Violencia

by Jason Webster

  But it was too late. After his heir, Felipe, was proclaimed king in parliament, the new head of state was paraded around Madrid to his adoring subjects . . . except that there was hardly anyone present. For a split second the face of Queen Letitia (a former journalist and someone who understands the importance of these things) betrayed a sense of disappointed surprise on stepping outside to see such a small crowd waiting to greet them. State television cameras focused on the happy new monarchs, but they could not disguise the sheer absence of well-wishers lining the streets as the royal couple went on a drive through the capital. Overhead, a helicopter camera crew tracked their progress along avenues where barricades had been erected to hold back the expected crowds. But not only were these thin on the ground, there were some stretches where no one showed up at all. The vast majority of Madrileños were simply getting on with their day. For a supposedly monarchist country, the arrival of the new king was the dampest of squibs.

  The fact was that the edifice of the Transición, with the king at its centre holding everything together, was falling apart. The complex arrangements of tacit agreements and alliances, and more importantly a will to unite the country to facilitate the introduction of democracy, was no longer working. A new generation – people who were only children during the Transition years – was coming to power, and wasn’t content with blindly carrying on in the same way.

  An early sign that things were changing had come a few years before with the creation of the ‘historical memory’ movement, groups of people around the country who wanted to excavate the mass graves of Republicans who had been executed (or murdered) by the rebels during the Civil War. This was breaking a huge taboo and one of the building blocks of the Transition – the pact of forgetting (the most recent of several in Spanish history), under which everyone had agreed not to open old wounds. But the ‘historical memory’ groups disagreed. Founded in large part by the grandchildren of murdered Republicans, by the mid-2000s they felt that the moment had come to re-examine the recent past, not least because time was running out to speak to the last survivors of the Civil War before their memories were buried with them. Franco’s dead had been honoured throughout the dictatorship as martyrs to his cause,2 but the other half of Spain had never been allowed to mourn their own fallen in proper fashion, not even knowing, in many cases, where their loved ones lay.

  The movement had limited success: in some parts of the country a number of mass graves were opened, while in others they remained firmly closed. Left-wing regional administrations tended to favour the projects, while right-wing ones shut them down. Debate raged about whether it was a good idea after all. Was it purely about ‘history’? Or did it include an element of muck-raking for political ends, a way for the Left to garner more votes? Was it simply better to continue pretending that nothing had happened?

  Around this time, a book of mine on the War and its legacy was published in Spain. The editors gave it the title Las heridas abiertas de la Guerra Civil – ‘The Open Wounds of the Civil War’. At a presentation event in a provincial capital city, one man, a right-wing councillor, stood up sharply when he saw the front cover. Red-faced and frothing at the mouth, he made it clear to everyone that, to his mind, there were no open wounds from the Civil War, and tossed the book away. The comment that his own reaction seemed to suggest otherwise went over his head. History was very much a live topic, and having been smothered for several decades, was reawakening old emotions.

  Then came the crash of 2008, and a Spanish economy which had been built on construction itself came tumbling down. ‘Historical memory’ was put on the back burner: people were being left destitute overnight – mostly ordinary folk who could no longer afford to pay their mortgages or bills. Some were throwing themselves out of windows in desperation. One morning after dropping my son off at school, I saw a distraught man at the top of his block of flats about to launch himself into the void. The whole street came to a terrified standstill. Thankfully in this case the man’s wife and daughter were able to talk him out of it. Others were more determined, however, and a friend in the police crime-scene investigation squad would talk in sombre tones about the human remains he was increasingly having to clear up.

  The bankruptcies, food banks and a cascade of new corruption cases among the political elite made many ordinary Spaniards increasingly aware of the gap between themselves and those meant to represent them.3 The result was the creation of what became known as el 15-M, the 15 May movement. On that day in 2011, thousands of anti-austerity and pro-democracy protesters staged a demonstration in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. Over several days, the rally grew, with members camping out in the square and ‘occupying’ it. It was a largely spontaneous outpouring of anger which quickly spread across the country. And from there to much of the Western world: within six months, ‘Occupy’ movements had taken over central areas of New York, London and many other important cities.

  The Spanish indignados of the 15-M were inspired in part by the writings of the veteran French politician Stéphane Hessel, whose book Indignez-vous came out the previous year. But also by the Arab Spring, which began in January 2011 when the Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi burnt himself to death in protest at government corruption. Ask many people in Western countries today, however, about the Occupy movement, and they have vague memories of the Madrid demonstrations, but have generally forgotten that the Spanish protestors were the precursors to those who sprang up in other major cities. With the 15-M, Spain’s Cassandra pattern, which stretches back over many centuries, has repeated itself as recently as the last decade; and it parallels the Moorish civilisation which flourished over a thousand years ago by not only being largely ignored as a predictor of wider change, but also by having found a large part of its inspiration in the East.

  With time, 15-M was transformed into a new left-wing political party, Podemos. The disaffected were given a voice and, following elections, representation in parliament. They had been corralled, brought into the system. Podemos then followed the pattern of so many left-wing parties of proceeding to chase its own tail in convoluted internal power struggles. Yet for a moment the Establishment had been worried: a brief whiff of change had been in the air. Even, dare one say it, revolution . . .

