Monday, December 20, 2010

Butal-apap-325-caff Wikipedia

Debate on the use of history and memory

KEYBOARD GUEST: JUAN ANTONIO GARCIA AMADO

Greetings to all. I'm Juan Antonio García Amado and Bonorino thank Paul for putting in your blog, to work with students, some excerpts from my text on the so-called Law of Historical Memory. And, of course, also thankful to the students reading and the comments made here. I can not

embark on lengthy responses or individual dialogues, but most of the interventions deserve attention in great detail. So do some general considerations to keep track of what one or the other and call me more attention, or may lead to more juicy controversy. Also excuse not to go naming the various partners and very attentive.

1. The considerations which I do in my text on the role played by the so-called peripheral nationalisms (there is also a English nationalism, hence you have to put adjectives) are intended to be descriptive rather than evaluative. This description of the events surrounding inevitably interpretation of the facts. Each other, description and interpretation of historical facts that we are talking, you can be successful or not, it is much discussion about it. However, other assessments purely political or partisan interests me here rather than less.

For example, I have little interest in entering into a discussion if nationalisms are bad or good. I can give my personal opinion, but it is just that, a more particular view. It is this: I'm interested in these discussions very little English nationality and Galician nationalists, Basque, Catalan, Asturian Asturian-I'm-etc. They were good fun while we were rich and a good excuse to play by biting chops, while still remaining slices to go around. Now, we're going back to poor and we ran the party in which that could be both very liberal, very nationalistic center or the periphery and at the time, hitting the high life at public expense and spend money without common bullshit story, now sound absurd to begin discussing what to go for four days we loved. The topics of political debate in our state will begin to be others, and have actually begun. When we are on the five million unemployed and many people no longer have to eat, he begins to have serious and urgent issues of truth and has to stop time and money to give bourgeoise taste and idle and complaining here or there. The problem now will be neither the language nor the flags, but what we eat and where we work. When you return the wealth, we will have fun playing the patriotic patriotic-English, Basque, Asturian ...-

is more than likely come out of this economic crisis, if we go, with a notable loss of sovereignty, controlled, managed, organized by the EU and more dependent than ever on Europe and various international organizations, as well as much poorer than we have been in recent decades. So, go squabbling in the hollow of the climb on whether the sixth tends Clothes very wet or very strong third closes the portal is ridiculous and tacky. And with all due respect, I most of the debate we had here so far between those who want self-determination so much and those who fear that Spain will break me like that, a fight ceporros yard and crappy neighbors.

English emigration has restarted. It was known to migrate far from Galicia, Asturias also. Over a hundred thousand English have packed their bags this year and have been here for lack of work and outputs, especially Latin America. Most are skilled professionals and people with technical degrees. I have had a son who has spent 28 years the last seven years out of Spain and does not intend to return (or have to do, surely). Is a computer engineer, he worked at CERN in Geneva and now it is in a California lab in Berkeley. When he and I met a couple of times a year, we talked in Asturian (Bable), which was the language of my parents and my village. That is for us a beautiful emotional charge. But obviously, my son Asturias self-determination or sovereignty that Spain is more or less facing the EU is as important as who wins the Ukrainian league football: nothing. He spends most of the year speaking English in their work and country where you live, you know that it is likely that change of country and company still a few times in his life and finds no incentive in these debates about whether pee longer an Asturian or English, or Zapatero and Rajoy, etc., etc. I appeal to the personal anecdote to illustrate my general thesis: that it is time we leave the sad shell of our parochial quarrels and short legs. Spain, Europe and the world are being so cumbersome and decisively, we must think of the things that are not key determinants and short-sighted policy and has taken as bigotry by this or that football team. At least among academics, as theoretically appropriate to their condition, be able to see beyond the tip of his nose.

2. With the above and leave enough clues to answer the question of whether nationalism or worry me if I think the determination of this or that territory would be a big problem. I do not worry, though I'm a bit sad to see people concentrating on that struggle and effort, which is in the world to do and arrange for them to feel and want to progress and justice advocates social. Nationalism is the perfect breeding ground for a new breed of capitalists who seek well cooked is the status and returning to talk of the town and for the people as if he knew something. All nationalisms, including English. The other, peripherals, are your mere imitation. I was a child still under Franco. The speeches of the time on the nation's souls and spirits of the people, for the glory of the ancestors and venerable traditions of the earth now I listen to other mouths. There everyone. I do not believe in God or country or in communities of any kind as living organisms.

