Spanish Civil War (1936-39)

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares149 Views

    Far Right May Rise as Kingmaker in Spanish Election

    by

    A messier political landscape has lent leverage to the extremes, leaving a hard-right party poised to share power for the first time since Franco.If Spain’s national elections on Sunday turn out as most polls and analysts suggest, mainstream conservatives may come out on top but need allies on the political fringe to govern, ushering the first hard-right party into power since the Franco dictatorship.The potential ascent of that hard-right party, Vox, which has a deeply nationalist spirit imbued with Franco’s ghost, would bring Spain into the growing ranks of European nations where mainstream conservative parties have partnered with previously taboo forces out of electoral necessity. It is an important marker for a politically shifting continent, and a pregnant moment for a country that has long grappled with the legacy of its dictatorship.Even before Spaniards cast a single ballot, it has raised questions of where the country’s political heart actually lies — whether its painful past and transition to democracy only four decades ago have rendered Spain a mostly moderate, inclusive and centrist country, or whether it could veer toward extremes once again.Santiago Abascal, the leader of the hard-right party Vox, greeting supporters this month at a rally in Barcelona. Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesSpain’s establishment, centrist parties — both the conservative Popular Party and the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — have long dominated the country’s politics, and the bulk of the electorate seems to be turning away from the extremes toward the center, experts note.But neither of Spain’s mainstream parties have enough support to govern alone. The Popular Party, though predicted to come out on top on Sunday, is not expected to win a majority in the 350-seat Parliament, making an alliance imperative. The hard-right Vox is its most likely partner.The paradox is that even as Vox appears poised to reach the height of its power since it was founded a decade ago, its support may be shrinking, as its stances against abortion rights, climate change policies and L.G.B.T.Q. rights have frightened many voters away.The notion that the country is becoming more extremist is “a mirage,” said Sergio del Molino, a Spanish author and commentator who has written extensively about Spain and its transformations.The election, he said, reflected more the political fragmentation of the establishment parties, prompted by the radicalizing events of the 2008 financial crisis and the near secession of Catalonia in 2017. That has now made alliances, even sometimes with parties on the political fringe, a necessity.He pointed to “a gap” between the country’s political leadership, which needed to seek electoral support in the extremes to govern, and a “Spanish society that wants to return to the center again.”In Barcelona this past week. Spain’s establishment, centrist parties, have long dominated the country’s politics.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesJosé Ignacio Torreblanca, a Spain expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the messy process of coalition building in the relatively new Spanish era of the post two-party system lent leverage and visibility to fringe parties greater than their actual support.“This is not a blue and red country, at all,” he said.Other were less convinced. Paula Suárez, 29, a doctor and left-wing candidate for local office in Barcelona with the Sumar coalition, said the polarization in the country was entrenched. “It’s got to do with the civil war — it’s heritage. Half of Spain is left wing and half is right wing,” she said, calling Vox Franco’s descendants.But those who see a mostly centrist Spain use the same historical reference point for their argument. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Later, through the shared traumas of decades of murders by Basque terrorists seeking to break from Spain, the two major establishment parties, the Popular Party and the Socialists, forged a political center and provided a roomy home for most voters.But recent events have tested the strength of Spain’s immunity to appeals from the political extremes. Even if abidingly centrist, Spanish politics today, if not polarized, is no doubt tugged at the fringes.A salon in Barcelona. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesA corruption scandal in the Popular Party prompted Vox to splinter off in 2013. Then the near secession of Catalonia in 2017 provided jet fuel to nationalists at a time when populist anger against globalization, the European Union and gender-based identity politics were taking off across Europe.On the other side of the spectrum, the financial crisis prompted the creation of a hard left in 2015, forcing Mr. Sánchez later to form a government with that group and cross a red line for himself and the country.Perhaps of greater consequence for this election, he has also relied on the votes of Basque groups filled with former terrorists, giving conservative voters a green light to become more permissive of Vox, Mr. Torreblanca said. “This is what turned politics in Spain quite toxic,” he said.After local elections in May, which dealt a blow to Mr. Sánchez and prompted him to call the early elections that Spaniards will vote in on Sunday, the conservatives and Vox have already formed alliances throughout the country.In some cases, the worst fears of liberals are being borne out. Outside Madrid, Vox culture officials banned performances with gay or feminist themes. In other towns, they have eliminated bike paths and taken down Pride flags.A Pride flag hanging on a house in Náquera, Spain. The newly elected mayor from the Vox party in the town of Náquera has ordered the removal of Pride flags from municipal buildings.