The Contemporary Legacy of Francisco Franco
In the wake of Francisco Franco’s death in 1975, the Spanish state swiftly and peacefully transitioned into a democratic entity, seemingly releasing itself from the ideological chains of authoritarianism that anchored Franco’s grip on the nation since the end of the Civil War in 1939. On the surface, Spain appears to have successfully made a clean break from their former dictatorial ruler and avoided the instability and bloodshed that has plagued countless other states who have tried make the same transition. However, much of the bureaucratic infrastructure and institutions that supported Franco’s regime remained in place during and after the transition, with these instruments of state power rebranding or integrating themselves into the emerging political climate. This diminished accountability afforded to much of the Francoist state apparatus appears to have been crucial to guaranteeing a stable transition to democracy after Franco’s death. Indeed, within Spanish society as a whole there is an overarching ‘culture of forgetting’ in relation to the Francoist era, largely due to an undercurrent of fear that retributions could reignite a new Civil War. However, in recent times the unresolved grievances of Spaniards who suffered under the reign of Franco have been more directly confronted by Spanish society and the nation’s political establishment. The re-examination of this period has agitated the nations conservative establishment and emboldened Francoist sympathizers to reassert themselves, with these reactions highlighting the schism that persists within the Spanish psyche long after the death of Franco and the end of the Civil War.
Franco’s visible presence and relevance in modern Spanish society
In the decades following Franco’s death and Spain’s subsequent transition to democracy the personal legacy of Franco in the Spanish public consciousness has in many ways become subdued, with the dictator’s overt defenders appearing to be on the fringes of national relevancy. One of the most ardent corners of support for Franco’s legacy in contemporary Spain is the Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF) which is an organisation set up with specific purpose of promoting Franco as a benevolent exemplar of Spanish unity and to counter ‘sectarian narratives’ that challenge this notion. Their overtly pro-franco position is almost rendered comical at times, with the website stating that they exist as a cultural institution ‘without its activity or objectives being political or partisan in any way.’ (FNFF, Historia y fines, n.d). This statement completely overlooks Franco’s blatantly obvious right-wing beliefs and his close ties to historical fascists like Hitler and Mussolini, with the FNFF attempting to perpetuate the ‘peacemaker’ narrative that Franco had tried rebranding himself with in his later years (Ferrandiz, F 2022, p.212). The FNFF have gained some notoriety in recent times due to vocal and visible opposition to the Law of Historical Memory of 2007 which was designed to bring justice to the victims of Franco’s rule, with their attempts to dispute or counter these narratives giving the group a renewed focus (Ferrandiz, F 2022, p.217, 221 & 231), (Rubin, J 2018, p. 214 & 215). Beyond the efforts of the FNFF, Franco remains visible across the Spanish landscape with his name and image, along with figures of his regime continuing to be present in the nation’s monuments and infrastructure (Rubin, J 2018, p. 218). The removal of Franco era monuments and place names has been widely opposed by the border right wing establishment in Spain, with the mainstream centre right Partido Popular (PP) being resistant to these moves and the implementation of the Law of Historical Memory due to their stated fears that these moves would ‘open old wounds’ (Richards, M 2020, p. 498).
