Riding Into The Sunset

We have one less statue of General Franco on display in Spain after the dead dictator’s effigy was removed from the military academy in Zaragoza yesterday. Following the removal of the statue outside the defence ministry in Madrid last year, it seems that there is at last slow but steady progress on getting rid of these unloved reminders of the past.

Predictably, the right wing here is against the statues being removed, on the grounds that they are part of the “historic memory” of the country. Naturally, they don’t show similar interest in other historical memories of the period, notably the remains of thousands of people who are still buried in unmarked graves. Neither do they show interest in restoring the statues of Stalin in Eastern Europe, or Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

Now it’s Santander’s turn, the only city in Spain that still has a statue of Franco in a public square.