Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos
If you take a bus ride from Madrid to El Escorial Palace, you will at some point see in the distance an enormous cross jutting 500 feet out from the valley like a scar across the sky. It is the largest cross in the world. It is the Valle de los Caídos, a monument built by Francisco Franco as a memorial to those Nationalists (pro-Franco) who died in the Spanish Civil War. His body now rests within the basillica below the cross. It was partially built with labor from Republican (anti-Franco) prisoners. Many died during its construction. And it remains a controversial and painful reminder of a terrible time in Spanish history.
The right-wing People’s Party has long held that the past should remain in the past. That there were atrocities on both sides and Franco was a complicated and maybe even ultimately necessary figure for the Spanish people. The left-wing PSOE (socialist party) which is now in power has, like many Spaniards, an uncomfortable feeling about what to do with this symbol of Nationalist victory. Certain symbols from that time are rarely seen anymore. The Spanish flag with the black eagle is rare while there remains supporters of the old Spain under Franco.
After the transition to democracy, there was a Pact of Forgetting that was felt to be the only way to move forward. It allowed past Nationalists to participate in the nascent democracy. Spain placed its eyes firmly forward and not to the past.
But ghosts refuse to stay silent. Mass graves have been found. Families want their relatives’ bodies returned. Judges have called for a review of past war crimes. The Socialist government has spoken of changing this Valley Cross to that of a memorial for Spain on its way to Democracy. While I lived there, the government removed the final statue of Franco, late in the dark of the night without notice.
But unlike South Africa and many other countries, there has not been a Truth and Reconciliation process; and that cross still divides.
Recently in the United States, governors of several southern states have declared Confederacy History months. In large parts of the south, it is not unusual to see the Confederate Flag flown. Many of these governors and southerners want to talk about the South and its role in the American Civil War as if that flag were not a symbol of treason and white supremacy. That it symbolizes a lifestyle that was divorced from its slavery. The Original Sin of the United States, the founding of this country as a slave owning country is part and parcel of the Civil War. Sadly, in both Spain and the US, religion is often connected hand in hand with these symbols.
That Confederate Flag will always be tied to slavery and the South. As slavery will always be tied to the South. The terrible Civil War that led to the deaths of 2% of all Americans at the time, and a 100 years of poverty and limited progress in the old Dixie slave states.
Right wing Americans go to pains to define that symbol as not a racist one; as something that beckons to a time that needs to be honored and commerated. Yet it is not surprising to note that the flag’s presence is more common when issues of racism are up and front in this country: during the civil rights battles of the 50s and 60s, some states added the Confederate Flag to their state flag; and now, when Northerners are prominent in the government and we are led by our first African-American president.
This flag is a wound on our country’s soul. I am frustrated to read its defense by politicians. Recently the governor of Mississipee said that the issue of slavery was not a major issue in the Civil War, joining his peer from Virginia.
When we talk of Confederacy History month, or of the “War of Northern Agression,” we are celebrating the darkest part of our National story. There is nothing to celebrate here. There is no way to detach this symbolism from its message of hate. There was no glorious past of this country that include slavery, Southern or Northern.
Perhaps it’s time for our own Truth and Reconcilation.
