Thanks to the entry into force of the Democratic Memory Law – Spanish memory is either democratic or it is not – we have learned that one of these days Defense is going to withdraw the Laureate of San Fernando, the highest military distinction, from Franco. That's where it hurts!
Before the town halls of half of Spain screwed over the Caudillo and showered him with distinctions, the dictator himself had the nerve to award himself the Laureate, in the first "Victory parade", back in 1939. Does the rush suggest that the man was not clear about his destiny in the universal?
The truth is that the dictator died in 1975 and was at the foot of the canyon for 36 years, a meritorious milestone in terms of business management. Hence the perplexity caused by the annulment of the Medal of Merit for Work, when we are faced with an upright and selfless dictator, who ordered to be shot both in 1939 and in 1975.
I already understand the Government of Spain and those who maintain that Francoism continues to exist –because of the electoral account it brings them– even if it is as old as the Carlist battles, the Sidi Ifni war or the final of the bottles in the Santiago Bernabeu, episodes that those under 50 are as interested in their TikTok videos as I am.
Our collective drama is that Franco won the Civil War without the grace of God and later forged a solid regime, based on many and very transversal complicities, unlike Hitler and Mussolini, who were suspended by life and their trace was erased from the public sphere in 1945. That is why –I confess– one takes this run half a joke to withdraw those distinctions that he enjoyed in life, long life, starting with the indisputable capacity for work, worthy of Lina Morgan, Mariano Medina – With climate change I would have liked to see him! – and Guillermo Timoner, Balearic ace of track cycling.
The finals are to be won and the laws to be enforced, so an entertaining historic season awaits us as we discover – as with the Laureate or the Merit of Work – the degree of rally we granted to Franco, that man, that mummy.
