Remainings of the Past

The big cleavage that runs through the spanish political class recalls the worst episodes of the spanish history, not indeed because either the intensity of the animosity between the major parties or the prospect of a violent outcome (only possible in the most demagogic and fantastic minds) but because of the incapacity of either side to reach a certain mutual understanding. Around the issue of the peace process in the Basque country are gathering the antagonistic emotions that drive our political class to clash in each single controversy, and it appears as hardly anything else as the foreseen epilogue of a row of disputes around the territorial structure of the country, the position of the catholic church within the institutional framework or the civil rights of homosexuals.

However the present situation might surprise, for the transtion from the dictatorship seemed to have buried all grudges from the civil war and the dictatorship. The question then is: is Spain destroying the legacy of the Transition's pact that kept away the furies and ghosts of the past? os ir it simply the (hopefully) last fever of a not yet fully healed sickness? I support the second statement that would force the more pessimistics to think about their catastrophistic predictions.

From my point of view, the fatalist vision (specially stated from the conservative side) according to which the tragic and fratricid "nature" of Spain would lure again after the extreme effort of will of the Transition fades away, does not take into consideration the big changes that have moulded the spanish society after 31 years of the death of Franco. If old grudges have a still appalling influence on the spanish geist it might be simply that some elements helped one each other to allow them to linger on, which in no case means that the Transition failed, simply that it has not yet completely fulfilled its goals; it would be too naive to think that the period that has been historically dubbed as Transition should be felt as a failure if its stated goals where not reached inmediatley after its official end.

Actually we could track back the past decenies of democracy and we might find the beginning of the resurgement of the confrontation in what should have been a crucial factor of idelogical renovation of the spanish right, the refoundation of Alianza Popular (AP) into Partido Polpular (PP). If the replacement of the old francoist guard by a more dynamic and modern leadership should have been the last step of normalisation, it surprinsingly led to increasing levels of aggresiveness, as if the long rule of the socialist party (PSOE) would be seen as illegitimate.
The reason for this paradox is simply that although PP was clearly less linked to the past regime than the former AP, it had riped in the traumatic experience for the spanish right of being ousted from power and seeing no way of offering a credible alternative for the citizens for nearly a decade. PP had fully accepted that democracy was the only legitimate way of wielding power, but was torn by the feeling of being an "ousted elite" and therefore prone to victimism and demagogy.
When PP under the leadership of Jose Maria Aznar ruled Spain from 1996 to 2004, it became clear that the danger of falling into the hands of fascism was only the phantasy of some elements of the left. But the arrogance oozed by the government helped the left to find it easy, specially under the leadership of Rodriguez Zapatero, to have a sympathetical stance towards descentralisation and federalism (indeed this last one necessary). This could have been very productive if not byased by the re-awaken mith of redemption through reconciliation of the central and oppresive Spain with its nationalities, what partly restaured a feeling of culpability. Thus a feed-back process has led both parties to alienate on each other by the adoption of antagonistics views in the national and moral order (surprisingly when the adoption of PSOE of the right's economic model should have brought forward the opposite)

Now that PSOE is back to the power, the opposition of PP is encreasingly tough, which could be explained by the suddenly re-awoken syndrome of unfair ousting after the population decided to withdraw its support to the ruling party after the obscure management of the post-11-M bombings in Madrid; under the excuse of alleged obstruction from the newly formed government to prove the phantastic thesis of ETA as performer of the tragedy, PP attributes radical intentions to most of the measures of the government (some of them maybe going too far in their revisionist drive but other ones based on the common sense), what after all brings us to a division that certainly is not appropiate for the political health of the country.

Now, the disagreement about how to answer to the cease-fire of ETA is bringing the confrontation to a new level; the longer this process drags on, the bigger the harm will be for the spanish political life. But beyond these facts, indeed worrisome, we should nevertheless bear in mind what I have been stating, that is, that we would be suffering a "relapse" of all the grudges from the past not yet fully healed, instead of having missed the miraculous opportunity offered to us at the beginning of the democracy. There is no reason to accuse the ruling party of trying to undermine the consensual framework of the Constitution of 1978, the prompt disposal of PP to posit themselves as the only true representatives of the values of 1978 shows their will to come forward with the banner of the only defendors of democracy and therefore to get rid off the accusations of being after all nothing more than the heirs of francoism cloaked in democratic garments, which is obviously false. But still this a try not to proudly outspeak their democratic pedigree, but to deny it to the left, what would authomatically grant them the consideration of the citizen, using thus the same tools than of the most unforgiving left and therefore making even more manifest their malaise.