The affair concerns the Valley of the Fallen, a colossal monument financed, built and endorsed in any other manner by the Francoist regime that ruled over Spain and her colonies for almost 4 decades. It consists of a gigantic crucifix (the tallest in the world) accompanied by an equally large basilica and an abbey reserved for Benedictine monks.
Spoiler for Not exactly a paragon of Christian humility and moderation:
Inside the church of the Holy Cross, there are the buried bodies of two notorious protagonists of Spanish history, Francisco Franco himself, and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera and the creator of the Phalanx, the strongest fascist and Antisemitic party in Spain. Supposedly, the entire establishment is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Civil War, quite a fragile claim, as I will explain later. The recent controversy started when the government, dominated by a center-left coalition, passed a decree, according to which the remains of Franco, who is definitely not a victim of the conflict, will be exhumed and transferred to a new location, indicated by his family. As expected, that law caused reaction from various groups. For example and not unsurprisingly unfortunately, both the Popular Party and the Citizens, both of them right-wing parties with a strong presence in the Parliament, objected to the government's initiative, under the pretext of "opening old wounds". I guess that their leaderships view the defense of the Francoist heritage as a convenient tool for luring fascist sympathizers.
Obviously, there is no doubt that Franco benefited greatly, instead of suffering, from the coup he launched, as he evolved from a military governor of the Canary Islands to the undisputed leader of the entire Spanish state, from Equatorial Guinea to the Pyrenees. However, this controversy over his remains touches the most sensitive issue in Spanish modern politics, the fact that the state is not capable of maturely treating with its fascist path. The crux of the matter lies with the negative repercussions of the peaceful transition from autocracy to democracy, in the late '70s. As a compensation for surrendering the political power to parliamentary democracy, the Francoist elites, from army officers to industrialists and politicians who collaborated with Franco, were granted amnesty and were never punished for their crimes against the Spanish people, while also maintaining at a high level the command of the country's armed forces, judiciary system and economy. As a result, fascist heroes still receive unacceptable honours, while honest judges are stopped from performing the duty against butchers that committed crimes against humanity. This is why I believe that the problem of the degree is that it's too moderate, without addressing major issues that harm the international image of the Spain authorities as an institution that can proudly condemn fascism and violation of human rights.
For example, it's crystal clear that the Valley of the Fallen is far from an objective memorial to the victims of the Civil War. The entire complex with its kitsch obsession with religious obedience screams of National Catholicism, which can be approximately described as the local version of clerical fascism. Secondly, many of the workers that built it were political convicts, which means leftists that were imprisoned for their personal beliefs. Thirdly, the two figures that are especially honoured belong to the Nationalist side and can hardly be viewed as some innocent victims of the war. Francisco Franco, together with many officers, conservative politicians, clergymen, Carlists and the fascists of Phalanx conspired against the sovereign and democratically elected government of Madrid, directly provoking the war. They are essentially the perpetrators and not the victims and, to be sincere, honouring a fascist that was rightfully executed for treason seems particularly weird.
Furthermore, I personally find the whole appeal to moderation, treating both sides of the conflict on an equal basis, hypocritical and insincere. From a moral and legal perspective, the Nationalists launched a military coup against a democratically elected government recognized by the global community, in an alliance with the fascist and Nazi regimes of Italy, Portugal and Germany. In contrast to the government of Madrid, the Nationalist authorities intentionally massacred hundreds of thousands of Spaniards, in a White Terror campaign of slaughter and fear that resulted into the establishment of a tyrannical dictatorship that abolished crucial rights of the Spanish citizens. The notion of conciliation has some merit, but the politically correct excuse of not reigniting old disputes insults the memory of the massacred and undermines the legitimacy of democratic Spain. In my opinion, the Valley of the Fallen should be relieved from the skeletons of successful (Francisco) and failed (José Antonio) Führer wannabes and be consequently transformed into a monument that will remind the future generations of Spaniards about the horrors of the civil war and the subsequent totalitarian regime, warning them about the threat to democracy military interventionism represents.
So, what are your thoughts? Is the decision about the naughty Caudillo praiseworthy, unacceptably moderate or maybe completely inappropriate to Franco's glory? Should Spain deal in a determined way with its fascist past or tolerate the relics of the dictatorship for the sake of preserving social cohesion? Last but not least, should the Spanish Civil War be examined from the state through extremely neutral lenses, by avoiding any blaming and therefore absolving the culprits from their responsibilities or not?
Mishkin's addition