Santa Cruz de Tenerife houses a ghost. Well, two. The first is made of bronze and stone. 10 meters on an easel, sculpted in 1966 by the original from Mérida Juan de Ávalos. Its size is intimidating (and even more so is its message, triumphalist and watered in blood). Franco’s propaganda celebrated with hysteria this flying angel that winks at the Dragon Rapide plane in which the then captain general of the Canary Islands, Francisco Franco, left to secretly begin his coup d’état.
It is next to the wall of the Almeyda Fort, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and removing it is mandatory by law. So the ultimatum arrived: “If Santa Cruz does not remove the Franco monument in six months, the State will do it.” they said from the central government. The problem is that the canaries do not want. The Tenerife mayor stopped the movement, asked for his resignation. The Cultural Heritage Council of the Canary Islands had already agreed to reject it as Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC)but the solution is still stuck.
Franco did not ask for it. The cartoonist Paco Roca (‘The Abyss of Oblivion’) advocated for its conservation as long as it was contextualized. Deleting it does not delete the facts, of course. In his ‘The First Murder of Franco’, historian Ángel Viñas emphasizes that this sculpture speaks explicitly of the military insurrection. And right above the cherub, mounted, goes the very happy leader.
And, apparently, Franco never wanted that sculpture: to add insult to injury, recently a document was released where Franco thanked the gesture, but did not consider it necessary that “the construction of the aforementioned monument be carried out, since it has received enough evidence of support and affection from all Tenerife residents on different occasions.” Meanwhile, this week a collection of signatures by VOX to prevent the destruction of what they consider a “monument to peace.”
The spearhead. This angel is the demon that is resisting the central government the most. The State Catalog of Relics, a mammoth of more than 9,300 pages, incorporated it in your file. The team was coordinated by the professor of Art History Isabel Navarro Segura, the senior professor Jesús Pérez Morera, the researcher Kumar Kishinchand López and the professor of the Department of Art History and Philosophy Yolanda Peralta Sierra.
This catalog includes up to human remainswithin a very detailed list where they stand out from monuments in public spaces such as the Monument to the Fallen (1947) and the Monument to the Caudillo (1966), sculptures such as the bust of Joaquín Amigó de Lara (1986) to plaques in streets such as the General Serrador bridge (1943), Calvo Sotelo street (1936) or the Francisco Aguilar y Paz promenade (1994). Regarding the names, for example, roads such as the General Serrador bridge (1943), Calvo Sotelo street (1936) or Francisco Aguilar y Paz walk (1994) stand out, as well as neighborhoods such as the neighborhood and Plaza de la Victoria and educational centers such as the CEIP Fray Albino (1944), among others. The honors and distinctions include more than 130 people.
fallen angels that don’t fall. Purging the fascist map always raises blisters. For memories, for wounds, for whatever. There are 4,000 Francoist vestiges suspected in Spain; It’s a delirium. Plates, streets, obelisks. The catalog is overwhelming, so the Executive is financing inventories that continue to grow. The Italian pyramid in Burgos dodged the hammer, but the Tenerife monument hangs by a thread.
While the Tenerife Historical Memory Association claims to comply with the law with the monument, the mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife insists on resignify it. Is it worth keeping it? The debate is not a matter of History faculties since it confronts ethics and aesthetics, art and memory. In this messianic figure, many accustomed citizens see a pure beauty free of symbology. Others only see petrified fascism. Admiring the technique while ignoring the terror invites us to remember that phrase by George Santayana about the past and repetitions.
More conflict than harmony. The second proposal was to eliminate the tribute by changing the original title to “Monument to Concord.” However, the studies They usually recommend being more sincere, documenting better and appealing to “more truth“, not to dilute it. Former prisons house peace museums and the best example is found in the Auschwitz Museum, which motivated the conservation of thousands of the victims’ tools.
The University of La Laguna has been very clear in this regard: the whole thing offends democratic values and the Canarian technical commission settled it in its report. The work “lacks exceptional cultural value”, considering that its only objective was fascist exaltation, a loudspeaker for the regime, and nothing more. And since the Cultural Heritage Council of the archipelago also struck down the idea of protecting it, it seems that there is no point in continuing to resist.
The mass is still standing. For those who have never seen it, the Audiovisual archive of the Franco Monument in Tenerife It serves to visually understand the architectural magnitude of this piece. And it seems that the work will continue until the deadline is exhausted, because they cannot agree.
Others will be considered after the angel, such as the sculpture La Ida (due to its link with the prisoners of the Fyffes Halls), the remains of the Barranco del Hierro military battery and many others. After all, Tenerife coexists with even a monument to Simón Bolívar (son of Guanche blood) who ordered 836 Spanish prisoners to be shot in Caracas, many of them Canarian. It was February 8, 1814 and a much larger escabechina preceded it, where they even destroyed the sick people of the La Guaira Hospital.
Images | Flickr (Joseph Mesa)
In Xataka | After the Civil War, Franco wanted to colonize emptied Spain. So 300 new towns were invented
In Xataka | In 1969, the Franco regime insisted that all homes have a classic at home: the Salvat Basic Library
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings