Things that happened before we were born

"Franco died before you and I were born" was the curious argument used by the president of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, to justify the repeal of the Law of Democratic Memory in the Balearic Islands. She presented it in her response to the spokesperson for Més por Mallorca, Lluís Apesteguia, who criticized Prohens for her lack of commitment. Indeed, Prohens initially agreed with Vox to eliminate the Law of Historical Memory in exchange for the votes of the far right for her election as president; later, when Vox signaled that it was breaking relations with the PP, she promised the left-wing parties that she would maintain this law if they voted for a couple of decrees. Finally, when the PP and Vox once again joined forces, they finally pushed forward, this time, with the beginning of the process to repeal the Law of Democratic Memory, in exchange for Vox's favorable vote for the approval of the budget. A triumph for Vox and a demonstration of the PP's complete harmony with the ultra-nationalist and neo-Francoist far right. Not submission: harmony. Complete ideological harmony, in discourse and objectives. When the parliamentary session ended, the PP and Vox deputies congratulated themselves with a long and thunderous applause.

Prohens added an extra dose of cynicism by proclaiming that it's unnecessary to legislate so much memory for things that happened before her arrival in this world. She, the PP, and Vox also argue that there were victims on both sides, and that's why they're announcing an act of historical memory that they do want to hold: a tribute to the victims of the Republican bombings of Palma. As if that weren't enough, the bust of the communist Aurora Picornell del Molinar was vandalized with fascist graffiti the day before. Picornell was murdered on Twelfth Night in 1937, along with the Rojas del Molinar, and the current president of the Balearic Parliament, Gabriel Le Senne, of Vox, is awaiting trial for a hate crime after destroying her photo during one of the first debates on the repeal of the democratic memory law.

Many things happened before Marga Prohens was born. The approval, for example, of the 1978 Spanish Constitution, one of whose "fathers" was, significantly, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, an obscure Francoist minister. Equally significantly, Fraga Iribarne himself founded the Popular Party, with the remnants of the Popular Alliance and a significant number of fascists poorly recycled as democrats during the Transition. This happened in 1989, when Marga Prohens was already seven years old but not yet a member of the People's Party (PP). She is a member now, when this party, which has never cut the umbilical cord that links it to Francoism, is once again preparing to repeat the feats of a not-so-distant past. Prohens was also untruthful when she stated that "only the left talks about Franco": for some time now, people from the right, from Vox and also from the PP, have been seen everywhere shouting Franco's name while raising their arms.