across the country for various crimes: enforced disappearances, torture, stolen babies, and other serious violations. All have been dismissed. Virtually all Spanish courts remain inactive, both with and without the Democratic Memory Law. "Without denying any other merits this law may have, the reality is that, fifty years after the dictator's death, Spain—with a few but significant exceptions—has failed to guarantee the right to justice for victims of serious human rights violations and international crimes committed during the Civil War and the Franco regime. The final tally is disheartening," adds Chinchón.

"There's a very reactionary culture within the judiciary; there hasn't been a democratic shift equivalent to what happened in the military. There has been generational change, but in some cases, it's the same old families; they aren't people from working-class backgrounds, because to take the competitive exams, you need a good financial cushion. There are certain prejudices," says Digon.

Many lies about Franco circulate on social media. The dictatorship left a trail of terror: thousands of murders, torture, corruption, fear, loss of rights and freedoms, abuses of all kinds... All of this doesn't appear in the videos and images that portray a jovial dictator. Distorting the past or displaying Francoist symbols, although ostensibly punishable, continues to be done with considerable impunity. "A low level of accountability for public officials and little criticism from citizens is the main legacy that Spanish society owes to Franco five decades after his death," asserts Hernández.

Dossier 50 years since Franco's death: the price of an unpunished past 1 article

• Franco: Why does the dictator still divide Spanish politics?