Franco-stein's on the move: Spanish dictator turfed out of decadent mountaintop mausoleum The remains of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco have been exhumed from the civil war monument Valle de los Caídos and are being transported to a cemetery just north of Madrid. The draped coffin was carried out of the mausoleum by members of his family, placed in a hearse and blessed by a priest. They will then be transferred …
Like the English Civil War way back in Cromwell's days, or the American Civil War that happened more than 150 years ago, these kind of fratricidal conflicts have lingering, important impacts on a society.
(Also, I would like it known that I was the one who coined the moniker "Franco-stein" in the comments for the original El Reg article posted on this subject.)
The Falange was co-opted by the military rebels lead by Franco, as it gave them the nearest thing they had to a populist front. The murder of Primo De Rivera was fortuitous for Franco, as it removed a potential opponent - one with far more charisma (well, not that Franco had any at all).
Franco was first and foremost as Fascist. He only survived WW2 by only being marginally involved in the war -- the Spanish contributed to a couple of divisions to the invasion of the USSR and provided some low profile servicing facilities for German u-boats but otherwise Franco kept out of that war. Like many other Fascists post-war he was rehabilitated because fascists are merely an openly authoritarian manifestation of right wing governments, one that can be guaranteed to ruthlessly suppress any manifestation of socialism or trade union organization.
What's surprising in retrospect is just how many ordinary people support these sorts. I know that conformity and adherence to rules is a form of security blanket for many, they're more comfortable when they are being told what to do (and how to think), but the interests of such people are definitely not aligned with the interests of ordinary people. You don't have to be a marching in the streets Red Revolution type to see this (and that kind of revolutionary brings its own problems), its quite obvious just from the way that wealth is distributed, how social provisions have been undermined (social provisions bought at considerable cost from fighting Fascism in the first place) and how our world has been degraded just to feed the wealth and vanity of a tiny minority. Now a significant amount of our communal productive effort is geared to just protecting that wealth -- we feed on crumbs from the table, fighting among ourselves for the scraps and comforted by knowing just hour special we are compared to 'the other'.
Excellent post. It's amazing how many countries say they are democracies but are moving rapidly to the Fascist state and a personality cult of the leader. And yet, people vote for these governmental leaders but damned if I know what the voters are expecting. Where I am, teaching "government" in schools is dead. The kids (and many of their parents) have no clue about politics or government.
His policies weren't all "Grind the poor into the dust". Lots of blocks of flats around where I live, including the one I'm typing this answer in, have a fascist symbol over the door on a plaque which proclaims that they were built as affordable housing in Franco's time. (I think the local government should strictly have removed or replaced all of these plaques to comply with the Historical Memory Act; occasionally I read in the newspaper about someone taking it into their own hands).
It's also worth remembering that there were absolute nutters on both sides. After various groups of Republican extremists had killed about an eighth of the priests and a quarter of the monks in the country, it's understandable that some people should consider Franco the lesser evil.
Cutting some slack to Franco is the same as cutting it to Pinochet. They were both fascist bastards who used the "red menace" moniker to massacre the opposition. So they made a couple cheap buildings for the poor. Surprise! So did Hitler. The summary judgements carried on a lot or rural towns, where the Guardia Civil deciced the fate of common people in the same way the Inquisition did several centuries ago were a cabal display of the brutality of the Spanish fascist party. And Primo de Rivera should be expelled off the same premises where Franco's remains were held. To a dirty pigpen if possible.
On the topic of the identification of those buried in unnamed massive graves around the country, the process has led to a big healing and retribution process here in Argentina. I believe it should be an integral part of the process there in Spain too. It'll help the future generations to put in context the amount of brutality displayed by the Falanges.
Do not forget that Spain is the only European country where a WWII-era dictatorship ended only because the dictator himself died of old age. Other countries did get rid of them during WWII or made a coup d'état to depose them, like Portugal.
The starting point of democracy is neither 1975, because we had several years with still plenty of political repression until we had a first general election in 1977, approved a new constitution in 1978, went through a failed coup d'état in 1981 and finally had a constitutionally-sanctioned general election in 1982.
Even with all that, the very basis for the political transition to democracy was a general amnesty law which freed political prisoners but too made unprosecutable all the wrong-doings made by government officials: Billy el Niño, a well-known police chief officer for its torture detentions, is still a free man.
The current political views about the dictatorship are also quite sad: while active public support is anecdotical, all right-sided parlamentary parties hold a "forget and move forward" view, in which while they did not oppose to Franco's reburial, they do not support it either.
Without a general, full political condemnation of the previous fascist regime does not happen, we will never move forward. And we're still really far from that.
By the way, the man who made the '81 coup d'état, who got a 30 year sentence but only served 15, was one of the demonstrators outside the Pardo graveyard where fascists gathered and was cheered. No single political party has made a comment about this. A demonstration that was forbidden by the government authorities but a judge ruled that that prohibition was illegal.
