La Transición española: ¿modelo o mito?

Santiago Carrillo and the Communist Party went along with it too.

The people who'd been most persecuted under Franco essentially agreed to not talk about it.

How do you explain that?

Es que hay que entender el miedo que había, Fletcher.

You have to understand the fear that existed, Fletcher.

Un miedo visceral.

A visceral fear.

España había tenido una guerra civil cuarenta años antes que había dejado cientos de miles de muertos.

Spain had had a civil war forty years before that had left hundreds of thousands dead.

La generación de mis padres creció escuchando a sus abuelos hablar de aquello en susurros.

My parents' generation grew up hearing their grandparents talk about it in whispers.

El fantasma de otra guerra, de otra fractura violenta, estaba presente en cada conversación política.

The ghost of another war, another violent fracture, was present in every political conversation.

Carrillo sabía perfectamente que si presionaba demasiado, los militares podían intervenir.

Carrillo knew perfectly well that if he pushed too hard, the military could intervene.

And that wasn't theoretical.

Because in 1981, the military did try to intervene.

The 23-F.

I remember seeing that footage for the first time, Tejero walking into the Spanish parliament with his tricorn hat and his pistol, firing shots at the ceiling.

It's one of the most surreal pieces of political footage I've ever seen.

Mira, yo tenía tres años cuando pasó aquello, así que obviamente no lo recuerdo directamente.

Look, I was three years old when that happened, so obviously I don't remember it directly.

Pero mi madre me lo ha contado mil veces.

But my mother has told me about it a thousand times.

Dice que aquella noche no durmió nadie en España.

She says nobody in Spain slept that night.

Todo el mundo estaba pegado a la radio porque habían cortado la televisión.

Everyone was glued to the radio because they'd cut the television.

Y la gente pensaba: se acabó, volvemos a lo de antes.

And people thought: it's over, we're going back to the way things were.

Fueron unas horas de auténtico terror.

Those were hours of genuine terror.

And then Juan Carlos goes on television and essentially tells the military to stand down.

That's the moment that cemented his reputation, right?

The king who saved democracy.

Which makes the whole later part of his story, the corruption scandals, the elephant hunting, all the more dramatic.

La verdad es que sí.

The truth is, yes.

Es una tragedia casi shakespeariana.

It's an almost Shakespearean tragedy.

El hombre que salvó la democracia termina huyendo del país por escándalos financieros.

The man who saved democracy ends up fleeing the country over financial scandals.

Pero volviendo al tema central, el 23-F tuvo un efecto paradójico.

But going back to the central topic, the 23-F had a paradoxical effect.

Por un lado, demostró que la amenaza militar era real, que no era paranoia.

On one hand, it proved the military threat was real, that it wasn't paranoia.

Y por otro, cuando fracasó el golpe, la democracia salió fortalecida.

And on the other, when the coup failed, democracy came out stronger.

Fue como una vacuna.

It was like a vaccine.

España se asustó tanto que se abrazó a la democracia con más fuerza.

Spain was so scared that it embraced democracy even more tightly.

So that's the heroic narrative.

And I'll be honest, when I first learned about all this, I found it genuinely moving.

The compromise, the restraint, the maturity of it.

But then I started talking to people in Spain who had a very different take.

People whose grandparents are still in unmarked graves.

And the whole thing starts to look different.

Es que ahí es donde el modelo se agrieta, Fletcher.

That's where the model cracks, Fletcher.

España es el segundo país del mundo con más desaparecidos en fosas comunes, después de Camboya.

Spain is the second country in the world with the most disappeared people in mass graves, after Cambodia.

Segundo.

Second.

Hay más de cien mil personas que fueron ejecutadas durante y después de la Guerra Civil cuyos restos nunca se recuperaron.

There are more than a hundred thousand people who were executed during and after the Civil War whose remains were never recovered.

Y durante décadas, pedir que se abrieran esas fosas era prácticamente un tabú político.

