AWAITING THE TEMPEST
Part 1
Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain, with the country still firmly in the grip of General Franco (El Caudillo). He is in his late 70s (he was born in 1892) and has held absolute power for the past thirty plus years, since the end of the brutal Spanish Civil War (1936-39).
Over 500,000 Spaniards were killed during the Civil War and memories of it are still fresh, with many Spaniards having first-hand experience of the war. Almost everyone is scarred by this and the awful White Terror, during which Franco sought to cleanse the country of any opposition or past opponents of the Nacionales.
From 1936 to 1945 there were mass executions throughout Spain and, although no one knows precisely, some 50,000 Spaniards were killed by the regime after the end of the Civil War. There are unmarked graves on the outskirts of the villages and towns across Spain that everyone knows about. However, no-one dares mention such matters publicly and most people know that even the Republican side committed horrendous massacres of civilians. Few people who fought during the Civil War are truly ‘clean’.
Meanwhile, for years after the Civil War thousands of men and women have been imprisoned in bestial conditions in concentration camps around the country. Forced labour for political opponents of Franco was common and used until the early 1960s on grandiose projects such as the Guadalquivir Canal and the Valley of the Fallen. Horrifically, thousands of children were also removed from their anti-Francoist parents in the 1940s and given to childless supporters of the regime
So, few Spaniards doubt the ruthless nature of General Franco and hardly a family in Spain has not been touched by his dictatorship. Even now, the speaking of regional languages such as Catalan, Galician or Basque is forbidden and to get a decent job you need to be able to demonstrate your Nacionale credentials.
It is true that the savagery of the first two decades of Franco’s dictatorship is largely in the past and that the regime has softened. However, few Spaniards take this for granted. The Guardia Civil, always seen walking in pairs, are still feared and it would be a foolish person indeed who starts a confrontation with them. The secret police are omnipresent and any signs of protest, such as by university students or strikers, is immediately and brutally repressed.
Indeed, only nine years ago in 1962, Julian Grimau, a communist leader, was executed after a military trial, despite world-wide calls (including from Pope John XXIII) for clemency. Twenty seven bullets were fired at him by a squad of nervous conscripts, who failed to kill him. Finally, the Lieutenant in charge of the squad, (who afterwards needed psychiatric help) gave the coup de grace by shooting two bullets into Grimau’s head. It was a sign to everyone that Franco will not brook opposition and can be as ruthless as ever.
And yet, Spain is changing and changing radically, albeit in a way that makes everyone feel nervous. Franco is old and cannot last forever but what, everyone wants to know, will happen when he dies?
Everywhere there is a growing sense of uncertainty. Demonstrations and strikes are becoming more frequent and everyone is conscious that the future of Spain is due to be put to a major test very soon.
A couple of years ago, in 1969, there were two momentous political changes. The first was the surprise appointment by General Franco of Prince Juan Carlos Bourbon as the next king of Spain.
Franco had declared Spain a monarchy back in 1947 but few people really thought that his successor would be a ‘legitimate’ king and, of course, no-one expects Juan Carlos to be anything other than an absolute ruler in the mould of the Caudillo himself. After all, Juan Carlos is Franco’s protégé and, when the General dies, will be surrounded by the all-powerful ‘Old Guard’ of Franco’s regime, all of whom have a vested interest in retaining the political status quo.
The second big change was Franco’s amnesty for political opponents, those with previously unacceptable republican sympathies. This led to some extraordinary events, such as the unexpected appearance of Manuel Cortes, the ex-mayor of Mijas in Andalusia. He was Mayor of Mijas for a few brief months in 1936 and has been living in hiding for over thirty years, in terror of being caught by the regime. He is surely not alone and there are rumours of other people who have been in hiding for just as long.
The amnesty, of course, has sent out a welcome message to Spanish emigrants that it is safe, more or less, to return to Spain. Some of these have already drifted back to their homeland over the past ten years but many more are now following their example. There are a lot of them (some 470,000 Spaniards left Spain in 1939 alone) and they are bringing into the country radical new ideas. They have been living and working across Europe, most notably in France, and are politically and culturally far ahead of their deeply conservative compatriots.
Indeed, most Spaniards have to rely upon a heavily censored press for their news and few have any real idea of what is happening in the rest of Europe. The ‘swinging sixties’, ‘flower power’, psychedelia, the battle for the pill and women’s rights are virtually unknown concepts.
Certainly, with exceptions, socially, Spain feels set in a 1950’s time warp.
Franco’s dictatorship has been less about fascism than a deeply Catholic conservatism, a conservatism that has left much of the country, in social terms, years behind the rest of Europe. Contraception is illegal, as is abortion and divorce – and a woman’s place is very much in the home.
Indeed, Spain is a macho society where women have little equality and are under the power of their fathers or husbands, who can legally control virtually their every move. Without her husband’s permission (permiso marital) a woman cannot have a bank account or be employed. She can even be arrested and put in prison for abandoning the home (abandono el hogar), irrespective of whether she did so to flee abuse.
Meanwhile, Spain is very religious and once again the bulwark of the Catholic faith. This has been a volte face from the early years of the twentieth century when Spain had fewer people attending church (per capita) than any other European nation.
However, Franco has always been a ‘believer’ and was supported by a very partisan Catholic church during the Civil War. Afterwards, he owed them a debt for their loyalty to the nationalist cause and re-imposed Catholicism on the country, with regular church attendance a critical demonstration of a ‘good’ nationalist. In some villages, non-attendance at a Sunday mass results in the person concerned being called to the town hall (ayuntamiento) to explain his absence.