  But the danger hadn’t, in fact, passed: today things remain anything but settled.

  Reopened wounds from the Civil War, an economy in trouble, a million Spaniards forced to seek work abroad, an endemically corrupt political class, a monarchy on the brink . . . Almost everywhere you look in Spain at the moment, history and the patterns of the past are rising to the fore. A counter-weight to Podemos has emerged on the far-right in the form of a successful and growing new party, Vox, which actually uses words like ‘Reconquest’ to describe its policies towards Muslim immigrants, and which calls for ‘homage’ to be paid to pro-Francoists.

  Almost every day, news reports throw up further examples of how the wounds from the past rarely appear to heal. When Franco’s only child, Carmencita, died at the age of ninety-one in December 2017, the story served to remind people of certain uncomfortable facts: Carmen had been the head of the Francisco Franco Foundation, a partially State-funded body dedicated to preserving the dictator’s memory and which still refers to the 1936 military coup that kick-started the Civil War as an ‘armed referendum’. Moreover, Franco’s descendants are mostly very wealthy, still in possession of assets gained – or expropriated, in the eyes of some – during the dictatorship. Carmen’s aristocratic title, Duchess of Franco, had been given to her by King Juan Carlos, and was inherited on her death by her daughter, the dictator’s granddaughter. Around thirty other titles, ranging from count to marquis, still belong to the descendants of Francoist generals and supporters from the Civil War, some of whom carried out multiple atrocities and massacres of civilians.

  A further example comes from this morning’s news as I write these words: a corporal in the armed forces is being court-martialled for signing an anti-Francoist manifesto with the possibi
lity that he will spend up to a month in prison. The unfortunate corporal was reacting to a manifesto published the previous summer, and signed by one hundred and forty-four officers, which justified the coup attempt of 1936. Furthermore, in an acutely symbolic act, the current – Socialist – government in Madrid is planning to disinter Franco from his gigantic mausoleum in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains and have him buried elsewhere. Rarely has the phrase ‘digging up the past’ been more apt. Yet, as in a folk tale, inside those mountains, sleeping dragons lie; they have already been roused; they may soon become fully awake.

  Spain is trapped, a beautiful and dynamic country perpetually divided against itself, a nation of generous, warm-hearted people destined to be ruled by the worst elements within their own society. Moments of relative light and peace – such as the Transition – come once in a while. But they are short-lived: in the same way that Restoration Spain disintegrated, the Spanish Renaissance was crushed by the Counter-Reformation, Jewish and Islamic cultures were squeezed out by the Inquisition, or Caliphal Cordoba was destroyed by religious bigots. Spain’s Transition was deeply flawed, but it worked for a while. And yet it could only ever be temporary. The country’s own history makes that clear.

  If the very long-standing patterns of Spanish history continue, Transition Spain will eventually fall, just as every other regime has. But outside forces won’t bring it to an end: internal tensions will cause it to self-immolate, as in the past. And the biggest threat at present to the seriously weakened state is the Catalan separatist movement.

  The whole world is aware of an age-old conflict between Catalonia and the rest of Spain thanks mostly to the football rivalry between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, a sporting clash on the turf which in Spain is known simply as el Clásico. All other fixtures in the calendar of La Liga pale in comparison, and although most Spaniards may support their own local side, the vast majority have as much emotional investment in this match as in their own.

  The real tensions symbolised in this rivalry, however, were laid bare for all to see in October 2017. In that month the Catalan regional authorities organised a referendum on independence from the rest of Spain. Of those who voted, the vast majority4 were in favour of Catalonia breaking away. The world was shocked to see the response by the Madrid government, which declared the referendum illegal and sent in riot police to try to prevent it from taking place. Santiago the perpetual ‘Slayer’ of Spain’s Other, of those who would threaten national unity, was brought out of retirement and sent in to do battle once more. Instead of swords, this time truncheons were brought down on the enemies’ heads, but the same centuries-old pattern was repeated: not Moors being crushed this time, but Catalans casting a vote on self-determination. Violent, bloody scenes flashed over the world media within moments. Internationally, there was a sense of shock: ‘I thought this kind of thing didn’t happen any more in Western democracies,’ went the comment.

  Yet anyone with a long view of Spanish history would have known that this violent reaction was inevitable. As should now be clear, Spain is constructed through the use of violence. And violence – or the threat of violence – is the only thing which keeps it from falling apart. The Catalan referendum was the most serious threat to the unity of the country since the end of the Civil War.5 ‘Spain,’ as George Borrow said, ‘never changes.’ And so the established patterns of behaviour reasserted themselves as they always have: violence was employed by the State to hold the nation together. Policemen in Barcelona beating voters with batons were following a long historical tradition, yet one of which they themselves were, at best, only vaguely aware.

  A few weeks later Madrid withdrew Catalonia’s autonomy and imposed direct rule – the first time such a move had taken place since Spain became a democracy. For a brief moment the Catalan authorities had declared a republic – just as they had done several times in the past – only to suspend it immediately. And now, regional administration and rights were being swept away by the centre, as had also happened before. Catalan politicians and independence activists were arrested on charges of ‘rebellion’, a crime which implies the use of violence, despite the very public violence which had been meted out by the Spanish state. History was coming alive again in multiple and disturbing ways.