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesEster Calderón, a representative of a national feminist organization in Valencia, where feminists marched on Thursday, said she feared that the country’s Equality Ministry, which is loathed by Vox, would be scrapped if the party shared power in a new government.She attributed the rise in Vox to the progress feminists had made in recent years, saying it had provoked a reactionary backlash. “It’s as if they have come out of the closet,” she said.At a rally for Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, an all-woman lineup talked about maternity leave, defending abortion rights and protecting women from abuse. The crowd, many cooling themselves with fans featuring Ms. Díaz in dark sunglasses, erupted at the various calls to action to stop Vox.“Only if we’re strong,” Ms. Díaz said. “Will we send Vox to the opposition.”Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, at a rally this past week. “Only if we’re strong,” she said, “will we send Vox to the opposition.”Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesBut members of the conservative Popular Party, which is hoping to win an absolute majority and govern without Vox, have tried to assure moderate voters spooked by the prospect of an alliance with the hard right that they will not allow Vox to pull them backward.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, outside Barcelona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights, climate policies or Spain’s close relationship with Europe if his party had to bring in Vox, which he called 30 years behind the times.Vox, he said, was only interested in “spectacle” to feed their base, and would merely “change the name” of things, like gender-based violence to domestic violence, without altering substance.Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights or climate policies if his party had to bring in Vox.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York Times“The paradox now,” said Mr. Torreblanca, the political analyst, is that just as Mr. Sánchez entered government with the far left when it was losing steam, the Popular Party seemed poised to govern with Vox as its support was sinking. “The story would be that Spain is turning right. When in fact this is the moment when Vox is at the weakest point.”Recent polls have shown voters turning away from Vox, and even some of its supporters did not think the party should touch the civil rights protections that Spain’s liberals introduced, and that its conservatives supported.Gay marriage “should remain legal of course,” said Alex Ruf, 23, a Vox supporter who sat with his girlfriend on a bench in Barcelona’s wealthy Sarriá district.Mr. Albiol, the mayor of Badalona, insisted that Spain was inoculated, and said that unlike other European countries, it would continue to be.“Due to the historical tradition of a dictatorship for 40 years,” he said, Spain “has become a society where the majority of the population is not situated at the extremes.”That was of little consolation to Juana Guerrero, 65, who attended the left-wing Sumar event.If Vox gets into power, they will “trample us under their shoes,” she said, grinding an imaginary cigarette butt under her foot.In Barcelona this past week. Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesRachel Chaundler More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Theme Park’s Selective History Appeals to a New Spanish Nationalism

      by

      Puy du Fou España has drawn visitors with spectacular shows about Spanish history. But part of its success lies in what goes unsaid.Moving through the darkened holds of a replica of Christopher Columbus’s ship, visitors on a recent afternoon marveled at the tangle of compasses, cordage and barrels. They stumbled as the ship swang and creaked with the swell of the sea. At last, a voice shouted “Land!” and the white sands of America appeared.“Our journey has changed the world. May it be for the greater glory of God,” Columbus was then heard telling Queen Isabella I of Castile. Referring to America’s Indigenous people, he added, “I apologize in advance if iniquities or injustices are committed.”And so ends one of the shows at Puy du Fou España, a historical theme park that is all the rage in Spain today, with over a million visitors expected this year.The popularity of the park has come as a surprise in a country that has long been shy about celebrating its history. Nationalist sentiments were largely taboo after the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, who died in the 1970s.But the time that has elapsed since Franco and the recent secessionist movement in Catalonia, which threatened to fracture the country, have helped spur a resurgent nationalism in Spain. It may now give a lift to conservatives and their far-right allies when Spaniards vote in a general election on Sunday.The theme park expects more than a million visitors this year.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe park is filled with hallowed symbols like the cross and the flag, and most of the shows feature conquests and glorious battles to defend the country. The more questionable aspects of Spain’s past — from the bloody conquest of America that followed Columbus’s trip to Franco’s repressive rule — do not appear in more than 10 productions.