Memory, beyond black and white

"Oblivion is not an option for a democracy.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
16 July 2022 Saturday 10:55
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Memory, beyond black and white

"Oblivion is not an option for a democracy." This is underlined in the Democratic Memory law approved on Thursday in Congress accompanied by a tough multifaceted debate. A debate that ranges from revisiting the past, the convenience of extending until 1983, the period of study and reparation of the violated human rights, until the political background of the presentation of this new legislation, approved with the support of EH Bildu.

The law, which now goes to the Senate, seeks recognition of the memory of the victims of the coup, the Spanish War and the Franco dictatorship. But this is not the central issue from which the debate emerges. "Trying to establish a truth from the Government is difficult, an absolute truth cannot be sanctioned from power," says Jaume Claret, historian and director of the History degree (UOC). To achieve consensus in this look into the past, a common genealogy is necessary. And Francoism cannot be this shared genealogy, we must go further, indicates the historian.

This does not mean questioning the letter of the law but reflecting on the context. Claret considers that although the presentation of the project responds to a political strategy, "the right is also wrong to allow itself to be treated as an heir to Francoism."

Society as a whole has assumed that the Franco dictatorship must be condemned, the victims repaired, and for this reason the historian understands that the PP gains nothing by allowing itself to be carried away by this interpretation.

Martí Marín, director of the Center for Studies on Dictatorships and Democracies (UAB) refutes one of the main criticisms that has been made of the new legislation: the reopening of the struggle between the two Spains. In 1936 there were many Spains, he explains, just as today there are not two, nor is there a single right. In addition, “the descendants of those who during the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship could identify with one side or another today are mixed. It is therefore a dogmatic debate that has no reason to be”

Marín considers positive the revisiting of history carried out by the law. And he emphasizes that he allows us to glimpse that the anti-Francoist struggle and the democratic restoration was not a question of the political elites but that it comes from the struggle of many victims of Francoism who have not had institutional recognition.

One of the main controversies surrounding the new law has focused on the extension until 1983 of the study – through a technical commission – of cases of human rights violations. A request from EH Bildu that looks at the transition and opens the door to include the role of the GAL. Former President Felipe González and various former socialist officials have expressed their rejection, understanding that it distorts the great constitutional pact of 1978 and reconciliation as the key to the transition.

Democracy, Marín points out, is a construction process and therefore an exact limit cannot be placed on when the Franco regime ends. Franco died in 1975, until 1977 there were no elections, they were years in which there was violence of all kinds.

Memory is claimed today largely by the grandchildren of the victims of Francoism. The historians Paloma Aguilar and Leigh A. Payne in the book The Resurgence of the Past in Spain (2018) frame the transition as a pact of oblivion based largely on the asymmetry of power "in the negotiating process between the moderate Franco supporters and the weak of the democratic opposition. In this context, the 1977 Amnesty Law is interpreted – which is precisely revisited in the new Memory Law – which allowed political prisoners to be released from prison but “which was also granted to all the perpetrators who may have been taken to jail.

A hagiography of 1978 should not be made, the historian Claret points out, but it is very convenient to analyze it now knowing what has happened. “It is very easy to say from the sofa that the democratic forces should have declared the Republic. If in 1978 it was possible to go from a dictatorship to a democracy, it means that some things were done well”, he indicates. It is logical that you want to look back "but there must be honesty on the part of all".

The leading role of EH Bildu in the final negotiation of the law has also led to the anger between the right-wing formations and the Government, but again the analysis has different faces. According to the historians consulted, it can be assessed in the course of history that today this Basque formation no longer supports terrorism.