Beginning of the End for Franco?
SHERMAN, ARNOLD
More Protest n six months than in sixteen years Beginning of the End For Franco? By Arnold Sherman The majority of Spaniards have never had any real affection for Generalissimo Franco's...
...If it had been strong enough, there would never have been a Franco...
...In the past, criticism has been of an entirely negative nature...
...But still, taking everything into consideration, at least then the Spanish people were treated like humans: now we are no better than cattle...
...My husband and I and our six children must live in a cave without ventilation or sanitation, and yet each month we are told to contribute more and more to the Church...
...By Arnold Sherman The majority of Spaniards have never had any real affection for Generalissimo Franco's government...
...A school teacher in Madrid remarked: "It would be ironical if Franco, who rose from Morocco, should sink in Morocco...
...The consequences of the uprising have been enormous...
...The people have feared the Moors for the atrocities they committed in the war...
...Middle-class and wealthy families with sons and daughters enrolled in the University have felt the sting in the Government's suppression of campus activities...
...But even an ignorant man knows when life becomes impossibly expensive...
...One source of mounting criticism that I have discovered throughout Spain is rising dissatisfaction with the nation's Church-state relationship...
...Now, as the Spanish people learn that not only are the Moors to be freed from Spanish rule but the Moroccans are arrayed vehemently against Franco, they realize that Franco has lost his most irreplaceable allies...
...Where before angry men in wine shops would curse the Government furiously but shrug their shoulders when confronted with the question of Spain's future, they now whisper brightly that the Republic will fill the void caused by Franco's eventual collapse...
...The contrast between the splendor of the Church and the dismal, depressing poverty of the workers is too evident to be dismissed...
...For the first time in seventeen years, an independent group was inspired to rise consciously and demonstratively against the Falange, the very Falange that has been a source of such dread for nearly two decades...
...My father worked as a laborer and supported a family of eight...
...Now workers have gone out on strike in Pamplona, San Sebastian and at least half a dozen other towns, and the regime has in many cases quietly yielded to their basic demands...
...Arnold Sherman, who has contributed to numerous European publications, has spent the last eighteen months in Spain and Spanish Morocco...
...In Andalusia, where thousands of families live in holes burrowed into mountain sides, the lavish expenditures of the Church are hard to overlook...
...A cliche constantly repeated is: "The clergy-grows fat while the children grow lean...
...The very fact that the iron man of Spain could be challenged is evidence that the fascist regime has lost its mythical invulnerability...
...All in all, there has' been more organized anti-Franco activity in the past six months than in the past seventeen years...
...For the first time since Franco took power, an organized group actively defied his authority...
...The recent Madrid student riots have had a far-reaching effect in Spain, although local newspapers have done everything possible to minimize their importance...
...we never worried about bread...
...The students have become aware of a new strength, a prowess hitherto unrevealed...
...People never appreciate anything until they lose it...
...On the other hand, Spanish Army officers who have long been accustomed to acquiring fortunes and rank in Spanish Morocco have been antagonized by Franco's speedy acquiescence to Moroccan demands...
...Within the past several months, however, people have begun to reminisce hopefully about the old days of the Republic...
...Look, I am a married man with three children and yet, even though I work my boat six days a week, when I want to buy a pair of shoes for my son I must buy them on credit...
...I must work two weeks to be able to afford a single pair of shoes...
...A man earned less, but he had more...
...It is because the people are kept in ignorance and slavery...
...Although opponents of the dictatorship are frequently arrested, beaten and terrorized, sympathetic listeners will hear angry denunciations of the Government in every part of Spain...
...Then there was Franco's quick compliance with the demands of Sultan Ben Youssef of Morocco...
...A Catalonian fishing captain put it this way: "Those of us who are old enough to contrast Franco's government with that of the Republic remember that in pre-fascist days our children ate more, our clothing was better, our standard of living was higher, and we were not afraid to speak our minds...
...Ever since the Civil War began and Franco crossed into Spain with his mercenary army, the power of the Moor has been synonymous with the power of the Government...
...There is no country where the Church is so strong as in Spain, and there is no country where the clergy is so detested...
...We did not appreciate the Republic until it was lost, but now I think that many of us would gladly die to sec it reinstated...
...Today, in Spain, everyone worries about bread.' Similarly, a salesman from Elche: "I will not say that there were not many things wrong with the old Republic...
...Spain was not rich, but she was happy...
...Spain is the poorest country in Europe today, but we know it is not because of our country's natural poverty...
...It is not fair," a mother in Seville explained nervously...
...The worst thing about it was simply that it wasn't strong...
...The people have grown aware that this would-be Achilles has an unprotected heel...
...When we had the Republic, it was different...
...Why can't they go to the rich for money...
...Artists and writers are aware that the closing of Spain's two leading literary magazines is the result of panic and insecurity...
Vol. 39 • April 1956 • No. 18
