Pacto del Olvido: the elephant in the room Rodrigo Vaz SOAS, University of London
In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world Federico Garcia Lorca 1 Introduction Memory is essential to post- conflict politics. The way one country does (or does not) deal with the memory of a past conflict will necessarily inflect the current of policy- making in that country. That is due to the fact that the way one looks at the memory inevitably builds a narrative of what happened. This essay deals with the politics of memory in Spain. I first engage with the literature on different approaches to remembering (or forgetting) harm in a post- conflict society. The essay then moves to its case- study, the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist Republic. Historical events such as the regime s repression of local autonomies, state- built narratives regarding the atrocities of the civil war, and especially how the democratic regime chose to deal with the crimes of the Franco regime are highlighted. It must be said that the heavy emphasis in history is intended: Spanish history is full of intricacies that must be addressed in order to understand how Spain deals with its memory of the conflict. The pacto del olvido, the commitment imposed by the Spanish political elites after the fall of Franco s regime (and even after 1981) deserve particular attention. Pacto del olvido seems to perfectly fit the purposes of an amnesty defined by Booth (2001): Amnesty is a form of political- judicial forgetting that puts the past out of sight. The past is here moved beyond the reach of justice and into the shadows of civic forgetting. The objective of such amnesties is almost always civic peace, born of the need to protect a young and vulnerable democracy from being torn apart by an absorption of the past and an attendant spirit of revenge. Democracy and its future must, in this view, take precedence over the past and its demands that justice be done (Booth 2001: 778) The politics of memory in Spain are then seen in the light of the literature cited. The essay concludes that the pacto del olvido is not the correct approach to the deal with the violence of the past. Not only victims deserved more, the forgetfulness played and arguably keeps being a burden in Spanish history. Memory and justice: which links? How should a country remember its troubled past? The growth of interest in memory politics and transitional justice produced an increase in the literature over these topics. Which approach to memory is best? The literature in this topic touches many different topics; however, for the sake of brevity, I will argue it 1 Spanish poet killed by the nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
falls primarily into a very basic dichotomy: remembrance vs. forgetfulness (with many different layers in between). Encarnación (2008) finds that memory and transitional justice are not necessarily the best approach. The author finds that in today s literature a broad consensus has emerged around the notion that confronting the past through any of the available means is the only ethically and politically defensible position (Encarnación 2008: 435), which he credits to the wave of democratic transitions of the past three decades. Encarnación argues that remembrance hinders democratization and that many European countries, the big pushers for transitional justice and the politics of memory, have not addressed their own trouble past themselves. Discussing specifically the Spanish case, the author argues that the Pacto del Olvido (Pact of Forgetting) was the best solution for Spain s troubled past: otherwise, given the fragmentation and polarization of the Spanish society, and the dimension of violence, conflict would unavoidably break out once more or, at least, ruin democratization. I take issue with this view. On the one hand, Encarnación appears to be deliberately overlooking the Nurnberg trials when mentioning the cases of many European politics after the II World War. There was at least an attempt at addressing the crimes of the past. In other countries, with more or with less thoroughness, the crimes committed during the war were addressed. The Spanish case is very different: there was no discussion thereof at all. Both sides of the Civil War, the winner and the loser, were levelled to an equal position, although the winning side of the Civil War went on to lead Spain for more than 30 years. Moreover, I do not find that remembrance hinders democratization: even after all parties agreed upon pacto del olvido in 1977 a coup d état was attempted in 1981 by hardliners wanting to restore Franco s regime. The total absence of discussion regarding the past did not seem to stop them. Other authors also tend to disagree with this vision. Booth (2001) draws on the links between memory and justice and how one reinforces the other and that both are useful and have a role to fulfil. Aguilar (2008) takes another stance, however, outside of this dichotomy: she argues that the laws passed by the Zapatero government regarding the memory of the genocide means not necessarily a contradiction between them and the Spanish amnesty law of 1977 but either are the result of a cumulative process making this, according to the author, not a case of transitional but rather post- transitional justice. This point is interesting and deserves further development however the conclusions regarding the Spanish case, at least up to 2014, do not seem to apply all attempts at revisiting the crimes of the Civil War and the Francoist regime have been blocked by the Amnesty Law.