“What we’re trying to do is present a history that’s not divisive,” said Erwan de la Villéon, the head of the park, noting that historical taboos continued to run through Spanish society.But the approach has raised concerns about the history that the park is highlighting instead — pageantry that emphasizes Spain’s Catholic identity and its unity against foreign invaders — and how it may shape visitors’ views.“This is a selective history,” said Gutmaro Gómez Bravo, a historian at Madrid’s Complutense University who has visited the park twice. “You can’t or shouldn’t teach that to people. History is not gratuitous — it carries major political weight.”The park was launched in 2019 after the founders of the original Puy du Fou in France, the country’s second most-visited theme park after Disneyland Paris, decided to take their concept abroad.Historians have long criticized the French park as promoting nationalist views. It similarly glosses over some of the most painful episodes in France’s past, such as its history of colonialism, and highlights the country’s Catholic identity.The founder of the French park, Philippe de Villiers, whom Mr. de la Villéon called “a mentor” and “a genius,” is a prominent far-right politician.Erwan de la Villéon, the head of Puy du Fou España, said he had sought to find unifying aspects of Spain’s history, and it was “too soon” to mention Franco’s dictatorship.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesMr. de la Villéon denied that the Spanish park promoted any political line. But he called supporters of Catalan independence his “enemies” and railed against the former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Socialist who passed a memory law to honor victims of the Civil War and Franco’s repressive rule.Spain, Mr. de la Villéon said, proved an ideal place for a new park because of the country’s “great historical trajectory” of invasions and conquests. He chose to build it in Toledo, he said, because the ancient city south of Madrid once stood at the crossroads of Europe’s kingdoms.There, some 200 million euros, about $220 million, have been invested to create an impressive complex of castles, farms and medieval villages filled with terra-cotta vases and whitewashed houses with exposed beams.But it is the historical stage productions, performed in large amphitheaters, that are the big draw.“The Last Song” takes place in a rotating auditorium and follows El Cid, a knight and warlord who became Spain’s greatest medieval hero, as he fights enemies appearing successively behind large panels that open onto the semicircular stage. In “Toledo’s Dream,” the flagship evening show retracing 15 centuries of Spanish history, Columbus’s life-size ship emerges from a lake on which characters were dancing moments before.Supporters of the far-right Vox party at rally in Barcelona, Spain, in July. The party is expected to increase its vote in Sunday’s general election.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesBoth shows received the IAAPA Brass Ring award for “Best Theater Production,” considered one of the international entertainment industry’s most prestigious prizes. On a recent afternoon, visitors were ecstatic about the experience.“Great — it’s just great. I didn’t know that history could be so appealing,” said Vicente Vidal, 65, as he exited a show featuring Visigoths fighting Romans. In the park, children could be seen playing sword-fighting, shouting, “We’ll fight for our country!”Mr. de la Villéon, who is French, said the success of the park reflected a desire among Spanish people to reclaim their past. “People want to have roots, that’s the first need that the park’s success reveals,” he said. “You come here and you think, ‘Man, it’s cool to be Spanish.’”Modern Spain has an uneasy relationship with its history because of chapters such as the Inquisition and the colonization of the Americas, said Jesús Carrobles, head of Toledo’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Historical Sciences, who was consulted on the park project.The Cross of Burgundy, on prominent display at the park, is a longstanding symbol of the Spanish monarchy that has also been embraced by some on the far right.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“The park allows you to reclaim an idea of your past that you can be proud of,” Mr. Carrobles said. “A beautiful past, a past that’s worth remembering.”But it has also proved to be a selective past.The shows depict Isabella I as a visionary and a merciful queen, making no mention of her order to expel Jews during the Inquisition. The Aztecs appear once in a dance scene, but their deadly fate at the hands of the conquistadors is omitted.Perhaps most telling is the park’s treatment of the Spanish Civil War, whose legacy continues to divide the country. The conflict is only vaguely mentioned at the end of “Toledo’s Dream,” when a woman mourns her brothers who “killed each other.” The scene lasts one minute, out of a 75-minute performance, and the show ends without mentioning the subsequent four-decade dictatorship of Franco.“Too soon to talk about it,” said Mr. de la Villéon, noting that memories of Francoist Spain were still raw.Some 200 million euros, or about $220 million, have been invested in creating a medieval atmosphere.