LATIN AMERICA Spain Next to Ignite? OE Watch Commentary: In the context of spreading politically-motivated street violence in Latin America, and recent experience of the yellow-vest demonstrations in France, some observant Spaniards are voicing concern that Spain may be on the verge. The Spanish government, currently left-socialist, exhumed the body of Francisco Franco, removing it from a place of honor and delivering it back to the Franco family for reburial. The symbolism of the move was lost on nobody. There also exist Christian religious monuments at the Valley of the Fallen where Franco had been buried. To some, that iconography is as polarizing ideologically as it is poignant spiritually. The Spanish left, emboldened by the demotion of Franco, is threatening to remove the Catholic symbols, and not just from the Valley of the Fallen. This is no small matter, as many historians hold attacks on the Church by radical leftists in the mid 1930s to be the fundamental spark of the Spanish Civil War. The accompanying references outline a reasoned Spanish fear that their country is facing a Tomb of Francisco Franco, Valley of the Fallen, Spain. dangerous time. End OE Watch Commentary (Demarest) Source: Santiago Lopez-Pastor via Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/100759833@N05/14821994193, CC BY ND 2.0 “…The violence is not limited to burning Barcelona…” Source: Sergi Doria, “También la violencia es vuestra (The violence is yours, too),” ABC, 3 November 2019. https://www.abc.es/espana/ catalunya/abci-tambien-violencia-vuestra-201911021837_noticia.html “…The violence is not limited to burning Barcelona. It includes the loss of the freedom of movement of the citizenry, the appropriation of public space and coercion against those who would go to work; another distinguishing fact: the kidnappers of the right to study go around in masks. The Maoist Cultural Revolution: they dictate the system of evaluation to the rectors… At the turn of the summer, she [Elisenda Paluzie, president of the Catalan National Assembly] lamented that, ‘the current level of violence was not sufficient to get the European institutions to act’, and concluded, ‘Maybe the level of the conflict needs to be raised’…” Source: Rosana Rivera, “España: los socialistas preparan un golpe contra la monarquía (Spain: the socialists prepare a coup against the monarchy),” Actuall, 19 October 2019. https://www.actuall.com/medios/el-brief-hora-de-volar-la-cruz/ …This blow is really directed at the Monarchy and against the Religion. Once Franco is discredited, the Monarchy is discredited, because there is a Law of Succession and there is a discredited Constitution. The Law for Political Reform approved by the Franco Courts is what underpins the Transition… With their attacks on our liberties, on our principles and beliefs, they are expelling us from the system. I don’t know how much time will pass before the consequences of such political irresponsibility will manifest themselves. But I don’t doubt in the slightest that they will appear… Source: Adrián Marina Bralo et al, “Franco ya está enterrado en Mingorrubio tras ser exhumado del Valle de los Caídos (Franco is now buried in Mingorrubio after being exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen),” ABC, 24 October 2019. https://www.abc.es/espana/abci-franco-esta- mingorrubio-tras-exhumado-valle-caidos-201910241520_noticia.html “…The Francos [family of Francisco Franco] also criticized that, ‘what the government presents as a victory for democracy is no more than a shameless electoral media circus…One of the first promises of the new administration of Pedro Sánchez was to remove Franco from the Valley of the Fallen… Pedro Sánchez [said]…an end has been put to the exaltation of a dictator.” Source: Doctor Peligro, “‘¡Fuego!’. El fusilamiento y la destrucción de Jesús (‘Fire!’ The execution and destruction of Jesus),” Agente Provocador, undated (accessed 8 November 2019). http://www.agenteprovocador.es/publicaciones/fuego-el-fusilamiento-y-la-destruccion- de-jesus “For the Francoists and the Catholics, the ‘execution by firing squad’ and posterior destruction of the Monument to the Sacred heart of Jesus symbolized the ‘murder of God’. For others, it was performance art and the just vengeance of the people in arms.” Source: Ricardo de la Cierva, Historia Actualizada de la Segunda República and the Spanish War 1931-1939 (Updated History of the Second Republic and the Spanish War 1931-1936), Madrid: Editorial Féniz, 2003, comment, page 4 and cover jacket. “Cover Art: The key to the Spanish Civil War – and of the Second Republic that performed fatally in that war – in this graphic, heart wrenching document that is preserved in the Archives of the diocese of Getafe (Madrid) in the same place wher the events occurred. It deals with the execution by firing squad of one image of Christ raised on the Cerro de los Angeles by a squad of red militia in July 1936. The religious motivation – persecution and Crusade –is expressed in this key…” OE Watch | December 2019 76.