  The situation in Catalonia today is, frankly, a mess, a situation seeded during the Transition, when minority governments in Madrid needed Catalan votes to get bills through parliament (and frequently still do). The return favour was to grant ever more rights and freedoms to Catalonia, where a sense of ‘separateness’ from the rest of Spain has been fomented over decades and is now beginning to bear fruit. Many Catalans, particularly in rural areas, feel no connection with other Spaniards, thanks in part to a regionally controlled education system which has highlighted differences between them. With each generation, this is increasing, and with it the pressure for Catalonia to become a separate nation.

  In Madrid, meanwhile, there has mostly been an absence of any concerted effort to ‘woo back’ Catalans to the national fold. In 2005, the conservative People’s Party actively campaigned against a new Catalan statute of autonomy while a simultaneous, unofficial boycott of Catalan goods, such as cava, got under way across Spain. Yet this, like the use of police violence, only helps the Catalan independence cause, fuelling a centuries-old sense of victimhood. In Madrid the policy has generally been to isolate the separatists, put them in jail where possible, and wait the movement out: it worked with ETA and the Basques, so – the thinking goes – it will work again.

  But ETA made the crucial mistake of using violence. So far the Catalan movement is peaceful, no matter what charges are laid by Spanish courts against its leaders. The violent ones are the ‘Spanish’, who, to Catalan delight, are thereby condemned by international public opinion.

  Yet by now it will be clear that the Spanish state knows nothing more than to use violence in the face of a possible Catalan breakaway. It is what it has always done. The gulf between separatists and centralists is now vast, each side becoming more virulent in its rhetoric. The situation has been boiled down to basic elements of ‘us’ and ‘them’, of, as ever, blanco y negro. These are the same warning signs which prefigure crises all over the world, but particularly so in Spain, with its long history of repression and civil conflict.

  Will the Catalan crisis turn violent? The police response on the day of the referendum means it already has. The question is, how much worse will it become?

  The situation might not be so gloomy were it not for seriously damaged institutions captaining the ship of State in Madrid. The key point is that Spain has always broken up when anything other than a strong, centralising and usually authoritarian force holds the country together. Yet democracies by their very nature are not like this. That the country did not split up as soon as Franco died was due in large part to the symbolic role that Juan Carlos played as the father figure of the nation, seeing it through into the new age. But Juan Carlos has gone, and the monarchy he has left behind is in serious trouble. Felipe may be admired by some, but he is loved by no one. The symbolic father figure at the centre of the nation is no more. Which means that, if Spain follows the patterns of its own history, troubled waters lie ahead.

  The Catalan independence movement may wax and wane, yet its long-term trend is towards greater confidence; it has grown steadily and substantially over the past few decades, and in the form of the 2017 referendum has had the briefest of tastes of its ultimate goal. On the other side, anti-Catalan sentiment has risen sharply in the rest of Spain in consequence: giving more concessions to Barcelona is seen as a weakness and has become an electorally damaging position for any Madrid government to hold. A clash has already occurred: more are inevitably on their way.

  Which means that Spain today has a stark choice: either continue as a democracy (albeit a flawed one), accept the essentially democratic idea of regional self-determination, and allow the country eventually to break apart, with Catalonia quickly followed by the Ba
sque Country in becoming an independent nation; or turn increasingly authoritarian (in reality, if not openly) as the only means at its disposal to keep the country united. Both outcomes involve violence, for Spain has never undergone such radical change without bloodshed, and there is little sign that today’s defenders of a united country would allow their opponents to succeed without a fight.

  Unless the patterns of the past can be broken, these are the two paths between which Spain has to choose: democracy and existential threat; or unity and authoritarianism.

  This may seem pessimistic, yet viewing Spanish history as a whole tends to lead to this conclusion: in a country perpetually divided, every century has seen at least one major civil war. Memories of previous civil conflicts weren’t enough to prevent the Civil War of the twentieth century. So why should we think that memories from the 1930s today will help avoid a repeat of the bloodshed of the past? Can the twenty-first century buck the overriding trends of the country’s history? I am doubtful, but certainly hope so.

  And if there is a glimmer for Spain to be gleaned from her history, it is that with the darkness also comes the light. The current climate would seem to suggest that civil conflict of some description will again blight the lives of ordinary Spaniards in the not-toodistant future – either in the context of a break-up of the nation, or in a forceful holding of it together. But even in her darkest hours – during the rule of the Berber fundamentalists, or the paranoia of the Counter-Reformation – Spain frequently produces a beacon for the world. What that might be is too early to say, but just as civil violence is a part of Spain’s national story, so is her ability to enlighten and surprise.

  What Spain needs to do now is create a new myth, a new story around which all her peoples can unite. It has been attempted before, with the liberal Constitution of 1812, and, in part, with the Transition. In both cases common cause was found which allowed all sides to bury their differences. What might draw Spaniards together today? That is the question, and one which needs an urgent answer.