In 1945, Franco traveled to the future. It was the most decisive journey of the dictatorship. The master of it all landed in Extremadura. There was a promise: to redeem the poorest land in Spain. Franco changed the future, but also the past.
The land is Spain's atomic bomb. In 1931, some 361 families (almost all from Castile and Andalusia) were owners of the great latifundia. The republican government, with the agrarian reform law, activated a detonator: nationalization and colonization of the land. What the Republic could not explode, Francoism did. Also in the name of social justice. The same populist words: to rescue, to liberate, to make Extremadura independent from misery. The leveling, the homogenization, the watering down began... The proto coffee for everyone began. Spain, one. Spain either all rich or all poor. Redemption via the pocket... Of others. The most colossal economic and social transformation of the bull-skin. Born, via forceps, in vitro, genetic tuning, an attempt at a miracle.
They christened it the Badajoz Plan: hydraulic works, electrification, colonization, industrialization, roads... An investment of one million one hundred thousand pesetas daily (about six thousand six hundred euros) from 1953 to 1966 (but the purse strings continued to be loosened until the dictator's death). Francoist socialism landed on 2,165,300 hectares. On the most extensive province. On the 800,000 people who lived there. On a density of 37 inhabitants per square kilometer. On 257,661 estates. 75% of which were bunkered in the hands of a few (Extremaduran bosses and señoritos from Madrid). And it also went boom. They did not succeed.
Franco's corpse left thousands more remains. Death was another nationalization. The Badajoz Plan was a mummy laid out on the land. Towards the end of the seventies, other people landed in Extremadura. To many, they were extraterrestrials. They landed from the Catalonia galaxy. Planet, Lleida. Agrarian nuclear power since the 19th century. When Catalonia had the Industrial Revolution. Spain had it in the mid-20th century. The first government of Catalonia, since 1714, the Mancomunitat, at the beginning of the 20th century, was already looking at the USA. It saw the sweet gold: fruit. In 1969, 90% of the fruit production on the bull-skin was done in Lleida. And the turn of the past, the future, the present arrived.
Dozens of small and medium-sized farmers from Lleida leased, participated in, and bought land in Extremadura. In 2011, I explained this in detail when I published the original journalistic investigation: Sweet Imperialism. Catalonia saves Extremadura from the Badajoz Plan. Short and sweet. The fruit management, production, and marketing model of Extremadura is of Catalan origin and resurrection. Amen, brothers.
Today, Extremadura is a powerhouse in stone fruit (peach, cherry, plum, nectarine). Also in the civil service industry: it is the peninsular autonomous community with the highest ratio, nearing 98 public employees for every 1,000 inhabitants. And in absolute figures, Andalusia, with more than half a million public servants. Spain spins, but it does not move forward.
Catalonia was already built up. We will not apologize for living here. For building up Extremadura. For telling the truth. Unless, of course, what is truly wanted is our corpse. Which is what the lethal Franco regime and the Spanish vegetable-national republic wanted. Which is what those who do not want us to have the right to exist want.
