Franco Forever? Spain’s Chilling Revisionism Of Dictatorship 50 Years Later

-OpEd-

MADRID — Franco is dead, but he could be revived. For long, Francoism has been a past with more or less robust remains, like the last and annoying phlegm of a serious cold: the judiciary and the security forces that were never purged; the fortunes accumulated thanks to slave labor when the victims received no compensation whatsoever; the late Francoist myth of a Cainite Spain, democratizable only with great care, so useful to the later Transition. And the list goes on.

But half a century later, we are entering a different reality. Francoism is now, if anything, not a persistent past, but a future of which we are beginning to notice the first signs.

The great history philosopher Walter Benjamin said that nothing that has once happened should be considered lost to history. The past, like the stone in León Felipe’s poem, sinks into the earth. But sometimes it sparkles under the hooves, under the wheels, and can become a stone in the slings of the future.

Francisco Franco and his claim to be the inspiration for the construction of the future, have recently been in worrying good health. The events held in his memory no longer only gather nostalgic old folks. But more and more young people; kids who, in class, at school, perhaps provoke their teacher by shouting “Long live Franco!”

New form of punk

Francoism is a new form of punk. And today fascist anarchy thrives in the classrooms, a “spontex” Francoism, like that post-1968 Maoism that really knew nothing about Mao Tse-Tung, but perceived in him a subversive whistleblower, a total cultural revolution.

The problem can not always be solved with reason. A secondary school teacher from Valencia explained how he does it: not by being scandalized, not by giving the students the pleasure of witnessing the reaction of the horror they expect from him, but by responding to insolence with insolence, telling the boy in question “Do you know what is the only thing I miss about Francoism? The fact that a teacher had the right to slap an impertinent student.”

Nothing should be considered definitively lost. And neither should this despot who is enjoying growing prestige even outside Spain, among far right movements like the American Trumpists, who see in Franco an even more interesting historical reference than Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini.

The Führer was a “national socialist,” but Franco did not wear a deceitful label of socialism to trick gullible citizens. His fascism was not civil, but military, armed to the teeth, a defeater of the left on the battlefield. And it was not pagan, not even paganizing, but vociferously Christian. In the show Succession, Jerid Mencken, a rising neo-fascist candidate for the U.S. elections, mentions him as a reference.

A cruel century

Franco has been resurrected, or may be resurrected, and in a century where politics glorify evil, a century that is increasingly cruel, more uninhibitedly violent every year, remembering that he killed at an industrial scale will not be enough to ward off his return — which could happen sooner than later.

On a planet heading toward a catastrophe, strong leaders and evil presidents are what people ask for and will be asking for.

These are not bad times to be a genocidal; it is not even necessary to hide it. We live in an era where genocide gets broadcasted on TikTok, where one kills with transparency and people admire the killer, where the Auschwitz and Sobibor of the 21st century post the necrophilic order of the day on Twitter/X.

Mussolini may return, but so may the partisans who hanged him upside down after lynching him.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not deserted by his legion of followers when the first video of a mutilated baby crying beside the corpse of his mother went viral. People continue to say that “Israel has the right to defend itself” even when defending itself consists of just that; mutilating babies in the slums of Gaza, setting fire to cradles with terrible deluges of white phosphorus.

So, in a world like this one, what is the problem with Franco and his leftist talks? Franco was Bukele, Milei and Putin at the same time [the presidents of El Salvador, Argentina and Russia, respectively].

Worldcrunch Extra!

Know more • As Spain prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of dictator Francisco Franco’s death and the return of democracy, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a year-long program of events to celebrate the country’s transformation and all its participants. During his speech at Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum, Sánchez reminded his audience that rights and basic freedoms should not be taken for granted and warned about the rise of the far-right in Europe and in the world.

In Spain, far-right Vox is considered the living legacy of Franco, using the same narratives about Spanish identity and national origins. Despite losing seats at the last general elections in 2023, the party benefits from a growing popularity, especially among young people who follow it on social media. A survey by Madrid-based newspaper El País found 1 in 6 of those polled intending to vote for Vox in the next elections.

“Autocratic regimes and values are advancing in half the world. The fascism we thought we’d left behind is now the third political force in Europe,” Sánchez said. “Freedom is never won on a permanent basis,” he added, calling for more cohesive and tolerant society, and the fight against disinformation and hatred which could usher in a new age of authoritarianism. “It can happen again. You don’t have to espouse a specific ideology… to look with enormous sadness and terror upon the dark years of Francoism and fear that that same backsliding repeats itself,” Sanchez said. — Laure Gautherin (read more about the Worldcrunch method here)

It’s not over

Am I pessimistic? It’s hard not to be. But nothing that once happened should be written off as lost to history.

Franco may return, Mussolini may return, but so may the partisans who hanged him upside down after lynching him at a gas station in Giulino di Mezzegra; 1933 could repeat itself, and 1789 may also be re-enacted. Thirty years ago the “end of history” was proclaimed. But history is not over. Its loud dates and anniversaries have found their way to our century, as the pages that the children of the future will have to study get frantically written.

The bad guys summon the ghosts of their past. And we, good guys, must summon ours and fight theirs too, because they still can win battles after their death. Time does not pass – Benjamin also taught us – but accumulates.

Half a century later, it is still necessary to fight against Franco, to hang Mussolini again and again, to take Hitler back to the bunker where he killed himself.