SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Saturday April 17
REPUBLICANS marked the 79th anniversary of the Second Spanish Republic in the Canarian capital Santa Cruz on Saturday.
by JAMES TWEEDIE
Some 100 members and supporters of the Tenerife Platform for the Republic gathered in Plaza Weyler before marching to Plaza del Príncipe, to demand an end to the Borbón dynasty of King Juan Carlos I and and a return to the pre-fascist democracy of the Republic.
The demonstration was just one of many taking place across Spain as part of a week of action for the founding of a third republic.
Marchers waved red,yellow and purple Republican flags, shouted anti-fascist and anti-monarchist slogans and carried a banner reading: “Without the Republic there is no democracy.”
The Second Spanish Republic was born on April 14 1931 when Borbón King Alfonso XIII fled the country after Republican victory in municipal elections, and died on April 1 1939 when the last republican forces surrendered to General Francisco Franco's fascist 'Nationals' after three years of brutal civil war.
For much of the war General Franco had the material support of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, including the German Kondor legion.
The Republic was aided by the Soviet Union and by volunteers from Britain, Ireland, the USA and other nations who formed the International Brigade.
The Spanish throne sat empty until Franco's death on November 20 1975. Juan Carlos Borbón, whom Franco had named Prince of Spain and heir to the throne in 1969, was crowned two days later in accordance with the dead dictator's decree of succession.
At Plaza del Príncipe – or Príncipe de Asturias, the title of the royal heir – young Platform for the Republic member Jaime Hernández Pérez read from the April 14 manifesto of the Canarian Republican Movement.
To shouts of “assassins!” from the crowd, Mr Hernández recalled the thousands of Canarians who were murdered by the fascists at the outset of the fascist revolt, which began in the archipelago.
He said: “Across Spain people are marching to reclaim the republic from the fascist coup.
"The Francoist monarchy is not a democracy. Long live the Republic!”
The demonstration departed for a motorized cavalcade around Santa Cruz and the neighbouring city of La Laguna.
Comments
That's why there are all these attacks on Judge Baltasar Garzón for trying to bring the fascist murderers to justice, such as this: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/80411
Is that not the precise crisis which these demonstrators are outing with their public republican manifestation?
Are you not, in other words, begging the question?
Roads named after Franco and the others have been re-named, but the Guardia Civil paramilitary police still have the Fasces crossed with a sword beneath a crown as their crest. The Falangist symbol of the yoke and arrows can be seen on blocks of municipal flats built during the dictatorship.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1981/feb/23/spain.fromthearchive
This particular "mythos" sells this bogus monarchy as the defender of this democracy, whereas we know that this monarchy is really the balls-out, in-your-face defender of fascism and the living denial of the republic.
You have said the thing that is not, but why?
You first "mythos" was that the "apologists" are to blame for the continued insult to the republic at the top of the Spanish state. You meant that "Franco", i.e. fascism, is popular. You meant that the people want it and hint that a majority of the people might want it, and therefore that it is legitimate and the republicans are consequently now potential usurpers and deniers of the popular will.
Why is this so sick-making? It's because it is an argument that resembles the sexual abuser's inevitable claim that the abused victim "wanted it". It exonerates the acting perpetrators and attributes agency to the victims; and that's not even half of the story.
I mean, this "mythos" somehow has always to be rushed in to counter any sign that the victim is anything but a passive but willing agent. To stuff the victim's mouth full of paper.
So, for example, in the face of an actual photograph of a demonstration and republican banner, and a professional report from somebody one knows - James - you, Phil, are unable to refrain from bombarding it with dark hints of apologism, and then slam down your trump card - a 1981 article from the Guardian.
What chance do we have when our friends prove to be the first-line apologists for fascism? What are we supposed to do when it is they who make to trip us up at the first step?
A perfect example. I am now totally in sync with you about Malema from a starting point where I really was not aware of his brand of fascism.
As far as I know you are a Spanish speaker. Why do you need to reach back to the English-language Guardian of 30 years ago?
There is nothing dialectical about the editorial inertia that discourages whatever the editor may think is "antinomian". It is not your job to play devil's advocate for ignorance. It's not your job to burden the fresh with the stale.
As I recall you said there was a clear distinction between the Torys - right wing social democrats - and fascists, and that the Tories were ultimately allies against fascism.
Can you explain how that is different with respect to PSOE and social democracy in Spain and the attempted take over by the military.
