Europe can't understand the impunity of Nazi symbols in Spain

Vicenç Villatoro
1 min

Europe can't understand the images from 9 October in Valencia and 12 October in Barcelona. And that's without knowing the fine print: some of those bearing Nazi symbols demanded the outlawing of Catalan parties that are unequivocally democratic simply because those parties support independence. And a young man was fined heavily for carrying a Catalan independence flag at a basketball game, but nothing was done to those brandishing swastikas.

In fact, Europe does not understand the indulgence with which Spain views and explains the Franco era, the dictatorship that was born in the wake of Nazism and fascism and had the ability--and cruelty-- to survive them. Perhaps that's why it is seen as an internal affair, a question for the Spaniards and their past. But Nazi symbols refer to the past of all of Europe, and their display there cannot be viewed with the same tranquility as they are here. To speak of gas chambers, in Europe, is shocking. In Spain it appears to be normal. In Europe they can't understand this, and no wonder.

And to remember this on 15 October is not routine, as it is the anniversary of the assassination of President Companys, a politician about whom much could be argued, but who was arrested and handed over to Franco by the Nazis and executed by firing squad, because the people of Catalonia had chosen him democratically as their president.

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