The grand cross standing on a stone pedestal that welcomes visitors on entry to Zaragoza’s Torrero burial ground was established during the reign of Francisco Franco to pay homage to his supporters who lost their lives during the Spanish civil war between 1936 and 1939.
In Spain recently, various monuments of similar nature have been taken down from public sphere on the argument that they serve to eulogise Franco’s rule. The steps to remove such monuments were initiated by both national and local government bodies leaning toward the left, with the intent to put the emphasis on preserving historical recollections and highlighting the casualties Franco’s rule led to – during the course of the civil unrest as well as his subsequent dictatorship for the following forty years.
However, those fighting for the preservation of historical memory in Aragón, as well as elsewhere in Spain, are expressing concerns that the newly formed conservative local governments seem to be pulling down all these efforts to move forward and even seem to be drafting a new narrative of Spain’s bloody past century.
“Franco’s victims are being neglected by the Aragón administration,” states Enrique Gómez Arnas, a member of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory in the region while he talks alongside a modest park in the burial ground dedicated in memory of those who fell victim to Franco. “It is an attempt to revise history, to shift the onus of the country’s past turmoil onto the left.”
Post getting seated last summer through a coalition, the conservative Popular Party (PP) in alliance with the far-right Vox, revealed their plan to withdraw the existing Democratic Memory Law, an initiative of the previous socialist government in 2018. The law was aimed at the removal of Franco’s symbols in public places – though, the monument at the Torrero burial ground remains unscathed – and a protocol in place for the exhumation and documentation of the remains of those who were the victims of the unrest.
The announcement of the withdrawal came on the anniversary of Franco’s demise on November 20th, 1975, a day that is still remembered by those supporting the far right. Gómez Arnas states that the selection of the date was a “tacit” signal to the faction of the right-wing supporters.
As a retort to these concerns, Mar Vaquero, who is the second deputy president of Aragón, argues that it was a pure co-incidence and justifies the annulment of the previous regulation in the region. “It was a law that served to deepen divisions, was partial and incomplete as it kept reinvigorating the clash between the two sides,” quips Vaquero, who belongs to the PP. “Our mission is to rise above and reflect the spirit of the democratic transition.”
Although nothing has been formally put in place to supersede it, there are expectations that her administration will unveil a “harmony plan” before summer. This is reported to effectively widen the approach to the region’s historical remembrance by acknowledging and unearthing victims of ideological violence during the Second Republic’s left-wing regime from 1931 to 1936.
Vaquero expressed a favourable stance towards recovering any human remains from mass graves, irrespective of whether they belong to the Republic era, the Civil War period or the dictatorship’s duration. “Our viewpoint is that ideologies are not hereditary,” she stated.
Nonetheless, this so-called harmony plan has its detractors who argue that it essentially tries to equate the Franco regime with the democratically elected Republican government at a moral level, a move that has upset historical awareness activists. According to them, such an effort seems to back extreme right-wing narratives that dispute the broadly accepted view that a coup d’état orchestrated by right-wing military officers against the Republic’s administration ignited the civil war.
Inmaculada Rebla, a representative from a local historical memory group in Aragón, referenced the PP’s formation by Franco regime ministers and insinuated that the regional government quashed the law to avoid unfavorable historical portrayals. “They won’t be allowed to falsify Spain’s history and the events that transpired in this nation,” she further stated.
There are growing apprehensions among Rebla and other activists that financial backing and support for excavating approximately 1,000 mass graves in Aragón might be reduced under the new governmental strategy in the region. To alleviate these fears, Vaquero guarantees a 10 per cent increase in funding for exhumations this year.
The government of Aragón’s interpretation of historical memory has been echoed in other areas under PP and Vox coalition governance. Just last month, the Castilla y León government introduced a “harmony law” to replace the existing legislation related to historical memory. The language of this new law infers a lack of common understanding regarding the Second Republic, the Civil War, and Francoism, and claims that younger generations have been presented an “altered perspective” of the conflict.
Spain’s leading history preservation body has criticised the law passed in Castilla y León, referring to it as an attempt to distort fascism. Laws of a similar nature have been instituted in Valencia, governed by a collaboration of the PP and Vox, with preparations to erase pre-existing laws endorsed by leftist governments in the Balearic Islands and Cantabria.
The dispute has escalated on the national stage as well. Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has objected, threatening to seek assistance from the Spanish constitutional court, the EU Parliament, and the UN to prohibit regions from overturning local laws.
“We will not tolerate this surge of ultra-conservative historical revisionism that is surfacing in Spain and other highly democratic nations,” claimed Sánchez.
Former UN rapporteur on truth, justice, and reparation, Pablo de Greiff, depicted the initiatives spearheaded by the PP and Vox as “repudiation”. He argued, “No sane concept of ‘harmony’ can stem from false equivalency and denial of victims who have valid complaints yet to be addressed.”
In the past, when the PP held power from 2011 to 2018, it resisted Socialist attempts to confront historical memories and cut off funding for organisations conducting exhumations. However, it is widely believed that Vox, known for its aggressive position on this issue, is the driving force behind the recent changes in legislation.
“The return of necrophilia, discord, and resentment,” tweeted Santiago Abascal, the leader of the far-right Vox party, in response to images of Sánchez at the Valley of Cuelgamuros, Franco’s ex-mausoleum where scientists are identifying remains from both sides of the civil war. He further claimed that Sánchez was using the matter to “mask the depravity of his coup-plotting government, which is forcefully supported by criminal elements.”
The impact of Vox on the political practices of PP have been clearly observable in a multitude of municipalities and regional governments, where both entities have formed a coalition since the prior year’s summer. Evidence of this influence includes the eradication of numerous departments dedicated to gender equality and the removal of LGBTQ banners from government properties. While Vox doesn’t openly acclaim Franco or his governance, several of its political representatives have indirectly expressed their alliance with the tyrant and his ideologies. The primary representative for justice in Aragón, Esmeralda Pastor, is noted for her Facebook profile picture where she strikes a pose against a backdrop of a flag prevalent during Franco’s regime.
Gómez Arnas indicates that Spain’s historical chronicles have transformed into an additional faction of the cultural diffidence. He states, “The civil war concluded in our defeat. However, it’s significant to acquaint the society with the consequential suffering, to deter a recurrence of such events.”