Spain Since the creation of Spain as a unified country 2, Spain had always been a monarchy 3. Spain was always a strongly conservative and catholic country. Only the fall of a big part of the Empire in 1898 in a war against the United States (over Cuba) did the monarchy started showing signs of fragility. Indeed, the turn of the century saw Spain losing a big part of its Empire after losing Puerto Rico and Cuba, it sold Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States of America, while smaller possessions (the Caroline Islands of Palau, for instance) were sold to Germany. That left Spain - who once had an empire comprising the majority of Central and South America - with Morocco, Sahara and (what today is called) Equatorial Guinea. Because of these and also due to economic reasons, discontent grew. Nationalisms were starting to (re)emerge. More importantly for explaining future events, both ends of the political spectrum rose in popularity. Neutrality in the I World War did not stop turmoil from rising in Spain. Diseases, coupled with political and economic instability further fuelled by a long- standing war in Morocco - prompted the king Alfonso XIII to install a dictatorship under Miguel Primo de Rivera. Although the first few years brought stability back to the country, political discontent triggered when in 1927 Primo de Rivera announced the setting up of a new political system. The changes included an assembly stripped of legislative powers and appointed by the prime minister (with the consent of the King). 1929 saw the unrest grow rapidly. The Great Depression made Spain s fragile economy plummet. Adding to the discontentment, the Armed Forces traditionally the backbone of particularly governments in Spain withdrew its support to Primo de Rivera. The king, having personally chosen Primo de Rivera in 1923, had already ran out of room for manoeuvre. The discredit in the state of affairs and mounting social and economic tensions prompted a solid victory of the Republicans in the municipal elections of 1931. Alarmed by the wave of dissent, the king fled the country and the Second Republic was installed. Rise and fall of the Republic: 1931-1936 The Second Republic appeared at a time when political tensions were already heightened. According to Preston (2006), most of the Right was overly sceptic regarding the success of the regime. A region like Andalusia can help explaining 2 For the sake of clarity, I shall consider Spain an unified country the time starting from the marriage and consequent union of the two crowns of Aragon and Castilla. 3 The exception being a short- lived Republic from 1873 to 1874.
the asymmetries and the divisions among economic lines: there, the land is split in huge landmasses (latifúndios) owned by often members of nobility, where agricultural workers worked long hours for poor wages. The landowners certainly did not want to open hand of the property; the workers long demanded fairer, higher wages. This set of tensions kept undermining the republic. Several elections took place and, while the winners changed (left- right- left, with elections in 1931, 1933 an 1936), unrest did not stop. The polarizing opinions regarding the role of the Catholic Church in Spain kept fuelling tensions between progressives, who deemed the Church as the main blocking force to the modernization on the country, and the conservatives, who praised the role of the Catholic Church part of the Spanish identity. To that central disagreement, opposition by the conservatives to agrarian reform, labor rights, women s voting rights (introduced in Spain during the Republic) and regional autonomy further powered disagreements. After a failed attempt at a revolt by the conservative General José Sanjurjo in 1932, another military operation aimed at a coup d état was initiated by the conservatives in July 1936. Spanish Civil War: 1936-1939 The Spanish Civil War, as Preston (2006) mentions, was initially planned as a series of swift military operations that would trigger a popular national uprising that would turn the coup d état into a popular revolution against the elected government of the Second Republic. However, while that movement succeeded in big part of the northern Asturias region and some of the south of Spain (particularly in Andalusia, where the latifundiarios immediately supported it), the major urban centres 4 resisted the coup and stayed loyal to the Republican side. The country was split in two: the conservative/far- right alliance, from hereon mentioned as nationalists and the centre/leftist alliance, from hereon mentioned as republicans. While the nationalists got immense military support from Hitler s Nazi Germany and Mussolini s Fascist Italy, the republicans got much weaker support from the USSR 5. France s Léon Blum was initially inclined to support the Republic with men and artillery, but refrained from doing so after much domestic contestation from his own government. A notable example of international solidarity with the republic is however the International Brigades, composed of (mainly leftist) sympathisers of the Republic from abroad. The International Brigades amounted to approximately 30 000 volunteers. 4 Including Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona, who became in that order the capitals of the Spanish Republic as the republicans kept losing ground. 5 And at a much bigger cost, with 70% of the gold reserves of the country being transferred to Moscow.