That said, I have written elsewhere that self-determination referendum should be convened where there is a certain demand. Quite serious and very serious commitments. If it comes out yes, go ahead, if not out, twenty years without nagging back with tears and posturita. I feel so brother of the Dutch and the Spaniards or Murcia or until the Asturian, I can appreciate both an Andalusian as a Bolivian, etc.., Etc., If tomorrow Galicia was a sovereign state, I would not waste so none of my good friends from Galicia. The boundaries are mental and progress is to suppress them, to remove those borders that make you think that a person is better or more beautiful, because of Lalín that because of Sebastopol. Anyway, I also understand that there are people who do not like to travel and prefers to eat all his life, his people's traditional cooked (or the English national dish, paella and, anyway, both mounted). There has to be around.

3. To call such referendums should be done, the Constitution should be reformed, that is obvious. As for reform, there are procedures for doing so. With what I disagree with the argument is that in this Constitution, as it is and is, for better and for worse, or it has to fit all. There is, for example, the death penalty, since the prohibition. Nor can it be declared a federal state or secession of a territory, they also prohibit, albeit in different words. A Constitution, either, not a document that serves to give any pretext to do what he wants, but a rule of law lays down ground rules in a state. These rules may like or not, that's another story. If you do not like them, are fighting to change, but it is childish to see all zurrigurri shouting that the Constitution gives him the reason and what is not going to give it if available.

The argument that if thousands of people want something to be served is dangerous and totally unconvincing. If asked, three quarters of the English-central and peripheral, want the death penalty, and surgical castration of sex offenders ", the expulsion of immigrants who are not football players, the dirty war against terrorism, etc. ., etc. So that you have to give reason to any group, even in majority territory, just because that group shout, should think more slowly.

4. It is true that the incident has been muted with the Franco regime and its victims. Absolutely. Research has been conducted very complete, there are hundreds and thousands of books well documented and complete. Historians are silent. If people have no historical memory is because it reads. There has been no ban on research and publish, and this has been done. Another thing is that the compensation to victims has been done very slowly, sparingly and often petty manner. But everything is everything. The so-called Law of Historical Memory would have been much more generous. If it was not, it will be because their authors and editors did not want it to be. Each mast hold your candle. But they have cast many smokescreens to hide the fact that the PSOE did not face this as it should. One of the clearest case with the "case" Garzón looking over the victim was Garzón. And I was not at all. The victims were others, but stopped talking to them and their heirs who claim his memory to go on to talk of nothing else Garzón. And if so, many others. Franco victims have only served to the parties in recent years used as toys. Ask any association of victims what they think of the law and that manipulation. They do know what to talk about and what it meant Law, no newspaper in this or the other party.

5. Back in November of 2002, if I remember right now, in times of Aznar's government, in addition, the Constitutional Commission of the Congress of Deputies unanimously approved a formal statement condemning the Franco regime and the proclamation of illegitimacy and injustice dictatorship. Unanimously. It is one of the starting points of what will become the Law of Historical Memory. But then, unanimity is broken when the parties on one side or the other, decided to politicize the issue and seek to provide votes disagreements.

At this point, when they have spent seventy years after the end of the civil war and thirty-five since the end of Franco, the only real repairs victims were fit for the symbolic. It is almost impossible for him to judge an author of crimes of the Franco regime or even the other side, as some say. None are still alive or old enough to respond, if we're serious. And I'm not mentioning the legal problem posed by the Amnesty Act 78. But doing that would be discussed on whether to prosecute someone criminally and with all the "move" around Garzón media and legal blunders, was hiding the Historical Memory Law did not give two fundamental benefits, claimed above all by the associations for the historical memory: the full legal annulment, not a mere statement of injustice, as does the Act, of certain court judgments Franco, as the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism, the TOP and others, and the full commitment of the State with the exhumation of the remains buried in mass graves. The latter has, for example, the Catalan law on the subject, but not state law we are talking about.

has not done what was demanded-essential and demanded justice, "but we are back to embark on the most foolish controversies between left and right, not between serious and consistent political doctrines, but between slogans for mass consumption illiterate.

