“Whether the current constitutional monarchy will endure for long is debatable”
British historian CHRIS EALHAM has taught at the Madrid campus of Saint Louis University since January 2008. His most recent book is Living Anarchism: José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-syndicalist Movement (AK Press) and he is co-editor (with Michael Richards) of The Splintering of Spain: New Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War (CUP). Ealham is preparing a book on political crisis, state repression and social protest in Spain during the period after the First World War.
How has the narrative of the transition to democracy changed since the death of General Franco in 1975?
Initially, the trend was to see the transition as a political miracle. After decades of polarization, a broad consensus, from ex-francoists to communists, wanted to compromise on a peaceful road to democracy. There was an informal “pact of forgetting” and an Amnesty Law — both of which are today criticized by the UN — that allowed the torturers in the Franco regime to go free, and many issues became taboo. Over the past 25 years, a new generation of Spaniards has questioned this version. It’s clear that the post-franco political elite, which consisted of many ex-francoists, manipulated the fear of a military coup to dull the greater desire for change. So, the transition was timid and limited: there was no true reconciliation and no conversation about the past. Many feel this is a barrier to establishing a mature democracy.
What role does Franco and the Civil War play in contemporary Spanish politics?
Although Spain has changed beyond recognition since Franco, and explicitly pro-franco parties have been rejected at the polls, the dictator’s ghost still haunts Spain. The number of mass graves here is second only to Cambodia. And Franco was buried in the biggest mass grave, the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen), which he built with forced labour as a monument to his power. Around 40,000 bodies lie there. The right denies that forced labour was used and wants to continue funding it with public money. This is disgraceful. Also, the piecemeal nature of the transition left residues of authoritarian culture in the army and police. In the 1970s and 1980s, “uncontrollable” police groups committed extrajudicial murder in the Basque Country. And, last year, it was revealed that a police unit called the “patriotic brigade” had fabricated stories to discredit Podemos, the anti-austerity party.
Spain’s party system has fragmented in recent years. How stable is Spain’s democracy?
The economic crisis and institutionalized corruption fractured the bipartisan system after 2008. I see fragmentation as more local and as mainly affecting the right, where there are now three parties. In general terms, Spaniards value democracy highly, although whether the current constitutional monarchy will endure for long is debatable. Large parts of Spain aren’t monarchist and there’s been a surge in republican feeling this century. I don’t see the far right as a real threat at the moment. There are fascists and Francoist nostalgists in Spain, but they are a small minority. Most people recognize that democracy has changed Spain for the good and brought progress, and that being inside the EU is best. The far-right Vox is a worry, but it doesn’t — yet, at least — talk openly about dictatorship. It’s an ultra-nationalist reaction to the growth of the Catalan independence and feminist movements. Many of Vox’s supporters feel traditional conservatism is too politically correct.