Pieces from the Past: Contestation around Francoist Monuments in Modern-Day Spain

Abstract

Under the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain has finally moved to confront the past and its manifestations in public spaces throughout the peninsula. Although 37 years have passed since the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the previous Spanish governments had done little or nothing in regard to public visual displays of the fascist regime. It has taken nearly the same amount of time, 32 years, for the Spanish people to be able to face their past and engage in open discussions about how to deal, in the present and in the future, with this dark period that many have preferred to forget, as part of a collective amnesia fomented by the State. This amnesia stemmed from the nature of the transition to democracy, which was characterized by a quite peaceful change of power and the granting of complete amnesty to all Francoist collaborators in the name of democracy under the Pacto del Olvido (Pact of Oblivion). As Giles Tremlett indicates, in Spain—in contrast to the trajectory of other countries during the twentieth century—there were no hearings, no truth commissions, and no formal process of reconciliation, so as not to disrupt the endeavor of constructing a new democracy.¹ Furthermore, Spain represents “the only case of contemporary democratization not to have undertaken any kind of self-examination about the crimes committed by the pre-democratic regime.”²