[UnHerd] The Danger of Spain's Democratic Memory Law

The left-wing government of PM Pedro Sánchez is out to rewrite history.

Last Thursday, the Spanish lower house of Parliament passed a bill to radically upend the nation’s official record of its recent past, a bill that risks reawakening long-defunct animosities under the pretence of honouring Spain’s “democratic memory”. At General Franco’s death in 1975, representatives of all political parties — some newly legalized — launched a democratic transition premised on the ancient Athenian imperative against mnesikaken, or “wielding memory like a weapon”. By pardoning all seditious acts committed against Franco’s regime whilst expunging that regime’s crimes against opponents, the amnesty bill passed in 1977 hoped to consign the Civil War (1936–1939) and Franco’s ensuing 40-year dictatorship to the dustbin of History, never to be stirred anew. Perhaps unavoidably, the amnesty’s hopes of pre-empting any future efforts by either side to re-settle the scores of either period have proved to be, well, entirely futile.

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