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“It’s a very consensual show, which has glossed over the questionable aspects of Spanish history,” said Jean Canavaggio, a French specialist in Cervantes who reviewed the script of “Toledo’s Dream.” He added that the park could not have succeeded had it taken a “critical look” at Spanish history, given how politically fraught that remains.Mr. de la Villéon said that he had looked for events illustrating Spain’s unity. In Puy du Fou España, they revolve around a central element: Catholicism.Nearly every show features clerics and soldiers dedicating their fights to God. In “The Mystery of Sorbaces,” a Visigoth king converts to Catholicism as his troops fall to their knees and a church rises from underground, to the sound of emotional music.Mr. de la Villéon — who makes no secret of his faith and had a small chapel set up in the park — argued that Catholicism was “the matrix” of Spanish history.A replica of Christopher Columbus’s caravel. Catholicism is central to the park’s shows.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesMr. Gómez Bravo, the historian, who specializes in the Civil War and Franco, said the park presented the Catholic reconquest of Muslim-ruled Spain as the foundation of Spanish unity. “This a very politically charged idea because it was promoted above all by Franco’s regime,” he said.Still, many in the Spanish park seemed to embrace the park’s mission.“Spain is a great country!” said Conchita Tejero, a woman in her 60s, who was seated with three friends at a large wooden table in a medieval-style tavern adorned with imperial flags. “This park is a way to reclaim our history.”Her friend, Esteban Garces, a supporter of the far-right Vox party, said he saw the park as a counterpoint to the “other history” that portrayed Spain as needing to make amends for its past.Exiting the park after nightfall, Mr. Garces said he had been delighted with “Toledo’s Dream.”“The true history,” he said.The idea that Spanish unity was founded on the Catholic reconquest was “charged,” one historian said, because that was the narrative promoted under Franco.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Spanish Vote Threatens Efforts to Recover Franco’s Victims

      by

      Spain’s left-wing government has tried to accelerate exhumations of mass graves left from the dictatorship. If it wins Sunday’s election, the right may end that.When she first heard of a project to exhume and identify the remains of hundreds of Civil War victims — her grandfather possibly among them — Ángela Raya Fernández said she was “filled with hope, a lot of hope.”Ever since she was a girl, she had heard stories about how her father’s father, José Raya Hurtado, was executed during the Spanish Civil War, his body ignominiously dumped in a ravine by forces loyal to Gen. Francisco Franco. She had only ever known him from black-and-white photos: round glasses, a receding hairline and a resolute gaze.“We’ve long hoped that somebody could find him and give him a dignified burial,” said Ms. Raya, a soft-spoken, 62-year-old librarian.But with general elections Sunday and polls predicting a right-wing victory, Ms. Raya and her family, along with thousands of others, fear that years of efforts to find their loved ones may suddenly grind to a halt.A photo of José Raya Hurtado, who is believed to have been executed during the Spanish Civil War, is affixed to a tree in Viznar, Spain.The conservative Popular Party, which grew partly from Francoist roots, has pledged to repeal a memory law passed last autumn under the current Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, aimed at accelerating the exhumations. A possible alliance between the conservatives and the far-right Vox party, which has long opposed attempts to address the crimes of the past, has only heightened these fears.“It would be a catastrophe,” Ms. Raya said, “a huge step backward.”The to and fro over the memory law reflects how the traumas of Spain’s 1936-39 Civil War and Franco’s subsequent dictatorship, which ended with his death in 1975, still divide the country today.To some, Franco, a nationalist, consolidated Spain’s postwar economic growth and served as an anti-Communist bulwark. To many others, his rule was one of repression, marked by mass executions, exile for thousands and the abduction of children.An estimated 100,000 people were executed by Franco’s supporters during and after the Civil War, and buried in more than 2,000 mass graves scattered across the country.Some 2,200 people were shot by Franco’s firing squads against a wall in Paterna that is still pockmarked with bullet holes.No one dared disturb those sites in a country where Franco’s legacy has long been left unexamined. Conservatives, in particular, have argued that exhumations would only reopen old wounds.For the left, the silence has been anything but therapeutic, even enraging. During the dictatorship, Spaniards were forbidden to talk about the killings. An amnesty law, passed in 1977, hoped to draw a line under the crimes of the past, but in effect made forgetting a crucial part of the effort to heal a divided nation in transition to democracy.