Spanish Nostalgia for General Franco

The Spanish government plans to have the mausoleum where the former Spanish dictator Franco lies buried, the Valle de los Caídos, renovated and put out a bid for tenders worth €300,000 for the project.

La Republica comments on May 28:

“The wind of the Counter-Reformation that is blowing through the ranks of Mariano Rajoy’s Peoples Party could already be felt when the proposal to designate July 18 as the ‘Day of the Condemnation of the Franco Dictatorship’ was rejected. The day of Franco’s coup and the start of the Civil War should, the Socialists had proposed, be made a day of remembrance and of condemnation of all forms of political violence and dictatorship.

“And now, even in a country with empty state coffers, money has been found for the restoration of what half of Spain sees as a desecration of the memory of those who were defeated in the Civil War.”

Evictions in Spain

A 53-year-old woman in the Basque town of Barakaldo died on Friday when she threw herself out of the window of her apartment as she was being evicted. Banks in Spain are putting a growing number of people on the street because they can’t pay their mortgages. The police trade union SUP has now promised officers who don’t want to take part in evictions for reasons of conscience legal and moral support.

This goes too far, the conservative daily El Mundo writes: “It is true that throwing someone out of their own four walls is an extreme situation that no one wants to witness. But it is the job of police officers to obey the commands of their superiors if they are based on judicial orders. A trade union must not support the refusal to obey orders. When officers are encouraged not to carry out orders this clearly undermines the rule of law. The SUP should rethink its absurd promise and retract it.”

The leading politicians of the major Spanish parties met the following Monday to discuss the widespread problem of people being evicted from their homes because they can no longer keep up with their mortgage payments. A wise step that however was only possible thanks to pressure from the people.

“If the task of politics is basically to solve problems, this week will be decisive for our politicians because they will have the chance to improve their battered image by finding a way to prevent hundreds of families from losing their homes.

“If they manage to do this we will congratulate them. But without forgetting that it was civil society – those affected, the groups and platforms that emerged to support them and give voice to their complaints, the lawyers and judges who have helped their cause and even the police and the locksmiths who said they had had enough – that made such a solution possible in the first place. This is civil society; this is democracy!”

Source: Huffington Post, November 13