Reply #9: I remember similar pardons [View All]

[Zomby Woof]

Also remember in the summer of '77, when there was rioting and unrest in some quarters because Juan Carlos legalized the Socialist and Communist parties for the first time since the Civil War. To the far left, he shed the tag of being a puppet of the Francoists, and to the Old Guard, a traitor of the worst sort - when of course, he was never either one of those - which is ultimately why he won the respect of the rank-and-file. The hard right had fought the reforms that were under way as far back as '73, but had deluded themselves into thinking it was mostly generated by burgeoining leftist opportunists capitalizing on a dying old man losing his grip. They got the 'dying old man losing his grip' part correct - but the reforms were largely begun by pragmatists, and Franco gave his implicit consent, or was just impotent to stop them, depending on which side speaks (he actually played up endorsing some of them, for he was like most caudillos, obsessed with his legacy). The true believers from Franco's camp put a lot of faith in Juan Carlos re-consolidating power, but the genie was out of the bottle, and the crafty new king wasn't going to deny progress. There was also a recurring fear that a new Republic, too hastily created, would re-kindle a new civil war, and the riots surely raised the spectre from time to time. The coup attempt by the far right in 1981 was their last gasp at such a goal. Juan Carlos to this day is revered because his national TV address quelled the coup, and at last reassured the left, right, and middle that Spain was to stay the course as a modernizing European nation.

The real headache in maintaining their democracy has been the autonomous regions of the Basques and Catalans - especially the former, with the ETA and so forth. Spain has always been held together like a loosely cemented mosaic. Even as the nation has entered the European mainstream (NATO in 1982, the EU since), it remains domestic problem #1.

My three years in Spain solidified a life-long love and interest which will never diminish.