“It was a culture of silence,” said Agustín Gómez Jiménez, 49, a health worker who recounted how his father had long refused to even show a picture of his own father, executed in 1936.Mr. Gómez said it took his sister rummaging through their father’s belongings to finally find some pictures, five years ago. One of them shows their grandfather on a beach, holding hands with his small, soon-to-be-orphaned son. “I have goose bumps just thinking my father hid the photos. He was so traumatized,” he said.Agustín Gómez Jiménez and his sister Maria Del Mar Gómez with a portrait of their grandfather who was executed in 1936.The first efforts to deal with the mass graves began in 2007, when a center-left prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, passed a “law of historical memory” that lent government support to exhumations.But the legislation was slow to take effect and when the conservative Popular Party took power in 2011, the conservatives promptly defunded the law.It took another decade, the commitment of Spanish left-wing-controlled regions and last year’s law — which created a census and a national DNA bank to help locate and identify the remains — for the exhumations to finally gain momentum.Such efforts are evident in Viznar, a small, whitewashed village perched in the mountains overlooking Granada. For three years, a team of archaeologists has been digging in the ravine where Ms. Raya’s and Mr. Gómez’s grandfathers were buried along with about 280 other victims, including possibly the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.On a recent morning, the researchers were hunched over a 3-by-13-foot pit, using brushes and small blades to delicately remove the earth covering eight skeletons. Their spines and femurs were interlaced, a sign that bodies had been dumped one upon the other. Several skulls were pierced by round holes, evidence that the victims had been shot in the head.Researchers excavate skeletons in a mass grave in Viznar.“It’s a page of our history that was blank and that we’re writing today,” said Francisco Carrión Méndez, the archaeologist coordinating the project, standing beside the grave. Many relatives, he explained, want to find their loved ones and rebury them because “their dignity was stolen.”Mr. Carrión pointed to photos of the victims that families had hung on nearby pines: a university rector with slicked-back hair; an imposing-looking barmaid. “They shouldn’t be forgotten,” he said.Not everyone agrees. At the entrance of the ravine, a sign paying tribute to the victims has been defaced by graffiti reading “¡Viva Franco!” To which someone responded: “Fascism must not be discussed, it must be destroyed.”“In Spain,” García Lorca once wrote, “the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.”To date, the remains of 75 people have been recovered in Viznar. The passage of time and lack of records about the killings make identification difficult, so researchers are using bone samples to perform DNA tests in a Granada laboratory. The first results are expected this fall.The small town of Viznar, where a team of archaeologists has been digging in a ravine with about 280 victims, including possibly the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.But many relatives worry it will be too late.“Who’s responsible for the samples? Who?” Francisca Pleguezuelos Aguilar, 73, anxiously asked a perplexed forensic expert during a recent visit to the laboratory.Pointing at a window behind which two lab assistants in white overalls were showing the DNA testing process to families, Ms. Pleguezuelos said she worried that the conservatives would block the study of the samples if they win this week’s general elections.She wasn’t the only one afraid. “They’ll paralyze all the projects,” said María José Sánchez, a great-niece of the barmaid who was killed, her eyes swollen with tears. “The curtain is about to fall again.”A spokesperson for the Popular Party suggested that exhumations could continue after the elections, saying that “relatives have the right to claim the bodies of their loved ones.”But many relatives said they remembered how Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s previous conservative prime minister, boasted of having cut public funding for the 2007 memory law to zero.Researchers identify bodies in Viznar, where the remains of 75 people have been discovered so far.The possibility of a national alliance between the conservative Popular Party and the hard-right Vox party — which polls suggest will be the only way for the right to secure a majority in Parliament — has only exacerbated the fears of victims’ families.In recent weeks, they have been looking anxiously at local governing coalitions forged between the two parties following regional elections in May: they almost always included plans to clamp down on memory projects.“The central government is our last bulwark, our Alamo fortress,” said Matías Alonso Blasco, who represents families in the Valencia region, where the right recently took political control. “If it falls, it’s over.”Several representatives of Vox declined to comment for this article.In the Valencia region, the new right-wing coalition said, “the norms that attack reconciliation in historical matters will be repealed.” Many took it as a reference to the 2017 local memory law that has helped excavate about two-thirds of the area’s 600 mass graves.Many of the bodies were recovered from the cemetery of Paterna, a suburb of Valencia. There, some 2,200 people were shot by Franco’s firing squads against a wall that is still pockmarked with bullet holes. So numerous are the mass graves that they have been given numbers.Standing between two wooden signs marked 100 and 101, Marilyn Ortíz Bono said the body of her grandfather had yet to be identified because the remains found in the grave where he is believed to have been buried had decayed too much.Ms. Ortíz said that shortly after Vox gained power in the Valencia region, she sent a sample of her DNA to a state-funded laboratory, hoping to get the identification process completed before the general elections.“I haven’t heard back from them,” she said. “I’m afraid I never will.”An old Spanish Republican flag lies on a mass grave in the cemetery in Paterna. More