Dictatorships have left a legacy and some places of remembrance. The
treatment of these places by democracies has been controversial, to say
the least. What could be done with places like the Valle de los Caídos in
Spain?
I don’t believe in the myth of
“reconciliation” or “shared
remembrance”. A strong democratic
society should not fear its enemies
and grant them freedom of expression
within the limits of the law.
When it comes to the remembrance of fascism in Italy and Francoism in Spain,
it would be better to recognise their existence rather than conceal them. A
democratic state can tolerate them, by no means assuming them or integrating
them into its own institutions. A democratic state should not establish an official
vision of the past (as is the case in dictatorships), but it does have the duty
to recognise its own responsibilities. For example, Chirac’s recognition of the
responsibility of the French State for deporting Jews or Emmanuel Macron’s
recognition of the torture that took place during the Algerian war are welcome. In
Spain, the “Law of Historical Memory” moves in this direction despite its limits.
The question of what to do with the Valle de los Caídos is complex. My view
is that of an independent observer who by no means claims to have magical
solutions. To my mind, the decision of Pedro Sánchez to exhume the remains of
Franco and remove them from the Valle de los Caídos is a good choice. However,
it is also necessary to remove the gigantic cross on top of the site in order to
“desacralize” it. It could then be transformed into a memorial and museum with
a critical presentation of its history. It would become a memorial in the German
sense of a Mahnmal (a warning for future generations). I don’t believe in the
possibility of creating a place of consensual remembrance in which Republicans
and those nostalgic for Francoism can gather “fraternally” in the name of
national reconciliation. Nor do I believe in a memorial that would be a recollection
of all the victims of the civil war, putting them all on the same level and the
same place. This would be a hypocritical choice and not the policy of memory of
a democratic state. In this case, it would be difficult to avoid exhuming all the
remains (equally those of Francoist soldiers and those of deported republicans)
to bury them in a different spot, alongside or elsewhere. That being said, I am
not aware of all the propositions that have been made and my position is not the
result of in-depth study or extensive contemplation of the subject.
How has neoliberalism affected our perception of time? How does it
24
Observing Memories
ISSUE 2