The war is still today noted as one of the most violent conflicts of the twentieth century. Over the course of the nearly three years, historians put the death toll at nearly 500 000 people (Beevor 2006, Preston 2006), with approximately another 500 000 fleeing the country. The civil war was ostensibly a training ground for Italy s and especially Germany s armies and artillery. Genocide is not a term usually connected with the Spanish Civil War, and I will refrain from using it as well. However, there is much broad consensus that the nationalist side used a narrative of cleansing the Spanish nation from the rottenness of the Left. The conservative rebels were the representatives of Christian civilization against the plague of the Left (Thomas 2001, Graham 2005, Beevor 2006, Preston 2006). It is also often argued that while the killings perpetrated by the republicans 6 happened in no small part due to its lack of organisation, the nationalists killed with the purpose of frightening the populations of the cities siding with the republicans and without any rational military explanation. The objectively excessive use of violence is perfectly clear in the bombing of Guernica, immortalized in Picasso s painting. Historians place the number of executions at the hands of the nationalist forces between 150 000 (Preston 2006) and 200 000 (Beevor 2006). Ruiz (2011) places the death toll at 150 000 (with 50 000 of those happening after the war) executions by the nationalists, while the republicans were responsible for less than 38 000. General Francisco Franco, given the death of the other potential leaders of the revolution General José Sanjurjo 7 and General Emilio Mola 8, started assuming a leading role in the revolution, mainly due to his cold, unemotional approach to the conflicts. Preston (2006) mentions that while Franco could have marched straight to Madrid in 1939, the General chose a different route instead, deliberately slowing the pace of his troops, in no small part to increase the despair of the population in Madrid, at this time already under siege. With one third more men and nearly the double of air power, the Nationalists slowly and progressively won the civil war. The republicans, without support from moderate democratic European countries (moderate republicans repeatedly asked for help from the French, the British, and eventually the American governments, unsuccessfully) eventually surrendered in 1939. Franco s regime: 1939-1975 6 Even within its ranks the relations between the anarchists and the Trotskyites with the Spanish Communist Party were marked by deep mutual distrust, with several of anarchists and Trotskyites combatants dying off- battle in suspicious circumstances. 7 Who died on a plane crash as he made his way from Estoril, Portugal to Spain to lead the revolutionaries, according to Preston (2006) 8 Who died in a plane crash in 1937.
Having refused a capitulation under conditions by the republican side 9, the end of the civil war brought the consolidation of power under Franco. Leading a self- denominated totalitarian state 10, the repression of opponents to Franco s regime was high in the aftermath of the civil war as noted before, the nationalists were responsible for 50 000 executions even after the end of the war. As Rigby writes, Franco earned his victory on the battlefield, but the struggle against the enemy did not end there. It was imperative to cleanse society of Republican influences, and the vanquished had few resources to resist such a purge (Rigby 2000: 77-78). Francoism was not more than a combination of anti- leftism 11, the elimination of regional autonomies (that had been largely increased during the Republic) and ultra- nationalism and the very heavy presence of the Catholicism as part of the Spanish identity. More importantly for the purpose of this essay, however, Franco and his regime held on to the narrative built on during the civil war: the nationalist forces had fought against chaos and a group of leftist radicals, communists and anarchists alike, for the values of religion, order and the duty to work as expressed in several of Franco s speeches, particularly his first speech after the end of the Civil War. This narrative was also heavily reliant on the role of foreign enemy powers - the USSR as the hidden face of the republicans. The narrative relied heavily on a communist chaos vs. national salvation, with the nationalists, with the grace of God, winning the war and leading the country. That view, apart from informing the regime s speeches, history books, was also emphasized through national holidays and festive occasions. 1975 onwards: the Spanish politics of memory The regime fell shortly after Franco s death and a transition process began, led by King Juan Carlos I (to whom Franco had transferred his power once he died). Meeting at times resistance from Franco s movement, the King pushed for political openness. A new constitution was approved in 1977, regional autonomy was largely given back to the regions 12 and democracy was restored. A 1981 counter- coup by hardliners aiming at restoring the previous regime was 9 In 1939 Spanish Prime Minister Juan Négrin proposed a capitulation to Franco under the condition that the lives of the defeated. 10 Although the Spanish state under Franco, repressive as it was, cannot be considered totalitarian under common definitions of the term, notably the one put forward by Arendt (1951). 11 Encompassing every ideology to the left of the far- right and ultraconservatism. 12 In no small part to counter the political leverage of radical independentist groups (ETA in the Basque Country being the most notable case) created during the Franco regime and operating clandestinely.
