Laurence Dollimore
A POLARISING art exhibition featuring a decapitated Franco on a horse has been met with protests and egging.
The temporary show, entitled Franco, Victory, Republic, Impunity and Urban Space, features sculptures of the Spanish dictator dotted around Barcelona’s streets.
But Franco’s headless equestrian effigy and another paying to the victory of his troops in the Spanish Civil War were pelted with eggs within minutes of going on display.
Catalan separatists shouted ‘no fascists on our streets’ while a Franco victims’ group held a silent protest.
Deputy Mayor Gerardo Pisarello said the aim of the works was to ‘denounce the crimes of Francoism and impunity, even in democracy.’
But Catalan nationalists said the exhibition trivialises the crimes of the late Spanish dictator.
The exhibition will remain until January.
Utter, utter stupidity.
Would the German nation “dot” statues of Hitler around Berlin to denounce his actions.
And this just days after the last British volunteer of the International Brigade died
The IV Reich approaches, albeit slowly. Was recently surprised to see, (in this online publication) a person allowed to “thank God” for the Nazis and their ilk, due to their unerring nose for immigrants in European cities.
The “forgetting” is being put in place, a similar process that occurred after Franco’s death.
This can be compared to the newest publication of Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” in Germany 2016. As the Federal State of Bavaria is the legal owner of the Hitler family belongings, Bavaria was also the owner of the copyright of Hitlers book. In Germany the copyright for a book lasts for 70 years, therefor the Bavarian government could prevent the reprint until 2015 for copyright reasons. But from this year on no copyright is due, therefore everybody can publish this book. A German ‘Institute for Contemporary History’ has published Mein Kampf with 5.000 written scientific critical remarks from historians. Without those remarks the State of Bavaria had got a chance to ban the reprint for the reason of ‘incitement to the people’. The right wing parties applaude the reprint while the vast majority is indignant or ignores it. In fact the new book is by no means a bestseller.
In the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany refrained to forbid the possession of the book as in those days millions of Germans would have been criminalized, as they all had the book on their bookshelfs.
I think that there is no reason for this prevention against the Hitler´s book. I see it as a historical document, a sample of a political program which failed application brought so many pain and death, and a lesson for the future generations about the uncertainties that involves the politics based in the employ of the military actions.
A different question is the criminal racism that percolates some paragraphs of the book, and the monstrosity that implicitly involved his project of the expansión to the East, which resulted some years after the Plan Hunger; the killing by starvation of thirty millions of Russians.
Problem with your argument is that democracy cannot survive with an uniformed, low-information electorate, and central control of news and educational systems – private or public.
In Spain’s case, the ability to manipulate poorly educated public is taken advantage by ideologue’s across the spectrum – PP, IU, PSOE, old Fachas and Catholics alike.
In Germany, the merger of East and west Germany and the influx of poorly educated immigrants – at least from the viewpoint of personal democratic responsibility and morality – contributes to a rising influence from violent populism. So too in Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and UK.
The problem is what to do when the public is too ill-informed to understand the effects of history, propaganda, popular media and media cult personalities on worldview. We who are more or less informed are in the minority, and we must remember that, and realize that many, sometimes most, in the public will not notice nor grasp subtleties in arguments.
I agree with you, but I will add UK, that is not a democracy because it have not separation of powers, and whith a population brainwashed after decades of propaganda.
“An ignorant people can not remain a free people.”
Justice David Souter, retired USA Supreme Court Justice speaking in Concord, NH four years ago, warned “what you should worry about at night” is not a foreign invasion or an internal coup, but pervasive civic ignorance that can give rise to an authoritarian coming to power. ” YouTube speech:
“https://youtu.be/rWcVtWennr0”
Social justice history at its’ best on display here…
Historically, it would be more appropriate to erect statues of Stalin in Barcelona. Who despite imprisoning tens of millions behind the Iron Curtain and murdering tens of millions more, would be adorned with flowers. It’s aso worth mentioning to the Brits who so ardently detest Franco and seem to ignore the atrocities committed on the other side, done in their embrace of communism – just how many tens of thousands of English and Allied soldiers would have died if Franco didn’t keep Spain out ouf WWII? Not to mention the thousands who escaped the Nazi’s through Spain. And I suppose the thousands of Churches burned, and the nuns and priests raped, tortured and murdered, never happened?
But there are a difference between Franco and the rest of historical personalities. Franco still alive in the mind of these separatists. Their fanatism not let know them that this man died forthy years ago and that today there are important problem to adress , including the outrageous spoils commited by separatist leaders.
On what basis Rubicon do you assert that Stalin would be venerated in Barcelona?
That ridiculous statement, completely negates anything else that you claim, especially your apologia for Franco.
Don’t forget the Nazis who also crept through Spain (aided by the Vatican and Franco) when they got their asses whupped.
That Franco ‘lives’ in the minds of so many is a reflection of the poor educational system and the adverse effects of the church. And, of course, that municipal administrative machinery and civil service is structured to allow graft with little hope of transparency.
Yes is terrorific to ask how is possible that those boys are insulting a man died of old many years ago .
All suffer from Franco’s legacy since Francoismo is built into most Spanish institutions and into people’s unconscious thinking patterns. Francioism appears in the absolutist approach to philosophy under-girding popular thought whether it is catholocism, capitalism, socialism, podemo-ism, etc. ‘You must think like ME, or you are wrong!’
The pathology is the rigidity of thought and lack of intellectual flexibility. Orthodoxy cannot work in a pluralistic society. And the current Spanish personality favors the group-think of winner takes all, the rest be damned!
As to the Catalan ‘separatist’, some do suffer the narrowmindedness of Spanish political thinking: many do not. Those who do not just want to be free of centralized authority of the moribund Francoist/catholic project that won’t die because Francoist institutionalized it in every economic and social enterprise. It exists not as content, but as structure. It appears in how people frame and think about life and problems.
So, yes, there is rigidity on both/all sides, but be careful Anselmo, that you don’t let Spanish historic social conditioning and a propensity for Spanish orthodox thought ‘convince’ you that those who do not share your own personal political perspective are motivated by the ignorant beliefs that you assign to them. If you do, you have crossed over to facha thinking without being aware of where you are headed.
The separatists share too much things with the more dogmatic and intolerant branch of the franquism, the falangistas. Both pursue a totalitarian domination of the State , ruled by the party,ruled by a very small group of chiefs.Both shares the common feature of considere mortal enemies all those who disagree with them. But exists a big difference between the falangistas and the separatists. The first are idealists, equally than the old comunistas.The separatist are confunded people, submited to a brain wash of propaganda and lyes that do not them to know where they live , when, and that they are pursuing the instauración of the tirany and the spoil of a reduced number of rich families.
Anselmo, your response illustrates what I feared, “you have crossed over to facha thinking without being aware of where you are headed.”
They aren’t insulting the man Anselmo, they are decrying the evil he represented, although of course, he deserves all the insults imaginable. And “dying of old age” was HIS final insult to Spain.