After one o’clock in the afternoon, a few minutes pass. Because it’s Friday, to Manuel Gundin, second year student of…
After one o’clock in the afternoon, a few minutes pass. Since it’s Friday, Manuel Gundin, a second-year International Baccalaureate student, should be taking math class. But put the books aside for a few minutes to share impressions on another topic, history, with CNN.
“I was quite shocked by the fact that a soldier like (Francisco) Franco, so decorated, could become head of state in a country like Spain and exert so much influence for 40 years,” says this 17-year-old boy via videoconference from a classroom at the SEK Atlántico school in Pontevedra.
His knowledge of the decades of Franco’s regime is extensive for his age.
And the reason is none other than his passion for history, when he decided to supplement what he learned in class a few years ago with contemporary history books that he himself was looking for. “I enjoyed understanding it. But it’s not an ideology I agree with at all.”
His opinion is timely, as he offers it to us now that fifty years have passed since the death of dictator Francisco Franco on November 20, 1975. However, not all young people of the same age as him have the same opinion. He barometer from last October of the Sociological Research Center (CIS) – attached to the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Court Relations – revealed that one in five young people (19.6%) between 18 and 24 years old believe that the years of the dictatorship were good to very good.
Figures that appear comparable when the analysis framework is opened and the entire population surveyed is included, regardless of age: 21.3% of respondents believe that they have been good or very good years, compared to 65.5% who rated the decades of Franco’s regime as poor or very poor.
One of the reasons that explains this positive view of dictatorship among this generation lies in the politics they are exposed to. The “identitarian and exclusive” patriotism of far-right parties such as Vox in Spain, Alternative for Germany or Brothers of Italy by Giorgia Meloni in Italy is leading to “a positive or softened revisionism” of fascism in Europe, said Javier Lorenzo, doctor of political science and associate professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid, in an interview with CNN.
One of the reasons that explains this generation’s positive view of dictatorship lies in the politics they are exposed to. The “identitarian and exclusive” patriotism of far-right groups such as Vox, in Spain, Alternative for Germany, or Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia in Italy, leads to “a positive or sweet revisionism” of fascism in Europe, as Javier Lorenzo, European doctor of political science and professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid, tells CNN.
“This positive revisionism of the heavy hand, of zeal, of authority, of the restoration of pride and of connection with national identity,” Lorenzo explains, is used “as an opposition or as an alternative approach in relation to traditional forces.” A message that appeals to young people because it is “disruptive”, “simple” and “very focused on social networks”, and therefore meets the “eager need to obtain information quickly” of this generation, says this expert.
This fact, Lorenzo emphasizes, is not so much the result of the merits of Vox, “but rather of the shortcomings of all the democrats who have not made the effort, who have not succeeded in proposing a discourse, a recovery of memory and a treatment of a recent historical phenomenon, which apparently conditions current Spanish politics.”
And you just have to go to social networks to verify it: Vox is the force with representation in the Congress of Deputies that unites the most followers across platforms. Although it is not possible to break down these figures by age category, the party claims to have one million followers on Instagram and almost eight hundred thousand on TikTok.
A force that simultaneously translates into the voting intention of young people from that same age group: 20.8% would vote for Vox if parliamentary elections were held now, becoming the second most voted force in this age group, after the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers Party, which would bring together 22.1% of the voting intention. according to the CIS barometer for November.
However, Lorenzo adds another important detail: even among far-right voters – regardless of age – it is recognized that Francoism was harmful to Spain. A 17.7% of respondents in the October CIS barometer Those who claim to have voted for Vox in the last general election point out that the years of the dictatorship were bad to very bad.
The key to a better understanding of what happened in those almost forty years? Manuel Gundin gives it to us: provide more and better information. “It gives you knowledge that many other people, or people in general, don’t have,” allowing you to make “completely different and well-founded” arguments.
The CNN Wire
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