Dear Onychorhynchus coronatus,
Let me start at the last point discussed, the Franco regime. And let me say that probably nor you nor myself are in the best position to discuss that. I do not know your age, but guess that perhaps you are born after Franco death (1975) and ever after arrival of democracy to Spain (1978). If so, nor you nor myself know the Franco regime from our own experiences, but from outside references. Yours, seemingly, are the reading of history books and some visits to Spain, and maybe some talks with friends. Mine are besides my whole life in Spain, many talks with my parents, who, by the way, advice me against the books and films dealing with this period of Spanish history, as they present a false view of the subject, those due to authors from the left as well as those due to authors from the right. Of course, my parents, and specially my father, have read a lot of such books and seen a lot of such films as to be able to compare them with their experiences.
After discussing the subject with him, I see that all countries have periods of their history that are not a source of pride for their people, rather the opposite. And I see also that is quite diffucult to rate any government from any country or from any time as the best or the worst in history. And that for several reasons, being the main one the unavoidable lean to apply our today values and ideas to times and societies which had values and ideas very different. It is very easy today to blame the Inquisition at Middle Ages, the witch burning at seventeenth century or the slave trade at eighteen century, but at these times these actions were “politically correct”, and often was the society and not the the civil or the church authorities who claimed for applying measures which are unacceptable today.
As for the Franco regime, as for all the past or present regimes, we cannot say that it was completely bad nor completely good. It was mixed. Hitler regime did some good things besides many evil ones, and the same can be said of the regimes of Stalin, Mussolini or Kim-Il-Sung (this last regime, by the way, still alive). Discussing it on depth cannot be done here, nor cannot be judged now as one unique thing. It was not the same at the beginning, along the Civil War, along the postwar, the difficult times of the forties, along the fifties, when Spain entered the UNO and the ambassadors returned to Spain, or along the sixties, when the country approached more and more the values of the other European countries. Thus, I will not enter to discuss that subject. Let me say only that my parents families (parents, grandparents and grandgrandparents ) count several victims killed either by one or by the other side, and the same happens in the families of their friends. And, had I time or space, I would be able to supply you at least as many instances of evil behaviour from the Spanish left as you can supply me from Spanish right, and getting back along time, surely many more.
Second point: the current government of Spain. Well, after being informed myself better, I cannot say that it is the worst government in Spanish history, as our country has suffered much worse rulers even in the twentieth century. The reign of Ferdinand VII was worth of blame and that of Charles II was much worse. And today other countries have regimes underscoring the Spanish one by a long way. I cannot discuss this point openly, and besides that it would take too much space. But let me address only the subject of corruption, which is the main subject of this thread. Well, Spain has a lot of corrupt people as probaby have many other countries, and many of them are found among the politics from all political parties, but the damage done to the country because of corruption of important members at the current government surpasses all the levels known in Spain since the beginning of democracy. Even corruption at Franco times was milder, because then there were only a few persons getting money this way, and now there are thousands or even tens of thousands. But there is a way to clarify this point: Transparency International mantains a page with the ranking of Corruption Index for 179 countries. For 2020, Spain is not included among the top ten, nor even among the top hundred countries. She has the 147th place on the ranking, 32 places above New Zealand, the country with the least corruption index. However it should be mentioned that already on the first year of today’s Spanish government (2020) the index increased two points against that of 2019.
By lack of space and time I cannot discuss no more the subject of your hate of religion. But of course I disagree from your viewpoint. Catholic Church, and many other confessions, are to be ashamed of their activities in the past, but now the times of intolerance have been left for the history, for some communist countries and for some fundamentalist islamic confessions. However the Church should apologize for past evils. Indeed, the Pope John Paul II did so, recognizing the past errors and apologizing for these. But do not forget that today and always, this Church have members who had been notable for the charity job they had done, even some that received the Peace Nobel Price for that. Still the Christians belong to the faith with most victims of war or persecution, over 200 million right now. The atrocities made to arab christians by the Islamic State in Syria and Irak are not so far in time and similar ones are on the way in several countries of Asia, Africa and America.
And finally, let me comment shortly your qualification of “fascist” to me, or my qualification of “communist” to you. Of course, this is nonsense. These words should be never used to insult or disqualify the opponent. For either he is indeed a “fascist” or a “communist”, or is not. In the first case he will take the insult as a source of pride, because he or she feels him- or herself deserving these words and is glad of them, thus these are not insulting. And if is not, then the words are not deserved and the insulting part is wrong. I think that this is the case among us and that we not deserve these words. Thus, by my side I withdraw that qualification.
I finish remembering the past declaration of the European Parlament, published the 19th September 2019 with the title Importance of European Historic Memory for the Future of Europe, where “fascism” and “communism” are equaled and condemned together (as expected, to disengage from the condemn, communists have read “fascism” and “stalinism”, but the text says indeed, by order of frequency, “communism”, “nazism”, “totalitarism”, “stalinism”, “fascism”, “racism”,”xenofobia” and “neo-fascism”).
