A Somber Anniversary

I was at boarding school in England when I heard the news that Francisco Franco, the head of Spain since the bloody civil war (1936-39), had died. My first thought was “oh no, does that mean the country is going to plunge back into war? Will mum and dad be okay?” My second thought was, “Good. May he rot in hell.”

The country DIDN’T erupt in violence, but it was a close-run thing; only the intervention of Franco’s protégé, the new King Juan Carlos, averted a military coup. Millions of documents cataloging the innumerable crimes by the regime over 40 years were destroyed. And the Amnesty Law, the so-called Pacto del Olvido, ensured that the people who had committed those crimes were absolved of any consequences.

Very few Spanish people who were born after 1975 have much of an idea about any of this; the “olvido” has been entirely successful. So much so that far-right elements are once again gaining ground in Spain as they are elsewhere in Europe.

I explored this topic more fully in a 6-page comic that was published in Troubled Histories (2024), Sequential Artists Workshop.

It seems completely pointless to say “never again.” Yet it must be said. Not in Spain, not in Germany, not in Gaza. Let’s stop doing this, people.