Here we have another example of the over excitability that the recent hot weather is provoking in right wing circles in Spain. Pio Moa was at one time a member of the revolutionary terrorist organisation GRAPO. However, in recent years he has moved, how shall I put it, a tiny bit to the right in his political views and has become well known as a revisionist historian with his claims that Franco’s uprising against the elected Spanish government was justified.
It seems that this shift in political allegiances has not affected his taste for political violence, perhaps not too surprising in an apologist for Franco. In a column published this week on the right wing website Libertad Digital, Pio laments the possibility that the Partido Popular (PP) might not be capable of winning the next election, and offers us the following possibility to think over (my translation):
"Use violence, then? When the government breaks the rules of the game, when it not only legalizes murder as a way of making politics, but rewards it by offering the murderers the liquidation of the constitution and the rule of law; obviously this opens the way to violence and deprives it of the moral authority to condemn the use of violence against it. "
It would be reassuring to be able to suggest that this sort of thinking comes from the wackier fringes of the right, but the people around Libertad Digital are the ones currently setting the agenda in the PP.
Link via escolar.net
Una visita irresponsable
2 weeks ago
4 comments:
Interesting comment about the Libertad Digital mob being the ones setting the agenda. The PP itself seems to be bereft of ideology and direction (aside from visceral attacks on anything connected with the Socialists) and is getting ideas thrown at it from these think-tanky set-ups such as LD and FAES.
Rather than opting for a bit of triangulation a la Dashing Dave and finding a niche for itself as an economically liberal party and viable alternative to the PSOE, it's getting bogged down by authoritarian conservatism.
As you say in your post on Gallardón, there's no desire for internal change, due in part at least to the fact they see the last elections as being a 'freak' result rather than a reflection on their policy and style of governance.
Nice blog, by the way. Keep up the good work.
Just don't worry about these right wing guys. As soon the next elections arrive, they will dissapear. PP has no way of winning next elections (they need absolute majority, and polls does not concede the victory this way to the PP). The best way of renovation for a party is loosing elections. So considering the ultraright sector on PP (meaning Zaplana, Acebes, and the mediamen Losantos and Co) cannot survive to this, I predict a nice time in politics after elections. I guess somebody similar to ZP but in a PPs version
Anon - the problem is that the current leader is not one of the right-wingers. So if they lose the next election, it could be that their reaction is to get rid of their weak leader and stick someone much more authoritarian in.
The tone that Moa is adopting is all part of LD's vicious campaign against the very liberal democracy they claim to espouse. This is, quite simply, the next step in a general attempt by the Spanish right to bring about Nacionalismo 2. The plan has been in place since Aznar's days (remember the giant flag, the shiny brass buttons, the spit, the state funeral?). LD and elements of the PP have found that however far to the right they drift, a large number of poorly educated Spaniards, corrupted by revisionism and the torment of suburban boredom will follow them and bay for more.
The left wing equivalent of what LD is suggesting would be if El País were demanding a war against fascism, collectivisation of the means of production, the burning of churches, etc etc. I've said before that I want the PP to move back to the middle ground, but I'm not going to join them, for Christ's sake! they have to see the problem for themselves.
Maybe we should start making bets on this ;). For reasons which I explained in my piece on Gallardon I don't think one election defeat will be enough to make the PP change - unless the defeat is so great it accelerates the process. Until Aznar and his people fade away (or are pushed) I think the party is trapped in a revenge hungry right wing grip. The experience with the Conservatives in Britain suggests it takes at least a couple of defeats for this to change. The PP are behind in the polls, and any opposition party that is doing its job would expect to be doing better at this stage of a parliament, particularly against a minority government. It could take years for them to change.
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