Children are forever united to their parents by an inexorable natural law, but are the experiences those that help strengthen parent-child ties, and it is never too late to do so.
TO José Antonio MartÃnez Soler (AlmerÃa, 1947), legendary Spanish journalist and founder of 20 minutes, The Sun, The Gazette, Doubloon either Good morning (TVE), has helped him “get to know” his son better, Erik Martinez Westley (Madrid, 1978), a project that “grandparents should bequeath to their grandchildren”: the writing, in four hands, of Franco for young peoplea book that escapes the trenches and helps “know where we come from in order to make decisions that lead us towards a better future.”
But, above all, a book written to unambiguously condemn the role of a ferocious dictator and “liberate” many from any ideological bonds that they may still have today: “Because your grandparents fought in a certain place or because your family benefited from the regime, you should not be forced to defend certain things or feel ashamed,” says Erik, who with his experience as a director and screenwriter (has worked for 15 years in Hollywood and directed documentaries such as Prepared for the tsunami?) has been in charge of putting order in the work.
Following the 49 years that this Wednesday marks the death of Francisco Francofather and son, two generations, talk with 20 minutes. They interrupt and differ. “During the writing we fought a lot,” they say, laughing. Who knows if after reading the work so many people stop fighting.
What do you say to those people, especially older people, who still today claim that they did not live so badly during the dictatorship?José Antonio MartÃnez Soler (JAMS): After the war come two decades that are terrible. These are the years of hunger. My parents said they were worse than the war: infant mortality, repression, extermination, purging of teachers, homosexuals… Two decades that no one honest can defend. Franco was very astute and had enormous luck in my opinion: the Korean War broke out in the 1950s, when Spain was mired in misery, isolated… The US saw that Spain was a strategic point for the Cold War. So, support Franco to enter the UN, install military bases… I think that saved Franco. With the liberalization of the system, Spain begins to do well despite Franco. And those who remember that life with Franco was very good are right. Not better than now, eh, but life was good, why? Because we came from two decades of hunger and the stabilization plan began to be applied, the borders opened… and Spain grew tremendously.
How can a 20-year-old young man today praise the Franco dictatorship? What do you think the young people who do it are really looking for?Erik MartÃnez (EM): As individuals it is up to us to look for the facts and be truthful with them, and these young people have heard a whitewashed and glorified version of the past.
JAMS: I cannot understand, for example, the young women who go around celebrating Franco’s regime. Do they even know what it meant for a woman to live with Franco in power? They couldn’t travel without their husband’s permission, they couldn’t open a checking account, they couldn’t have a business, they couldn’t do anything. They were slaves of man. As you investigate, you realize how a large part of society was severely punished. So, I don’t know what those young people can see, I don’t know how they can glorify such a horrible thing, a crime, a genocide.
EM: For example, those of our generation, due to myopia at the time, were not taught anything about Francoism or communism, nothing. It was as an adult when I suddenly began to discover the massacres… The massacres of Stalin and Pol Pot, Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The same thing happened to me with Franco’s regime.
JAMS: When you live without freedom it is terrible. The youngest of you were born in it and you only value freedom like oxygen, when you lack it. Today it is thought that it comes standard and is free. No, no, it’s not free, you either defend it every millimeter or you lose it. Now we are in a moment of misinformation, of national populism, of discredit of democracies and of growth of totalitarianism. From Trump, Putin, Orbán, Meloni, Vox… I am a little worried about the lack of knowledge among youth about what true freedom is.
This lack of knowledge among youth about what true freedom is is worrying.
As a result of the latter, do you think that those who compare the current reactionary effervescence with that registered in the 20s and 30s of the last century tend towards trivialization?JAMS: Yes. It’s not the same, I think it’s not the same. We cannot compare the current period with the interwar period.
EM: But there are rhymes. If they are not consonant rhymes, they are assonants.
JAMS: (Laughs) We have discussed that a lot. I am optimistic.
EM: No, me too, but there is a wave of protectionism, there is Trump with the mandates of the strong man… We make the metaphor in the book: this is everyone’s home. It is good to know that if there is a hornet’s nest in a corner or a leak, it is better to attend to it than ignore it. Spain has already gone through certain nationalist inclinations before and it is good to recognize them. We have to know a little about where we come from and know that this fascist literature is found in Europe and is found in Spain. You must always be attentive.
Can a country move forward with its dead lost in gutters?JAMS: No, I think that wound needs to be closed. The Spanish right has always resisted doing so. Spain is one of the countries with the most deaths in the gutters. I believe that it is very important for the PP to assume the Democratic Memory Law as its own, because it is approved by Congress, by all Spaniards, and that would be an important step to reach that State pact between PP and PSOE of which so much it is spoken Closing the wounds of Francoism would help Spain to have that great German-style coalition government.
Congress, with the support of the PP, approved in the summer the bill to outlaw the Francisco Franco Foundation. At this point a double aspect arises: the moral one, because the memory and tribute to a dictator is morally reprehensible; but also the legal one, because, to what extent can a democracy allow political illegalizations?JAMS: I think that in this case it is correct. In Germany, for example, speaking well of Hitler is a crime. In Spain he is now beginning to be, in some way, not persecuted but frowned upon. I believe that the Francisco Franco Foundation is cleaning up the image of a genocide, and that should be a crime one day. Democracy has to be protected and this foundation should never have been established after the Transition. What’s more, I think that the very spirit of the Constitution is contrary to the exaltation of a genocide. Democracy has to be protected from the very anti-democrats because they can undermine it from within and destroy it.
Democracy has to be protected from the very anti-democrats because they can undermine it from within and destroy it
The 1977 amnesty was essential for Spain to look forward. Over time, has it become harmful? Has it caused many open wounds to remain?EA: I have not experienced the violence of the dictatorship like my father. So, I can only talk about the issue of amnesty in the sense that my family’s history is a violent history (his father, José Antonio, was kidnapped and tortured in 1976 by a Francoist Civil Guard commando). There is a point of injustice in that the criminals who attacked my father were not held accountable, and they are identified, we know who they are. Merit and value are two different words. The Francoists who gave in in favor of democracy have a lot of merit and the victims who accepted that the criminals who had attacked them went unpunished have a lot of courage. Is it fair? No, it’s not fair: no one had to apologize or return stolen things or pay for their crimes.
JAMS: I think the amnesty was a balm. It suited me very well, huh? I had 30 lawsuits for my work as a journalist and for political persecution. That does not mean that it was a price that Democrats had to pay. The young people think it was too high. Pablo Iglesias, for example, talks about the breakup of the ’78 regime. But what does Pablo Iglesias know about the fear we had in our bodies? The transition, the fear, made us all democrats: the Francoists and the anti-Francoists.
The transition made us all democrats: the Francoists and the anti-Francoists
Is there a political intention for the death of a generation to bury the claims of thousands of families who denounce repression?JAMS: I don’t think that’s done consciously. I think the fear persists. Fear remains engraved and paralyzing. What I truly believe is that with each passing day Franco is less to blame for what happens to us today. We are responsible for what happens to us. Today you no longer have to be ashamed because your father was from the CNT, the Communist Party or the Traditionalist Spanish Falange and the JONS. It’s been a long time. And I think this is a mature country. I am very optimistic about Spain. We all have the ability to close the wounds of Francoism and fearlessly teach young people who Franco was, what he did and why he did it. And well: also understand that half of the country loved him and the other half hated him, but everyone feared him.