Franco's tomb desecrated for political aggrandisement.

[Chris Wilson]

Sad to see that General Francisco Franco's remains have been moved from his beautiful mausoleum to the unremarkable El Pardo city cemetery to appease the left leaning government. Visiting The Valley of the Fallen will not be the same. Many fought valiantly against the move, but to no avail It's bad enough ingrate students demanding the removal of their benefactors statues and memorabilia from universities, whilst still enjoying their architectural and financial legacies, without this sort of nonsense in Spain.

 

[Chris Wilson]

A lot of Spaniards feel very differently, hence why it's taken decades for this disinterment to have been authorized, and it's deeply unpopular with many. He still has many admirers.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Jesus Chris, i bet Franco's ghost is in your pub, is Mussolini there too? Pinochet?

They should just incinerate him and eat him so he can end life as he deserves, then they can bury that.

Perhaps your school's history teacher never explained just how far General Pinochet stuck his neck out to help the UK and support our ex PM Lady Thatcher over the Falkland Islands? We owe him a serious debt of gratitude!

As BowdonUK quite rightly states, if we start digging up political and military figures current sensitivities now view as risque, we need to start employing a lot of grave diggers

 

[Chris Wilson]

@Chris Wilson why is everything you post wrong?

EVERYTHING? I accept this may be an emotive event, but, like Brexit, opinions obviously vary. Here's a recent Spanish poll on how the polled citizens feel about the desecration:
43% supported the move, with 32.5% against and the rest undecided. Seems a sizeable percentage agree with me that he should have been left undisturbed. And a fair proportion were undecided.

 

[Chris Wilson]

This will be a thread to talk about in the years to come.
Adolph Hitler, he was alright. Had a lot of great ideas, couple of pretty bad ones too.

Jesus wept.

If you find discussion over his reburial so remarkable you should keep copies of recent newspapers and recordings of TV news

 

[Chris Wilson]

Yeh I thought Franco was from trainspotting.

A sad indictment of our education system then...

 

[Chris Wilson]

Wasn't Franco's "beautiful mausoleum" built by slave labour?

Frankly, the misogynist, fascist dictator should have suffered the same fate as his idols Hitler & Mussolini.

It was partly built by prisoners of war. As you seem to infer that slave built structures are aesthetically inferior to those built by paid workers, what is your opinion on maintaining the pyramids, and their future?? The White House? The United States Capitol building? Are they somehow less elegant due to those who built them?

 

[Chris Wilson]

It's a joke.

Thank the Lord for that, but I never cease to be amazed about how little real world history is implanted between people's ears in quite recent UK education No offence!

 

[Chris Wilson]

By that logic, 37% voted for Brexit, 35% against, and the other 28% undecided, so we shouldn't be leaving.

Now, as a long standing forum member you *KNOW* Brexit discussion has its own sterile space in the Speaker's Corner, you'll find all the support you'll need over yonder....

 

[Chris Wilson]

This isn't about erasing him from history, just moving his remains from a national mausoleum, which has been a focal point for his far right supporters, like Chris , to a private cemetery.

Mental gymnastics are abounding here, Chris has now gone from an ardent foreigner hater to a supporter of some dead Spaniard.... Nowhere in this thread have I made any insinuation as to my personal opinion of the late General, instead I have merely suggested even controversial corpses might perhaps be best left to rest in peace and not become a pawn of modern Socialism and Liberalism.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Imagine thinking that a mass murderer deserves any sort of respect in 2019.
The mind of Chris Wilson ....

The Mandela's seem to make your point rather moot....

 

[Chris Wilson]

No one has done what you said, he's being moved next to his wife, arguably a nice thing.

Franco had his own tomb and mausoleum designed *for himself*, the monument, considered a landmark of 20th-century Spanish architecture, was designed by Pedro Muguruza and Diego Méndez on a scale to equal, according to the General, "the grandeur of the monuments of old, which defy time and memory". If he wished to be interred with his wife in some urban, relativel nondescript cemetery I am sure he would and could have actioned such a thing. It's hardly for some new Prime Minister to decide Franco would better lie next to his wife than in the mausoleum he had built for himself, save for purely political reasons. Having one's new resting place decided by others after a long interment for political "points" shows desperation, in my opinion.

 

[Chris Wilson]

None taken as I left school in 1994. I left knowing little about anything though.

