Spain’s ‘pact of silence’ and the Removal of Franco’s Statues (original) (raw)

This paper analyses the main debates surrounding the removal of statues of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 to his death in 1975. By not engaging in World War II, and by keeping Spain isolated from world politics in the post-war era, Franco never gained the status of an internationally known dictator that would attract worldwide media attention. As a result, the politics of memory and commemoration relating to the period of his rule had been mainly confined to Spain; however, the events of the last decade, especially since Socialist prime minister Zapatero was elected in 2004, have been attracting greater international interest. These developments have been compared to parallel processes in other countries that underwent a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy without a proper process of reconciliation or public discussions of historical memory. Franco's memory in Spanish popular culture bears many of the as yet unresolved scars of the Civil War, its aftermath, and the long period of military rule that ended with the return of the king and the re-establishment of democracy in 1975. This paper considers the interplay of popular memory, political ‘history making’, and social activism that characterises contemporary debates in Spain about how Franco should be memorialised. The critical issues reflect the controversy over the nature of Franco's regime, the effects of the ‘pact of silence’, and the widespread anxiety about whether the past is best remembered or forgotten.