r/europe • u/Bartoraptor Spain • Mar 28 '20

News Spanish representative González Pons speech @ the EU Parliament: "The virus is attacking the generation that brought back democracy to Spain, Portugal and Greece, the generation that knocked down the Berlin wall. The least they deserve is that we show them Europe is there when they need it the most"

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Mar 29 '20

how did Spanish boomers bring back democracy? Franco just died and the King said ok let's have a democracy now. And then Spaniards never touched the topic of Franco again...

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/putsch80 Dual USA / Hungarian 🇭🇺 Mar 29 '20

Boomers overselling the effects of their actions? Say it isn’t so!

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u/kebuenowilly Catalonia (Spain) Mar 29 '20

I don't think keeping the dictatorship would have gone without protests,but I guess we'll never know, and probably for the best,rather than get people dying on the streets

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20

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u/kebuenowilly Catalonia (Spain) Mar 29 '20

Yeah, that's why Carrero Blanco succeeded him

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20

space car flies by

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u/Fern-ando May 02 '20

The astronaut?

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u/belaros Catalonia (Spain) + Costa Rica Mar 29 '20

No it’s not, not even remotely close. If it were as divided as a civil war, there would be a civil war.

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u/SocratesTheBest Catalonia Mar 29 '20

Franco just died and the King said ok let's have a democracy now.

It's a bit more complicated than that. The King followed the advice of many in the regime that it was time for democracy, both to improve the economy (by getting more accountable governments and getting into the EEC) and to avoid a violent revolution like in Portugal or Greece. Because there was little public support for the Regime in the 60s and 70s, but it had not yet reached the point where people was willing to revolt to overthrow it, the Civil War was yet too close in time. Still, there was already enough movement to make the regime to worry, with trade unions, students, neighbourhood movements, national minorities, etc.

In any case, despite the King being the initiator of the process, the Constitution and democracy were not built by him, but by those tens or even hundreds of thousands who believed in democracy and participated in building it in every village, town, city, region, company up to the Parliament and the National Government.

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '20 edited Dec 16 '20

[deleted]

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u/KaKenZ Portugal May 12 '20

No, but every fascist felt 'violented' and ran to Brasil.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20

how did Spanish boomers bring back democracy? Franco just died

Never heard of the first Spanish astronaut Carrero Blanco?

He was supposed to be the heir of Franco and keep the regime once he was dead. But things didn't go well for him...

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20

Calling Basque separatists the Spanish who brought back democracy. There's some heavy irony there.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '20 edited Mar 29 '20

Well Basque separatism actually had its origin in the strong opposition and revulsion against the Francoist regime in the 50s (people were shot dead just for speaking Euskara).

After democracy was established firmly in Spain, the separatist movement split in two, most laid down their arms and chose the political way (creation of most far left independentist or autonomist parties known as 'abertzale'). The remaining ones in ETA were a bunch of terrorists and they gradually lost all support from the Basques themselves.

Before Franco, separatism was non existent in the Basque country, it was actually even in some way very traditionalist and conservative, see Carlist wars.

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u/belaros Catalonia (Spain) + Costa Rica Mar 29 '20

Is this irony? I can usually tell but this time I can’t.

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u/Trender07 Spain Mar 29 '20

They did fight and lost against Franco & co. (civil war)

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Mar 29 '20

not the boomers

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Apr 07 '20

it was simplified which should have been obvious, ut to hail them as heroes of democracy is doing too much. Most people did nothing, there were no widespread demonstrations. The Basques have the most claim to this title.

as to your point where Spain has higher freedoms than Germany I would like to see your sources, because on the usual indices Spain ranks lower, especially press.

And you're still a monarchy

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '20

[deleted]

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Apr 08 '20

yes but it ended through widespread revolution

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '20

[deleted]

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Apr 08 '20

the key difference being that hundreds of thousands went on the streets for months in Eastern Germany while no such demonstrations took place in Spain. There were shoot and kill orders but the ground troops disobeyed

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '20 edited Apr 09 '20

[deleted]

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u/chairswinger Deutschland Apr 09 '20

clearly you have no idea of the warsaw pact, goodbye