h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today (20th) is the 25th adniversary of GEN Francisco Franco's death.

Francisco Franco was born in NW Spain (my own country, Galicia) and sent to Africa (Ayun, Sahara) to one of the last spanish colonies there. In 1936, coordinating forces in all over the country, as BRIG (I think) of Land forces in Africa, took over the southest bases in Spain and quickly advanced towards Madrdi, initiating a devastating Civil War that lasted 3 years and took more than 1 million people.

He finally won and overtook a dictatorship that lasted over 40 years, with as many as other million people killed by political issues, and repression faked as religious right over the country fate.

He died and transition to a democracy started. This has been the longest democracy in Spain history ever, thanks, in part, to the will of our current king (Spain is defined as a parlamentary monarchy) to release power to the people (before, this date, only once a republic with now monarchic ties had been founded, the Second one which was crushed in 1936/9, all the rest had been a/many monarchy/ies)

Well, yesterday many people congregated to reclame that "We lived better with Franco" and to ask for death penalty (which is strictly forbidden by our laws and has even been banned out from the Military Rules in case of War) etc... A contra-manifestation convoked by anti-fascist organizations faced them and as a result, a riot formed, with the police punishing everyone that was walking nearby, just in case.

As a son of democracy (I was born two years before Franco's death, when things were a lot more softer, as my parents and grandparents tell me) it is hard for me to believe how people can still think that having a dictator ruling their lives is better than the people themselves doing it.

I mean, things went well by then only to people that was politically correct, all the rest suffered a great deal, with lots of left wing activists (all left-wing parties were forbidden, actually only one political party, that of the government, was allowed) were mainly exiled in Portugal, France or South America.

I agree, retrospectively, that some things were smoother by then (work, street security...) but at what cost? Besides, things all around us (our context) are very diffenrent nowadays... Nowadays we can vote on important matters for our country, we vote our representatives in the Congress and Senate, and counties, and regions (think of 'states' but with less autonomy), we have freedom of Press, of congregation, of thinking, of religion, of "being", in one word. We can travel around and read all (most) books or anything that pleases us...

Either a) people is sooooooo stupid they cannot govern themselves or b) people is sooooooo stupid they cannot see they are able to govern themselves (or at least choose those who'll rule them).

In any case, I cannot understand why is people still attached to that man (who treated his own country/region the hashest way of them all, my own country, my family suffered it, I am obviously not impartial, but I think I am being pretty fair). I can accept that those who lived by then think what they think... But young people, my age or less, saying (literal quote) "Things were better with Franco, nowadays there's a lot of unemployment and then there wasn't, all the negros are stealing our jobs..."

That's crap (flourish language). Spain is geographically were it is, most inmigrants come from former colonies because, in part, we made their countries poorer and they seek a better life. Most inmigrants I know live doing jobs no "pure spanish" would do anyway (because it's easier to live with mama and papa than working in those jobs, unemployment is not hell, after all...) or work as hard as anyone else (and often they do work harder) in their own 'good' jobs. And, most important of all, the crisol of cultures, this mixture of people from many places, enriches us, makes us stronger, richer, culturally broadened... We are all Homo Sapiens, we are all brothers, in a sense... Couldn't we just live like a 'normal' family? (note to myself: define 'normality').

When I watched _The Gladiator_, with that impressive Colisseum CAD reconstruction and then looked at Las ventas Bullfighting arena (I live nearby) I thought "Things haven't changed that much, after all..." Today, I think the very same about these people... It's frightening, because "Against stupidity, the gods themselves..."

Sigh...