You have the better of me still, as I was "asked" to leave... But still, I have to admit to improper nostalgia over casual violence, extremely irreverent, but seemingly welcome treatment of girls, and a never ending, but never fruitful line of get rich quick schemes, usually hatched under the influence of alcohol, over shared cigarettes.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Well, yeah, pretty much everything you post is wrong (in the wider sense at least).

You could have said: “I think it’s wrong he is moved for reasons x, y and z.” That would have been fine. But you didn’t.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but from the thread title to associating his move with those of statues that current Liberal students object to, I believe I made my opinion and later my reasons clear, in my subsequent replies. I am not penning a thesis on it, just casually discussing it in a computer forum, I feel no need to make it some sort of presentation. I believe you were more miffed by anyone offering the least bit of support, however tenuously and indirectly, to someone who was diametrically politically opposed to your own views. This naturally makes you personally critical of me and my posts in general, as I am somewhat right leaning. I can understand that and have no qualms whatsoever with it.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Who's ignorant?
I'm a secondary school teacher. I know exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm a mechanic, trust me.... Sorry, no offense Sir!

 

[Chris Wilson]

My partner is Spanish so I know a little about this partly as her father (now passed away) was always supportive of the other side and still pretty much a republication/communist (idealist himself in the Marx philosophy) till the day he passed away about 8 years ago. While Franco was a dictator and there's never been a good dictator, he wasn't as bad as many and quite possibly one of the better ones at least towards the end given he put in place a system to return Spain to monarchy and a democratic one at that and that's not an easy thing to pull off but it worked and in some ways the Spanish should thank him for that as otherwise they might not be free enough to judge him now.

In an alternative outcome of the Civil War, I have doubts Spain would be a democracy today if the communists had won so in that sense Franco was the better of two evils that were the only two options.

Re the actual relocation of his body, I don't agree with that it and in general think its just plain wrong to dig up & relocate anyone long buried just because some fractional number of people in Spain (<30% iirc) have a view against him being buried there when the fact the place was commissioned by Franco and his intended resting place so perhaps its the other bodies that should be relocated but I wouldn't want that either.

History is history and we shouldn't make attempts to erase it however distasteful we may find it and the people associated with it, it was a different time. Or perhaps those that agree with the relocation think we should also dig up lots of Kings and Queens who no doubt at least up to the 18/19th century were personally responsible for having people put to death. Lets throw in Cortez and other 'explorers' too and remove their statues, in fact lets pretend the world used to be a far nicer place 50, 100, 1000 & 2000 years ago than it is today and erase all bad people (need definition of bad...>1 killed?) so people who have issues with history and the past can sleep easy at night.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valle_de_los_Caídos

A very calm, dignified and well balanced post that I can agree with wholeheartedly, thanks Kermit.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Why is this sad to you personally?

The answer is in the title of the thread, I am sad to see left wing governments trying to score points by disinterring the body of a right wing general.

Perhaps @Chris Wilson is an ardent admirer of right-wing tyrannical dictators

Well, forced into a choice I would certainly plump for a right wing dictator as opposed to a left wing one, as I have yet to see a successful country under left wing dictatorship

 

[Chris Wilson]

Thats a massive landslide majority compared to the Brexit vote. On those results you could absolutely claim its the "will of the people" and plough on with it no matter how many protest against it.

Give it a rest, are you and no doubt that garnet chap still going on about this fait acompli ? What's the Tory majority on the back of a clear "Get Brexit done" campaign, about 78? I must have a look in the Speaker's Corner for a chortle, to see if the denial is as strong still as I suspect... As for the Spanish, I doubt they'll all be agog complimenting BBC4, he STILL has a huge number of fans.

 

[Chris Wilson]

No, stop being a hypocrite. On the basis of the brexit vote being a massive will of the people, it’s an absolute landslide the majority of Spanish wanted his grave moved. If you can’t see that then you have to accept you are wrong on Brexit. You can’t have it both ways just when it suits you and your mates in the local pub.

I'll leave you to lick each others wounds in Speaker's Corner, where Brexit discussion has been pushed, the people that actually matter have now spoken, loudly.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Then you'll agree that moving Franco's tomb is the will of the Spanish people and everyone else is left in the gutter, to be completely ignored?

There was a clear referendum on Brexit, followed by a general election when the nay sayers put obstacles in the way, which again showed a clear majority in favor of Brexit, as that was the crux of the Tory manifesto. The moving of Franco's remains was something undertaken by the present socialist government, there was no national vote on his disinterment. although the government did make it part of their lengthy manifesto. So no, of course I won't agree...The two are nothing like the same.