effectively and quickly stopped, and largely condemned by political forces in Spain and abroad. With the new regime, the political class agreed on a pacto del olvido (the pact of forgetting). The pact had a legal translation in the Amnesty Law of the 1977 that released all political prisoners. The law excludes from judicial persecution of political crimes during the Franco regime. As the name of the pact suggest, however, the process of pacto del olvido amounts more to amnesia than to amnesty. The crimes of the past were simply forgotten the pact had the goal of allowing Spain to face the future. One may understand why did the Spanish authorities decided to let go of the past. Not only was the past painful, not everyone perceived the past was the past. As Rigby puts it, during the transition period of the mid- 1970s, the Francoist establishment was not defeated. ( ) there was no sudden break with the past. The transition was achieved through negotiation, compromise, and accommodation rather than through victory in a revolutionary conflict. ( ) Looming behind the negotiations, of course, was the spectre of reactionary elements in the military, all too eager to be let loose in order to restore pride and unity to Spain by saving it from the threat of democracy and division (Rigby 2000: 78) This eagerness gained shape with the 1981 attempted coup by hardliners of the Franco regime. It was a compromise so that in a highly polarized society, as exposed in the historical background presented above, democracy and plurality could coexist peacefully. Amnesty, however, creates a certain form of muted anger. Victims of the crimes perpetrated by the former regime do not have a platform to identify those are guilty or simply to know the truth. The passing of time and the consolidation of the democratic regime made part of the fear of confronting the past go away. The year 2000 saw the creation of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH according to the Spanish acronym). In 2002 the UN included Spain in the list of countries who yet have to deal with the problem of forceful detention and subsequent disappearance of people (Davis 2005: 858). With the coming to power of PSOE (the centre- left party, part of the leftist coalition that fought against the nationalist side in the Civil War) in 2004, a groundbreaking piece of legislation was passed: la ley de la memória histórica (the law of historical memory), in 2007. The law was initially proposed by PSOE in 2004, first published to Congress in 2006 to a vigorous opposition of PP and the right- wing media and approved by the Congress in 2007 after negotiations between PSOE and a leftist political party, Izquierda Unida (Labanyi 2008). Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón started efforts to investigate the disappearances
of people during the Franco regime, symbolically indicting General Franco. However, the process was always stopped by higher echelons of the judiciary as the measure shocked with the hierarchically superior amnesty law. The coming of power of right- wing Popular Party (PP) brought this process to a stalemate. Conclusion The memory of conflicts must be addressed. Memory is in and of itself a form of justice. As Booth puts it, memory- justice demands more than what a court or truth commission can provide ( ) memory- justice seeks to make the past present, to bring the lost back into our midst (Booth 2001: 788). Without remembering harm, society grows a muted anger. That is, I argue, also the case in Spain: a country that attempted to bury the past in 1977 and became one of the world s most developed countries in 25 years, still comes back to the topic after its time. The attempt at re- opening the discussion on the crimes of the Civil War and Francoism simply mean, as Blakeley (2005) argues that the balance of power established at the time of transition is not set in stone. Pacts that may be necessary ( ) at the time of transition, may unravel later on in the process of democratization (Blakeley 2005: 56). Many scholars (Davis 2005, Golob 2008, Labanyi 2008) have argued that Spain is not different that is, it also needs to face its past. It cannot be forgotten that a very conservative right- wing is rather numerous in Spain: the introduction of the Law of Historical Memory drew fierce opposition of the right- wing media and the Popular Party, nowadays in Government and while the law was not repealed, There were numerous protests on the streets. Some Spanish still commemorate the old regime ephemerides. That fact has to also to be taken into account: as Boyd (2008) very accurately puts it, it is not possible to impose a common historical memory to all Spaniards (Boyd 2008: 146). However, 37 years after the amnesty law, the crimes perpetrated during the Spanish Civil War and especially the Franco regime are still the elephant in the room, hidden by a fake veil of ignorance, the pact of forgetting. However, forgetting, in short, is not forever. (Blakeley 2005: 56) As Garcia Lorca once said, the dead in Spain are still very much alive.
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