On a hot mid-morning during a 6-week walk from France to Santiago de Compostela I was grateful to see an enterprising young man selling cold drinks, fruit and souvenirs to pilgrims in the middle of nowhere. His little dog bounded up, wagging its tail and barking so furiously that I couldn’t resist joking “¿No pasarán?” to its owner. He looked startled. “My God” he said, “Do you know what that means?” I did – but not the significance of the day on which I’d said it. Which led to a thought-provoking discussion about the Spanish Civil War, 80 years earlier.
We modern pilgrims walking the ancient “Way of Saint James” – the Camino de Santiago – can easily become so immersed in captivating scenery, medieval heritage and the inner journey of pilgrimage that we can remain oblivious to the everyday social and political concerns of those whose homes we walk by. To my generation of Spaniards, for example, the fascist dictatorship which emerged from the brutal civil war and lasted until the mid-1970s is still a living memory. Even for younger generations it still reverberates.
Memorials to the Dead
It turned out that I had met the young man and his dog on the 85th anniversary of the declaration of the leftist Second Republic on 14 April 1931. After an unsuccessful right-wing coup plunged the country into civil war, the phrase ¡No Pasarán! (They shall not pass!) became a rallying cry for the Republic’s supporters during the defence of Madrid and beyond. My entrepreneurial young friend explained that he and most of his friends were solidly socialist (his dog was named “Fidel” after Cuba’s communist leader) so the phrase resonates with them whenever right-wing politicians or clergy aspire to turn back the clock.
A day earlier, in the 18th Century church at Azofra I had noticed a memorial to José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the fascist Falange, along with a dozen local men who had died “for God and for Spain in the Holy Crusade against communism, 1936-1939”. In other words, fascist “Nationalist” rebels against the elected socialist Second Republic.
Two days later I would pass a recently-exhumed mass grave at Monte de Pedraja where, in the name of that same “God and Spain in the Holy Crusade against communism”, Nationalists had shot and buried some 300 “Republican” civilians. The plaque reads (in Spanish):
In this place, about three hundred people were shot by those who supported the coup d’état of General Francisco Franco against the legitimately established 2nd Republic, which gave rise to the Spanish Civil War between the years 1936 and 1939.
They were killed in the first months of the war for their political ideals and for defending freedom.
This humble monument, made by their relatives, will serve to ensure that we never forget their memory
May they rest in peace
In modern attempts to address the poisoned legacy of the Civil War, some 2,200 mass graves like this have been identified, although most have not yet been exhumed.
A Beatification in Burgos
Lest fascist Nationalists take all the blame, it should be remembered that socialist Republicans had murdered more than 6,800 Roman Catholic clergy, including bishops, diocesan priests, seminarians, monks, friars and nuns. Another two days of walking would take me to the city of Burgos where a poster on the cathedral wall announced the impending beatification of five “martyrs of the Civil War”.
Sixty-six year-old Father Valentín Palencia Marquina had been caring for orphaned, marginalized and sick children at the outbreak of the war but was forbidden to celebrate Mass by local Republican anarchist leaders. When a disgruntled youth betrayed that he was continuing to do so secretly he was arrested and shot, along with four devout young laymen.
A week after my stay in Burgos, at a Mass outside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Pope Francis would announce: “Yesterday [23 April] in Burgos, Spain, Father Valentín Palencia Marquina and his four companion martyrs were declared Blessed. They were killed for their faith during the Spanish Civil War. Let us praise the Lord for their courageous witness, and let us pray for their intercession to free the world from all violence.”
Managing Memories
These days political and social polarization is as much a challenge for Spaniards as it is for the rest of us, but the legacy of their Civil War underlines the significance there. Although unique, their experience should remind the rest of us of the awful price our species pays for polarization, and putting faith in populist charlatans making claims like “I alone can fix it“. It should remind us of how easily nice people like us can be lulled into supporting, acquiescing to, or simply remaining passive in the face of metastasizing extremism. And that ill-considered confrontation is easily started but can take generations to heal.
The details are very different of course, but events in Ukraine warrant reflection on that previous time when democracies were irresolute during a European clash between democracy and totalitarianism. In the 1930s they withheld support for the elected government in Spain, partly because it included communists and partly out of fear of war. Predictably the Soviet Union stepped in and communism was empowered as a result. On the fascist side, Hitler and Mussolini refined German and Italian military capabilities by using the war as a proving ground for equipment and tactics. Which all meant that democracies had to face them later anyway, but at a more terrible cost.
I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s warning: “Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.”