As for your arguments of circularity. Well yes. It does get tiring going over the same ground over and over again, but don't forget I am a teacher.
What is my class? Honetly speaking, I am petit bourgoise intelligencia, a teacher who works in further and higher education. Where are my class interests? Well given my back story and my outlook my solidarity is with the communists and the Communist Party of South Africa in particular. I want the elimination of exploitation of human by human. That is clear enough.
To engage with you more productively I will start going reading through the CUs book lists you helpfully provid, (a number of which I seem to have read already).
BTW I spent 2 years in Spain, studied Spanish history at degree level. So if my opinions are cavalier, at least they are informed.
As I recall you said there was a clear distinction between the Torys - right wing social democrats - and fascists, and that the Tories were ultimately allies against fascism.
Can you explain how that is different with respect to PSOE and social democracy in Spain and the attempted take over by the military.
As for your arguments of circularity. Well yes. It does get tiring going over the same ground over and over again, but don't forget I am a teacher.
What is my class? Honetly speaking, I am petit bourgoise intelligencia, a teacher who works in further and higher education. Where are my class interests? Well given my back story and my outlook my solidarity is with the communists and the Communist Party of South Africa in particular. I want the elimination of exploitation of human by human. That is clear enough.
To engage with you more productively I will start going reading through the CUs book lists you helpfully provid, (a number of which I seem to have read already).
BTW I spent 2 years in Spain, studied Spanish history at degree level. So if my opinions are cavalier, at least they are informed.
What I am sure I said was that anti-fascism recruited individuals from all sides. Edward Heath and Roy Jenkins were among them. The Tory Party produced both Chamberlain, and Churchill.
I don't think you are petit bourgeois. I don't think you could run a shop or a farm, any more than I could. But you should "push on from the outside" as a professional revolutionary, no matter where you come from.
Concerning your last para, if you are well informed at first hand then let us have some of that first hand witness, but please, not generalisations such as saying that there are "many" apologists. Can you quote even one of them? Did you talk to any of those fascists? Or are you making a distinction between fascists and apologists?
Why do you make distinctions among Spaniards that you do not make among British Tories?
If you think that the Subject of History is already fully formed, as "the Tories" plus "the social democrxats" et cetera, then you are not going to do anything more. You are not going to organise. Even the little bits of new growth that may spring out in this blog, you are going to blight them.
It makes no difference if we are an Ars Notoria collective or not. We still have to have some editorial principles.
It's not important how many books you read, but if when you see a march coming towards you with a banner saying "Sin Republica No Hay Democracia" on it in huge letters, and you start scruffling around for your 30-year-old cutting from the Guardian to read instead, then I say you are not getting it.
I think editorial priciples would be a great idea. What do you suggest?
As for thinking the "subject is fully formed" well of course not. And here I am assuming we mean the same thing.
Isn't that the root of sectarianism? Definition.
As for whether ARS NoTORIA or xuitlacoche can bubble up on the radar.
Well yes they can.
Type in "Cameron loses debate" and donkeyshott and xuitlacoche is at the top followed by ARS NOTORIA.
The point is to create a platform. You have done so in CU. Here I thought we could be a little more eclectic.
Have I met fascists in Spain or just apologists? Well let me think. Again. Define fascist.
The debate of Marxists is part of the western tradition of philosophy. Then it should share some of the conventions of that debate too, but without falling into scholasticism.
The danger of people, anyone on the left coming together to discuss things clearly, is that debate narrows right down. I agree that you may be correct, in which case that narrowness is not narrow at all, you are simply correct, as you are about Malema, but in the rarified atmosphere of blogland, can you really make such general assumptions about what people know or don't know. I think that's a process.
"David Cameron loses"
It seems to me that by 1975 the writing was on the wall for the dictatorship. Perhaps Franco thought that handing power to the monarchy would legitimise the continuing denial of democracy. With Franco dead things changed quickly and elections were held in a few years. The Falange were wiped out at the poles and the party disintegrated. In this context the idea of a successful coup seems far-fetched, and may be just a tale to make Juan Carlos seem like a defender of democracy.
The monarchy and the Catholic church are holy cows to the Popular Party as much as they were to the fascists. This is not surprising when one is informed that some prominent Falange were founder members of the PP.
The great thing about this story is the controversy of it. This demo openly and plainly challenges the status quo - not in a ridiculous anarchist way but by referring to concrete history to classify the constitutional monarchy as a continuation of the fascist coup against the republic.