The transition carried out in Spain generated the so-called post-Franco democracy. And it has several things to teach other “transit” countries. I already mentioned this, in an old book, from 1982 (available on the website: www.reginaldomoraes.wordpress.com). I invite interested parties to visit the website.
But it is worth commenting on some of these aspects of the transition, which were recalled last year, at an event in the Mirador room, Madrid, with the presence of political scientist Juan Carlos Monedero (one of the founders of the new party, Podemos) and journalist and writer Gregorio Moran.
Morán highlighted a fundamental element for the transition to “work”. It was fear. There was a smooth transition and there was no democratic rupture because there was fear. Fear intimidates, blinds, numbs.
Along with Franco's agony, in 1975, it was Francoism itself that was taking its last breaths – or, who knows, preparing another way of survival. The man that Francoism selected for the transition was called Adolfo Suarez. And he was called Adolfo because of his father’s “Germanist” convictions. But the Iberian Adolfo could be anything but stupid. He once commented that, in negotiations with the democratic opposition and the left, he had increased the size of the right-wing monster to extract concessions. It wasn't that difficult, let's say. The left was predisposed to agreements. And the monster looked big because it was big and old.
When we remember the context in which Franco died, we can remember a rebellious Spain, of course, but we must also remember that the building in which Franco's corpse was honored – the Palacio de Oriente – had kilometer-long queues of admirers and faithful . For years, even after the transition, the Spanish currency had two sides, no tail: on one side, the figure of Franco, on the other, that of King Juan Carlos. In 1981, the Guernica, by Picasso, returned to Madrid. The Spanish said that this was the return of the last exile. The painting was exhibited in a building attached to the Army Museum. It's difficult to know whose irony it was, but it was a portrait of Spain with two crowns.
It was said, at the time, that street violence was not as great as the left expected or the right feared. And the ghost of the “homi” was still clearly visible. Some analysts attribute the acceptance of some of the famous “pacts” admittedly unfavorable to “those below” to this factor.
The left – including the formidable Comisiones Obreras union – was led to demobilize anything, as long as they were promised anything. And accept whatever it was, as long as it demobilized whatever it was. So, given the conditions, the rest walked alone.
Media, intellectual circles, political and trade union opposition – everyone danced to this song, orchestrated by fear. In February 1981, a ridiculous coup attempt took place, with the invasion of congress by deranged military personnel, but without a base in the barracks. In January 1982, during the trial, the coup plotters rose up and demanded that the judge expel a journalist from the room, whom they “didn't like”. It is symptomatic that the judge accepted the demand.
For better or for worse, as a Sartre character said, memory is short when life is long. Time passed and generations followed for whom Francoism is a chapter in the history of school books, not a lived experience or repeated nightmare. Of course, there are other fears, but that one has been diluted.
The challenge for the political opposition – or what remains of it – is to overcome this fear, but maintain the memory. There, as here, the young generations need some memory May truth commissions be provided to them, to guard against the ghosts of the past, which are not always just ghosts. But, above all, to have the boldness that circumstances stole from our generation. If these two things combine, we have a beautiful future ahead of us. Otherwise, we will only have the title of Vitório Gassman's memoirs: a great past before us. A past of fear and submission.