And for decades, asking for those graves to be opened was practically a political taboo.

After Cambodia.

I have to let that number sit for a second because I think most people outside Spain have no idea.

We're talking about a European democracy, a member of the EU, and there are over a hundred thousand people in mass graves that nobody officially acknowledged for decades.

That's staggering.

Bueno, y no es solo una cuestión de fosas.

Well, and it's not just a question of graves.

Es que la Ley de Amnistía de 1977, que fue una de las piezas clave de la Transición, impidió que se juzgara a nadie por crímenes cometidos durante el franquismo.

The Amnesty Law of 1977, which was one of the key pieces of the Transition, prevented anyone from being tried for crimes committed during Francoism.

A nadie.

Anyone.

Torturadores, responsables de ejecuciones sumarias, gente que había dirigido campos de trabajo forzado.

Torturers, people responsible for summary executions, people who had run forced labor camps.

Todos quedaron impunes.

They all went unpunished.

Y esa ley sigue vigente.

And that law is still in effect.

Still in effect.

And this is where I start to really struggle with the "model" narrative.

Because look, I covered transitional justice in different contexts.

Argentina had its trials.

South Africa had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Germany went through denazification, imperfect as it was.

Spain just...

didn't.

Spain chose amnesia.

No, no, espera.

No, no, wait.

Aquí tengo que matizar, porque no fue exactamente amnesia.

I have to add nuance here, because it wasn't exactly amnesia.

Fue algo más complejo.

It was something more complex.

La gente de izquierdas que aceptó aquel pacto no lo hizo porque le diera igual lo que había pasado.

The leftist people who accepted that pact didn't do it because they didn't care what had happened.

Lo hizo porque creía sinceramente que era eso o la guerra.

They did it because they sincerely believed it was that or war.

Y durante mucho tiempo, puede que tuvieran razón.

And for a long time, they may have been right.

La pregunta es: ¿cuándo deja de ser válida esa justificación?

The question is: when does that justification stop being valid?

No, you're absolutely right about that.

And I think that's the key question.

Because there's a difference between saying the pact was necessary in 1977 and saying it should remain untouchable forever.

Circumstances change.

The military threat disappeared.

Spain joined the EU, modernized.

At what point can you afford to look back?

A ver, eso es exactamente lo que se empezó a plantear a principios de los 2000.

Look, that's exactly what began to be raised in the early 2000s.

En el año 2000, un periodista llamado Emilio Silva fue a buscar los restos de su abuelo, que había sido fusilado en 1936.

In the year 2000, a journalist named Emilio Silva went to look for the remains of his grandfather, who had been shot in 1936.

Y lo encontró en una cuneta en León.

And he found him in a ditch in León.

Y aquel gesto, que era simplemente un nieto buscando a su abuelo, desencadenó un movimiento enorme.

And that gesture, which was simply a grandson looking for his grandfather, triggered a huge movement.

Se creó la Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica y todo empezó a cambiar.

The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory was created and everything started to change.

A grandson looking for his grandfather in a roadside ditch, sixty-four years later.

There's something about the intimacy of that, the specificity, that hits differently than any political argument.

It's not abstract.

It's a family.

It's bones.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y eso es lo que le dio tanta fuerza al movimiento.

And that's what gave the movement so much strength.

No era ideología, era humanidad.

It wasn't ideology, it was humanity.

Mi abuela, que murió en 2009, tenía un tío que desapareció en el 37.

My grandmother, who died in 2009, had an uncle who disappeared in '37.

Nunca supo qué le pasó.

She never knew what happened to him.

Nunca se atrevió a preguntar.

She never dared to ask.

Se fue a la tumba sin saberlo.

She went to her grave without knowing.

Y hay decenas de miles de familias en España con historias así, Fletcher.

And there are tens of thousands of families in Spain with stories like that, Fletcher.

Decenas de miles.

Tens of thousands.

She never dared to ask.

