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Welcome to the history page. It is lovely
to be back 'online' with the very special readership here
at Ibiza History Culture. I've decided to reinitiate our page with a current
island event very deserving of mention: the recently instituted
'Colloquium on the Spanish Civil War and Postwar'. This annual
fixture, inaugurated just last year, constitutes the highpoint
in a week-long examination of this important chapter in Spanish
history. Leading up to the colloquium is a film series consisting
of five films dealing with different aspects of the war. The
films are projected, one per evening, from Monday to Friday,
and provide substantial grist for the wheels of thought and
discussion. This year, the event's closing act will be the
performance, by local thespians, of 'La Buhardilla' by French
playwright, Claude Merdedié. The piece centres on the
anti-clerical sentiment that permeated Spain both before and
after the war, and features, rather ironically, Stella Matutes
(Abel's daughter) in the role of a revolutionary anarchist.
The Lessons of History
Why, people may ask, is an examination of
this war - or any bygone war - important to us today? Not
surprisingly, the same question was put forth by one young
attendee at the colloquium. Juan Antonio Porto, panel-member,
scriptwriter and superb public speaker answered quite simply,
"Because, 'Those who cannot remember their past are condemned
to repeat it.'" These wise words, written by the Spanish
poet and philosopher, George Santayana, in 1905, just before
he was awarded a full professorship at Harvard University,
beautifully express one of the most profound truths on the
importance of history.
More mundanely, I might add, that retrospective
examinations such as this one serve the purpose of bringing
the disturbing events of war into the light of day where they
can be seen, dealt with, and assimilated by a society that
still lives in their shadow. As film critic, Juan Cobos, another
panel-member at the colloquium, stated significantly, "Half
of Spain has never got over the Civil War, while the other
half is in denial that it ever existed." Most would agree
that his remark is a shrewd and accurate description of contemporary
Spanish society.
Personal Testimonies
As with any civil war, this one cut deep
scars into the country, scars that still have not healed completely.
Part of the reason for the lingering malaise is that any type
of discussion of the war was taboo during the 40 years of
Franco's fascist dictatorship. Several members of the audience
shared an eerily common experience of the postwar as young
children: namely, that their parents never mentioned the war,
nor the atrocities they witnessed, nor the crushing disappointment
of burying, not only their neighbours and loved ones, but
their dreams of democracy. An unspoken sadness hung over their
households, "like a shroud the grown ups wore",
real yet indefinable.
Another young woman recalled that she was
nine years old when Franco died (1975). By the time she reached
secondary school, five years later, Spain had already embarked
on democratic statehood under a parliamentary government with
free elections, several political parties, etc. Even so, her
teachers ("mostly holdovers from the old guard")
never once touched on the Civil War. It was always at the
end of the history book, and somehow they never got round
to it. What was even more suspect, they also never studied
the French Revolution, because (as she later deduced) the
ideas it contained were too dangerous to expose to young,
impressionable minds.
Another young woman of 27 commented candidly,
but "with all due respect", that, since no one ever
had told her and her generation anything about the war, "We
don't really care one way or another". She admitted that
she saw the Civil War as nothing more than a remote historical
episode that her grandparents had lived through when they
were very young. In her worldview, the war has nothing to
do with today's larger environmental and international concerns,
much more urgent issues than Spain's self-preoccupation with
a conflict that already belongs to last century. Nonetheless,
she wished the panel (all of whom were members of the Spanish
film industry, i.e. directors, actors, writers, etc.) luck
in their ef! forts at heightening public awareness in this
area - adding audaciously that their task was made even more
difficult by the fact that such films never turned a profit.
"My generation's been raised on Schwarzenegger,"
she concluded. Could she mean that cinema-goers (whose average
age is between 15 and 24) are used to spectacular films with
tenuous plotlines that recreate belligerent situations merely
for the amusement of the audience?
Closing
If, indeed, this young lady's attitude is
representative of today's younger generation, it would appear
that yet another of Aldoux Huxley's observations has become
a substantiated truth. In 1959, Huxley wrote in his Collected
Essays: "That men do not learn very much from the lessons
of history is the most important of all the lessons that history
has to teach." A Sobering thought for times like these.
Now the topic's been raised, we might as
well find out a little more about the Spanish Civil War, and
in so doing validate the lessons it contained. To get our
bearings, we will devote next week to a general overview of
this short but intense conflict. Then, once the larger picture
is clear, we will examine the specific theatre of war that
was played out in Ibiza.
Note: Once again, many thanks to Martin
Davies, for his impeccable back-up research for this article.
Emily Kaufman
emilykaufman@ibizahistoryculture.com
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