A/C because I got questioned by Guardia Civil in 2017 for my political views.
Franco wasn't actually a fascist. He was an ultra-conservative who opposed the liberal and democratic basis of the new republic. He and his colleagues saw the Fascist ideology as a convenient form of populism they could use to motivate a section of the Spanish populace. Fascism is distinct from the conservatism, no matter how authoritarian, of Franco and the other military rebels. Doesn't make Franco and his regime any less repellent, but it has worrying parallels with contemporary conservatives courting extremist support.
the interests of such people are definitely not aligned with the interests of ordinary people
Behavioral economics exists as a field because people do not, generally speaking, act in their own interests.
Or, put another way, they act in their own interests; but those interests are usually dominated by perverse psychological rewards which are not aligned with material advantage.
This post has been deleted by its author
Alas, those of us old enough to remember back that far often can't.
(Though I have to say, I happened to catch the Weekend Update segment of a recent SNL episode some weeks back, and it had some good bits. I suspect it's often the strongest part of the show, thanks to the economical format it forces on the writers. Too many SNL skits are based on pounding an already-thin concept into a sticky film.)
I'm sure we all lost relatives we never met in WWII. I was raised to think it was a just war because it was a fight against fascism. If it had really been a fight against fascism then we would have deposed the Iberian dictators, and not tried to install one in Greece.
Since we are here, a shout out for Aidan James, convicted today for fighting against Daesh.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50156963
The law may not be an arse, but our attorney general certainly is,
"If it had really been a fight against fascism then we would have deposed the Iberian dictators, and not tried to install one in Greece."
More accurately, it was a war against fascists who were busy invading other countries. There was no stomach for actually invading countries not at war with us and deposing their leadership. Greece was in the grip of a civil war, the British were primarily intent on not letting it become communist, you may not remember it but at the time that was seen as a Bad Thing.
As to Aidan James, no idea why he's being prosecuted at all.
And, at the end, a war against (notional) Communists who were invading other countries. It may not officially have been such, but it's unlikely the Western Allies would have made such a push through western Germany in February-April of 1945 had the Soviet and Polish forces not been making such rapid progress in the East.
And the US would likely have abandoned the Pacific Theater after Okinawa, had the Soviets not been sticking their toes into Hokkaido. Previously-restricted diplomatic and other materials released over the past 25 years or so supports the theory that Truman's main reason for the nuclear bombings was to force a quick Japanese surrender; the Japanese military command was planning to fight a ground war for the Home Islands using the general populace until the US and USSR either got tired or turned on each other. Rapid surrender let Truman turn Japan into a US protectorate and keep the USSR out. (Frank's Downfall is an accessible analysis of the end of the US war with Japan.)
The first I heard of it was in high school when one of the teachers, but not the history teacher, showed us a picture from the war and asked if anyone could tell what was going on in it. It's definitely not taught in American schools. The only reason I have any awareness at all about the subject is that I enjoy reading about history.
If you've not read about them, then the Balkan wars that preceded the Great War are also worth reading about. Sadly, they aren't many books available on them but the quality of those that are is very good as they're aimed at an academic audience. The significance of those wars, as well as those in the same region during the late 19th century, is greater than most people realise. It explains why the Ottomans and Bulgarians sided with the central powers. The White War is also a good look at the Italian role in the Great War, another overlooked topic in English language history.
@james_smith:
Do you recall the name of the book on origins of the Great War that came out after a bunch of stuff was de-classified because it had reached 100 years of age? I saw a generally favorable review in The Economist, but lost that issue and forgot the title and author. Considering how much today looks like the inter-war period, it might make a valuable lesson.
I most remember Picasso's painting, "Guernica", that was about an incident during the Spanish Civil War. It's the thing that made *me* aware of it. I saw the painting in NYC before it was returned to Spain (Picasso's wish was that it would return to Spain when democratic rule returned there).
I most remember Picasso's painting, "Guernica", that was about an incident during the Spanish Civil War. It's the thing that made *me* aware of it.
Similarly, I first became more than vaguely aware of the Spanish Civil War when I was assigned to read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Art has its virtues.
>"Guernica", that was about an incident during the Spanish Civil War.
Some *incident*! It was the first town wiped out by aerial bombing, giving rise to the term WMD.
The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to the aerial bombardment of Guernica, Spain:Who can think at this present time without a sickening of the heart of the appalling slaughter, the suffering, the manifold misery brought by war to Spain and to China? Who can think without horror of what another widespread war would mean, waged as it would be with all the new weapons of mass destruction?
I read today in a local newspaper, as I read often nowadays, of a "collision between a pedestrian and a bus". It's supposed to be a non-judgemental euphemism but it's ridiculous. Nobody reads that and thinks, "I hope the bus isn't injured".
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