That silence, sustained across generations.

That's the real cost of the pact, isn't it?

It's not just a political arrangement.

It gets inside families.

It becomes shame, becomes habit, becomes identity.

Sí.

Yes.

Y luego llegó Zapatero en 2007 con la Ley de Memoria Histórica, que fue un primer intento de abordar todo esto.

And then Zapatero came in 2007 with the Historical Memory Law, which was a first attempt to address all this.

Pero la verdad es que fue una ley tibia.

But the truth is it was a lukewarm law.

Facilitaba la búsqueda de fosas, pero no obligaba a nadie.

It facilitated the search for graves, but didn't compel anyone.

No anulaba los juicios franquistas.

It didn't annul the Francoist trials.

No tocaba la Ley de Amnistía.

It didn't touch the Amnesty Law.

Era un paso, sí, pero un paso muy tímido.

It was a step, yes, but a very timid one.

And even that timid step was massively controversial, right?

I remember writing about it at the time.

The PP, the conservative party, basically refused to engage with it.

Rajoy's government later defunded it almost entirely.

The argument was always the same: why reopen old wounds?

Es que ese argumento me parece profundamente tramposo.

That argument strikes me as deeply dishonest.

Porque las heridas no están cerradas.

Because the wounds aren't closed.

No puedes cerrar una herida que nunca has limpiado.

You can't close a wound you've never cleaned.

Lo que pasa es que durante mucho tiempo fue muy cómodo para cierto sector de la sociedad española, sobre todo para las familias que estuvieron del lado franquista, hacer como que todo aquello había quedado atrás.

What happened is that for a long time it was very convenient for a certain sector of Spanish society, especially for families that had been on Franco's side, to pretend all of that was behind them.

Pero no quedó atrás para todos.

But it wasn't behind them for everyone.

Here's the thing that I keep coming back to, though.

And push back on me if I'm wrong.

Is there also a generational element here?

Because it seems like the people who lived through the Transition tend to defend it, while younger Spaniards who grew up in full democracy, who never felt that fear of the military, they're the ones asking the harder questions.

Sin duda.

Without a doubt.

Hay una brecha generacional enorme.

There's a huge generational gap.

Para mis padres, criticar la Transición es casi una blasfemia.

For my parents, criticizing the Transition is almost blasphemy.

Ellos vivieron el miedo.

They lived through the fear.

Pero para alguien que nació en los noventa, la Transición no es un logro sagrado, es simplemente el marco político que heredaron.

But for someone born in the nineties, the Transition isn't a sacred achievement, it's simply the political framework they inherited.

Y cuando miran ese marco y ven que la monarquía está ahí por un pacto con el franquismo, que hay calles que todavía llevan nombres de generales de Franco, que sus bisabuelos siguen en cunetas, pues claro que se preguntan: ¿qué clase de democracia es esta?

And when they look at that framework and see that the monarchy is there because of a pact with Francoism, that there are streets still named after Franco's generals, that their great-grandparents are still in ditches, well of course they ask: what kind of democracy is this?

And that connects directly to more recent politics.

The rise of Podemos, the Catalan independence movement, even Vox on the far right.

A lot of these movements, in very different ways, are essentially relitigating the terms of the Transition.

Saying the consensus broke down, or maybe was always a fiction.

Bueno, la verdad es que tienes razón en parte, pero hay que tener cuidado con meter todo en el mismo saco.

Well, the truth is you're partly right, but you have to be careful about lumping everything together.

Podemos hizo una crítica legítima del llamado régimen del 78.

Podemos made a legitimate critique of the so-called '78 regime.

Pero Vox utiliza una narrativa completamente distinta.

But Vox uses a completely different narrative.

Vox no critica la Transición por insuficiente, la critica porque, en el fondo, algunos de sus dirigentes consideran que fue demasiado generosa con la izquierda.

