Thirty odd years ago - November 1975 - I was with some Spanish friends in their tiny apartment in West London. We were watching the TV reports from their homeland. Officially Franco was gravely ill and was expected to die. They joked that he had probably died months before when he was last seen in public and the government had kept him in the freezer since then. Not particularly nice but then Franco was not particularly nice and hope of a real change was in the air.
On Wednesday, the Spanish lower house in Parliament resolved to formally right the many wrongs of Franco's rise to power and his regime. In many ways the trauma that it is causing in Spain will be reflected when Turkey eventually recognizes fully the Armenian Genocide. On the other hand Spain will be only one of many countries in Europe that have stopped to recognize the errors in their history, learned from it and moved on.
Franco's death was the culmination of a remarkable year, in its way as significant as the fall of the Iron Curtain. In what seemed like an instant three Fascist regimes fell and were replaced by fledgling democracies. In Greece the Junta had fallen and democratic elections had been held. In Portugal the regime of the Generals had collapsed in revolution. After his death, we were soon to find that the Caudillo's choice of King, Juan Carlos I was literally a defender of democracy.
When I went to Spain on vacation in 76, finally able to go there after refusing to support the dictatorship financially, we had a quick smirk at the area of darker, grubbier paint on the customs hall wall where Franco's portrait had previously hung. Many of the remaining monuments and statues to him have been removed since. The new law will sweep away the last of them from public buildings along with any symbols of the regime.
The sentences passed by military courts from up to 71 years ago will be nullified. During the Civil War and from early 1937, every death sentence had to be signed or acknowledged by Franco. The current Spanish Prime Minister's grandfather was one victim. Now local governments will be required to dig up the mass burial sites of the victims for them to be given a decent funeral. It the words of the BBC report:
The legislation also seeks to make symbolic amends to all victims of the war.
This includes Roman Catholic clergy and others killed by militias loyal to the leftist Republican government that Gen Franco rose up against.
The legislation is controversial. Many on the right still revere Franco and the Socialist government is at odds with the Catholic church over their progressive legislation. This showed last weekend when the Vatican beatified 498 Roman Catholics killed during the Civil War. The official justification that this is not political is rather dubious bearing in mind the numbers and timing.
In a rather similar way to the House resolution of the Armenian killings, those opposing the law are claiming it is the wrong time. A Catholic Bishop dismisses the killing of half a million as history:
Francisco Perez, the archbishop of Pamplona, said the bill was unnecessary because "you can't change history," and urged victims "to look for ways to forget."
The right wing opposition partyclaims it is too soon and will re-open divisions:
The deputy leader of Mr Aznar's Popular Party, Angel Acebes, said before Wednesday's vote: "Zapatero wants to divide Spaniards and turn them against each other."
For Turkey there is little likelihood that those directly involved in the events at the end of WWI will still be around to be insulted, which perhaps makes this the right time for them to properly address the guilt of their earlier generations. At this distance of time, it is not a matter of prosecution but providing a form of justice for those killed or abused. Let me give some examples.
This last year Britain has been celebrating the banning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807. Part of this has been the recognition of the suffering of those who were enslaved. You also recognize the contribution they made to the political movement that led eventually to the banning of the trade and the abolition of slavery itself.
If that is too distant, you can cite the moves in Belgium to recognise that King Leopold was responsible for many atrocities in Congo and that it is placed on record within the national museum. More directly, they officially apologized in 2002 for their moral responsibility in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first elected Prime Minister in 1961.A Parliamentary committee had heard evidence that
Lumumba could not have been assassinated without the complicity of Belgian officers backed by the CIA.
Only this month, the descendants of an officer responsible for the mass killings of Herero in what is now Namibia formally apologized:
"We, the von Trotha family, are deeply ashamed of the terrible events that took place 100 years ago. Human rights were grossly abused that time," Wolf-Thilo von Trotha said as he addressed the gathering.
"We say sorry, since we bear the name of General Lothar von Trotha. We however do not only want to look back, but also look to the future."
That followed an earlier more general apology from the German government.
In their various ways, these are cathartic. The recognition of historical suffering reduces the barriers between peoples. What was wrong with the House resolution about Turkey was not the timing but the location. The impetus should come from within Turkey itself. Facing up to your past means you can move forward to your future.