Franco’s indirect and opaque ideological influence in Spanish society
The peaceful transition to democracy after the death of Francisco Franco guaranteed the new administration security and success as it established itself as the new authority in Spain. In the decades that followed, the all-encompassing profile of the man who positioned himself as the saviour of Spanish identity in the wake of a demoralising civil war has progressively lost relevancy and had much of his constructed narrative undone. However, while overt shows of respect toward Francisco Franco in modern Spanish society are largely reserved to the more eccentric fringes of the nation’s right wing like the FNFF, the notions of national identity which underscored his reign remain present and are being reinvigorated in current political discourse. Its most notable re-emergence has been in the rhetoric the Vox party, a far-right political party that has emerged in the last decade mirroring similar popularist political movement in Europe and the United States (Ferrandiz, F 2022, p.221). Vox’s political position combines the anti-immigrant sentiment which is the central vocal point of the wider European far right and notions of traditional catholic identity, attempting to turn their opposition to migration into a modern day ‘Reconquista’, when Spanish Christians expelled the Muslim Moors from the Iberian Peninsula in 15th century (Ferrandiz, F 2022, p.224, 223 & 225). Despite sharing similar nationalist ideology, Vox and the FNFF have so far avoided directly collaborating or associating with each other, with Vox being seen to steer clear of any explicit support of Franco himself and the FNFF viewing Vox’s positions as too soft (Ferrandiz, F 2022, p.222). Aside from the Franco’s presence in the far right, Spain’s centre right political establishment and many of its national institutions have their roots in the former regime, with these estranged but enduring elements of the Franco state becoming an obstacle in contemporary Spain to any attempts to hold the dictatorship to account (Wright, S 2021, p. 139).
Insecurities of Spanish statehood and ethnic identity
The traumatic events of the Spanish Civil War have undoubtably had an enduring legacy on the Spanish population, with fear of reigniting the conflict essentially allowing Franco to be held as merely a figure of controversy in the national narrative rather than one of outright condemnation like Hitler or Mussolini (Wright, S 2021, p. 138). In many ways, the relative peace and stability that has prevailed in Spain since their transition to democracy in 1975 has been at least initially guaranteed by the new state overlooking and under-investigating the crimes of the past (Rubin, J 2018, p. 217). However, the distinct cultural diversity of the Spanish population has been a continuing point of insecurity for both the dictatorial and democratic Spanish states, with independence movements in the regions of Catalonia and the Basque Country being view as a threat to the notion of Spanish statehood. This fear of state instability born from diversity has made Spanish identity on a broader scale hard to define or accept in its ethnically distinct regions, with this national notion often associated with Francoist repression by these communities (Aguilar, P & Humlebaek, C 2002, p. 122). Indeed, much of the contemporary template for Spanish identity was forged or tainted by the Franco regime, resulting in the new democratic establishment having an awkward relationship with ideas of national pride and often choosing to be vague when approaching this sentiment (Aguilar, P & Humlebaek, C 2002, p. 123, 133 & 134). As a result of this indecisiveness by the mainstream political establishment in Spain, new emerging nationalist groups like Vox have been seen to unashamedly harness the Franco era notion of Spanish identity. While these traditionalist notions of Spanish identity have not been promoted by the state since his death, they had been allowed to remain unchallenged in the background and were preserved by groups like the FNFF, who despite overtly grandstanding for the former dictatorship has received funding by the new democratic state (Ham, A 2005, p. 23).
References
Ferrandiz, F 2021, Francisco Franco Is Back: The Contested Reemergence of a Fascist Moral Exemplar, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.
Rubin, J 2018, ‘How Francisco Franco governs from beyond the grave: An infrastructural approach to memory politics in contemporary Spain’, American Ethnologist, vol. 45, American Anthropological Association, Arlington USA.
Richards, M 2020, ‘3 Public objects of remembering and forgetting in contemporary Spain’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 54, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, Milton Park UK.
Aguilar, P & Humlebaek, C 2002, ‘Collective Memory and National Identity in the Spanish Democracy: The Legacies of Francoism and the Civil War’, History and Memory, vol. 14, JSTOR Journals, New York USA.
Wright, S 2021, ‘Out of the Ordinary: Confronting Paradox in the Historiography of Francoism’, Contemporary European History, vol. 30, no. 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.
Ham, A 2005, ‘In the shadows of the past: The legacy of Franco still looms large in the Spanish imagination’, Eureka Street, vol. 15, no. 1, Jesuit Publications, Melbourne Australia.
Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco n.d., Historia y fines, FNFF, translated by Google Translate, 2022, viewed 10 August 2022, <https://www.fnff.es/paginas/372712893/historia-y-fines.html>
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