Vox doesn't criticize the Transition for being insufficient;

Son críticas opuestas que se cruzan de maneras muy confusas.

they criticize it because, deep down, some of their leaders consider it was too generous with the left.

That's a really important distinction.

So you've got people on the left saying the Transition didn't go far enough in addressing Franco's crimes, and people on the right saying it went too far in accommodating the left.

The center, the consensus, is getting squeezed from both sides.

Is the Transition settlement actually unraveling?

Es que no creo que se esté deshaciendo, exactamente.

I don't think it's unraveling, exactly.

Creo que se está renegociando.

I think it's being renegotiated.

España aprobó en 2022 la Ley de Memoria Democrática, que va mucho más allá que la de Zapatero.

Spain passed the Democratic Memory Law in 2022, which goes much further than Zapatero's.

Declara ilegítimos los tribunales franquistas, crea un banco de ADN para identificar restos, establece un censo de víctimas.

It declares Francoist tribunals illegitimate, creates a DNA bank to identify remains, establishes a census of victims.

Es un avance significativo, aunque todavía insuficiente para muchas asociaciones de víctimas.

It's a significant step forward, although still insufficient for many victims' associations.

So let me put the big question to you directly, Octavio.

After everything we've discussed, after the pact of forgetting, the unmarked graves, the amnesty law, the generational divide.

Was the Spanish transition a model?

Or was it a myth that served a purpose and has now outlived it?

A ver, creo que es las dos cosas, y no me parece que sea contradictorio.

Look, I think it's both things, and I don't think that's contradictory.

Lo que se consiguió en 1977, 78, pasar de una dictadura a una democracia constitucional sin un golpe de Estado exitoso, sin una guerra, eso fue genuinamente extraordinario.

What was achieved in 1977, '78, going from a dictatorship to a constitutional democracy without a successful coup, without a war, that was genuinely extraordinary.

Pero un modelo no tiene que ser perfecto para ser útil.

But a model doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.

El problema es cuando conviertes el modelo en un mito intocable y usas ese mito para silenciar a la gente que sigue sufriendo las consecuencias.

The problem is when you turn the model into an untouchable myth and use that myth to silence people who are still suffering the consequences.

I think that's exactly right.

The extraordinary thing is that both things can be true simultaneously.

It can be one of the most remarkable political achievements of the twentieth century and also a profoundly flawed process that left a hundred thousand people in unmarked graves.

Holding both of those ideas at once is uncomfortable, but I think it's honest.

Mira, yo siempre digo que España no necesita elegir entre estar orgullosa de la Transición y reconocer lo que se hizo mal.

Look, I always say that Spain doesn't need to choose between being proud of the Transition and recognizing what was done wrong.

Pero para eso hace falta una madurez democrática que, sinceramente, a veces echo de menos.

But for that you need a democratic maturity that, honestly, I sometimes miss.

Porque en cuanto alguien abre la boca para hablar de memoria histórica, inmediatamente le acusan de querer dividir a los españoles, de reabrir heridas, de romper el consenso.

Because as soon as someone opens their mouth to talk about historical memory, they're immediately accused of wanting to divide Spaniards, of reopening wounds, of breaking the consensus.

Y eso no es madurez, eso es miedo disfrazado de prudencia.

And that's not maturity, that's fear dressed up as prudence.

Fear dressed up as prudence.

I'm going to remember that line.

And I think that's where we land, isn't it?

The transition was real.

The achievement was real.

But so is the unfinished business.

And the measure of a democracy isn't just how it begins.

It's whether it can look back honestly at what it cost.

Octavio, this has been one of our best conversations.

Thank you for going there.

Gracias a ti, Fletcher.

Thank you, Fletcher.

Y mira, para el próximo episodio, si quieres, te cuento lo que opinan los españoles sobre la monarquía hoy en día.

And look, for the next episode, if you want, I'll tell you what Spaniards think about the monarchy today.

Aunque a lo mejor necesitamos más de un episodio para eso.

Although we might need more than one episode for that.