Fascism mars Spanish reform, says GTF
By JIM GERSBACH
Ol the Emerald
Military uprisings — like the thwarted coup Feb. 23
— may be the price Spain has to pay in its transforma
tion from the fascist rule of Generalissimo Francisco
Franco.
So says Ignacio Martinez, a University Graduate
Teaching Fellow in Spanish and a native of Spain's
impoverished southern region of Andalusia, a
stronghold of leftist political activity.
“We’ve had the ghost of a coup hanging over our
heads since the death of Franco because after his death
in 1975, we didn’t have a violent break with fascism,”
Martinez says.
Fascists remain in the military and government,
Martinez says.
“High officers in Spain are old people, mostly over
60. They won the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) with
Franco. They don’t want a change in regime.”
Leaders of Monday’s coup were army officers who
had already spoken out against Spanish democracy,
Martinez says. Jaime Millan del Bosch, the officer who
sent troops into the streets of Valencia, was arrested
two years ago for calling Spain's reformist Minister of
the Army a traitor. ...
Like the rebel officers involved in the coup attempt,
Spain’s other Francoists are trying to preserve their
power and re-institute fascist ideals in Spain, Martinez
says. Those ideals include belief in a strong central
government, cultural adherence to Castile and the
Castilian language and rejection of democracy, he
says.
The king’s former prime minister Suarez returned
traditional rights and priveledges to the Basques and
Catalans Franco took away in the name of Spanish
unity. That has threatened Franco’s old supporters,
who have had little backing in recent national elections.
Armed fascist movements such as the Fuerza
Nueva patrol areas in Spanish cities, harassing and
attacking leftists, Martinez says.
‘‘They are very few in number, extremely young but
very active," Martinez says. Most are 15 to 21-years-old
and from upper-middle class families.
"There are very few groups seeking violent change
on either the extreme left or right,” Martinez adds.
“The majority of Spaniards are leftist oriented,”
Martinez says, and willing to try peaceful political
change in Spain, including the country’s sizable
Socialist and Communist parties which Martinez says
control most Spanish municipal governments.
Since Franco's death, the Catholic Church, a
strong Franco supporter, has split with individual
priests sympathizing with fascist, centrist or leftist
factions.
But the central government remains in the hands of
the center right, protected by King Juan Carlos, whose
personal intervention helped quell the recent coup
attempt.
For that reason, while “almost nobody in Spain is a
monarchist, we all respect the king’s work," Martinez
says.
Still, as the coup showed, Spain has a "very shaky
democracy,” Martinez says.
But he remains guardedly optimistic about Spain’s
future. "We have a very violent history, but this time I
think we’ll make it peacefully.”
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