6. Let me end by copying a small article of mine, published three or four weeks ago in El Mundo de Leon, where I have a small column every Thursday. This time was titled "These deaths are also ours." It reads:

is a continuous drip, are appearing every month, every day. We walked for many years on nameless bodies on mass graves. Here in Valmadrigal Matallana of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory has just unearthed the remains of eight rail killed in the fall of 1936. Now we investigate identity or a family member is expected to claim them, give them a name and bring them a friendly reminder and desolate. These dead are

their families, themselves, and those who shared their cause. But they are ours, all of which we have rebuilt a nation without remembering. We need to recover our dead. How, after so long, we were able to return to the old disputes, the dialectic Cain, the weighing of the lump sum and you killed and your family more and worse. Who and what interests us the most elemental poisons sense of fairness so they will not do even a minimal justice to those who did not have any, who have left to rest in peace. Who has even bothered to open those graves infamous for naming the bones, to pray for the shot, whoever they are and where they are, even if someone wants, for the dubious rest of those who pulled the trigger or those blessed dawn revenge. Whose hatred or meanness is enough to bargain, even, justice and mercy, to spare to the symbols, by now, not received with open arms to those victims in this country where it is assumed, and we all fit no need to kill us.

What did revive the unholy minds straight rancor of a law of historical memory, when the truth came to be stingy, greedy and generous words of support, which again left to their fate cruelly executed and those who seek nothing more than to honor his memory and wash his honor. Who returned to point friends and enemies, who wanted desempolváramos affronts, which sought to cut again chose hatred rather than memory. Who and why we obscures those dead, they are all, if anything is left of compassion and decency.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

I Have White Spots On My Monitor

History, Memory and constitution

KEYBOARDS GUESTS: OJEA JF and S. RODRIGUEZ PAZ GARCIA.

In this post we present the fundamental contents of the text:

Amado García, Juan Antonio, "Uses history and constitutional legitimacy, "in José Antonio Martin Pallin and Rafael Escudero Alday (eds.), Law and historical memory , Madrid: Trotta, pp. 47-72.

The goal is to open the debate on the position that the author claims.


1. History, legitimacy and effectiveness of the constitutions

The legitimacy of a constitution should be considered from two points of view: the objective or theoretical (which varies according to the doctrine that we address and time when we move) and the social belief based on two essential elements:
1. Essential elements of social order are fair.
2. The vision of state as part of a joint project.
of these elements comes the creation of the concept of "we" that has different livelihoods (language, common culture, etc.) Among which we highlight a common history. However
questioned because the author remain a nation state and because to live together under a unifying constitution in this state called Spain and pick up three theories or visions:

• The cosmopolitan vision would be that could be associated with European Union. In this the English Constitution is as convenient until it reaches the full consolidation of supranational structures.

• Nationalist: It would be the view of Spain considers that the English Constitution is the best block to the English nation based on the idea that it is much more that unites us than divides us.

• peripheral nationalists: would the vision of the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. Which advocates replacing the current constitution, since the English state must give way to other nations that live under.
Cosmopolitans and nationalists defend the current constitution while the peripheral nationalists seek a replacement.
To try to solve this conflict history plays a key role but we must bear in mind that the story is cut and choose.

2. Labels and dilemmas of the left

For a constitution to be effective you must believe in its legitimacy.
Legitimation in Franco is based on Catholic religious legitimacy with an exaltation of Spain as a nation one and indivisible.
The author asks what are the essential beliefs should legitimize the English Constitution and reflects the thinking of the different political about it:

• Right: always with some reluctance to autonomy and bilingualism, conceives history of Spain as the nation's only true and possible.
• Peripheral Nationalism: Based on history to exalt historical struggle with Spain.
• Left: Unable to exit the ideological maze trapped since the transition. Give the defense of the unity of Spain to the right (reminiscent of Franco). Therefore seek refuge in order to legitimize this system in the fairness of the constitutional model that respects the dignity and rights of every citizen and undoubted democratic social content.
The Constitution is deprived of his standing is modified by the Statutes of Autonomy, an emerging conflict difficult solution.

3) The transition and the problem of the historical legitimacy of the English Constitution.

The law of historical memory is left trying to retake the history of Spain as a legitimation of the existing constitutional order, by a route different from the right and his use of history for such purposes.
The Law of Historical Memory has a hidden purpose, "to renew the historical legitimizing the present constitutional order", will connect the current constitution of the Second Republic.
is done to address the fragmentation that was brewing between the history of Spain and other stories "national" wants a new common history based on leaving behind the transition and constitutional legitimacy to link with the Second Republic.

4) Rights of the law.

-Purpose rehabilitation of victims of the Franco regime and recognition of injustice. Many
-existing rights to the victims will be expanded.
"They incorporate some new rights:

• Acquisition of English nationality and grandchildren of those who lost their English nationality or had to give it up as a result of exile.
• Ability to acquire English nationality the voluntary members of the International Brigades.

"The law has a more political than strictly legal.