RESURRECTING FRANCO (no, not Franco Alemán; the other Franco, the real one) as a straw man as a way of covering the growing discontent with Zapatero's policies; that's the accurate observation by Robert Latona in a superb article in Spiked:

Three decades after his far from untimely passing, Spaniards dust off their memories of former dictator Francisco Franco. But this time he's coming back as a panto villain, in hopes of drawing a torrent of boos and hisses to distract a public that is becoming increasingly critical of Spain's ruling leftists.

There's something stirring inside the tomb, and a whiff of nastiness sours the air. Should we fear the return of the undead - or is it a case of Resurrection Men digging up a corpse for their own nefarious purposes? The question is one that bears asking as Spain prepares for the thirtieth anniversary, on 20 November, of Generalissimo Francisco Franco's death - after 39 years as Head of State, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and caudillo de España by the grace of God, to go by his official titles.

Prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero may actually welcome the anniversary as a pretext for convincing people (including a disgruntled segment of his own Socialist Party) that no matter how much of a muddle he may get the country into, things could actually be a good deal worse, as indeed they were under a dictatorship still alive in the memories of many Spaniards. The more fuss made over Franco, the more emphatically the point gets driven home.

Not that we need worry about generals plotting to reinstate archaic political arrangements meant to ensure that the caudillo kept on calling the shots for as long as he lasted, or Parkinson's spasms of thuggery from residues of the far right. Zapatero should only be so lucky. With its spoof news bulletin 'Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead', the satirical American TV show Saturday Night Live not only enriched the repertory of catchphrases, but also anticipated most Spaniards' coolly dismissive final word on the squeaky-voiced, ruthless little man whose obsessive notions of socio-political rectitude and national destiny had circumscribed their lives.

Barely a decade after his death, relics and remnants of the Spain that Franco thought he had left 'securely tied down' were flooding the flea markets in cities convulsed by hedonistic self-indulgence - as people played catch-up on previous taboos and no-go areas long forbidden to them by a regime that had implemented the moral doctrine of the Catholic Church as state policy. As the British novelist Anthony Burgess observed on a 1985 visit to Barcelona, 'to the young, Franco has the same kind of reality as Snow White's stepmother'.

(via JJ Merelo). After the second million man march against the Socialist government education plans yesterday, (the first one was back in June, against the suspicion that there's some kind of negotiations between Zapatero's administration and the terrorist group ETA), punctuated by several a bit smaller ones, and with a poll published today in the currently pro-Socialist newspaper La Vanguardia showing the Socialist party now trailing behing the PP (link in Spanish; free reg. req.), agitating the straw man will be an ever bigger temptation for Zapatero. It will work only with those already converted, of course; the only concern is that it will rarify the political atmosphere even more.


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