Statement on elections, memory and democracy
In view of the upcoming General Elections on July 23rd, 2023, the memorialist associations that make up the Truth Commission Platform demand that all candidates who are running for office assume a commitment in their proposals and programs on democratic memory policies, which facilitate the establishment in our country of knowledge of the claims of the victims of the dictatorship, the defense of democratic freedoms and rights that have cost so much to achieve in our most recent history. That should be placed at the service and promotion of cohesion and solidarity among the different generations in accordance with constitutional principles and freedoms. And all this because “a people’s knowledge of the history of its oppression is part of its heritage and must, therefore, be preserved”.
In the words of the recently deceased Nuccio Ordine, “A society without memory, without a relationship with its past, is a society that will not have democracy. Memory is fundamental to understand the present and foresee the future”.
And before this call for elections, characterized by the calls of some forces of reaction to repeal the progress in rights, to go back in social conquests and to provoke a real political involution, we propose to call to exercise our right to vote, which has cost us so much to achieve, and to participate in as many areas of opinion and influence as we can so that our opinions are taken into account, not to be just spectators in matters that interest us and affect our lives and our society as a whole.
We know that it is late for many victims and relatives, who will not be able to see their rights recognized due to the excessive time that has passed, but we can, and must, explain what happened, in its entirety, to repair the damage caused, taking the appropriate measures for the non-repetition, neither of confrontations, nor of the justification of political violence, nor of the exaltation of the dictatorship. A consolidated democracy cannot and should not allow, nor tolerate, that there are victims without rights and fields and ditches with thousands and thousands of disappeared, stolen children or living sentences for political crimes awarded to those who defended the legal and legitimate regime of the Second Spanish Republic.
We are alarmed, in our country, by the return of the spirit of intolerance, the contempt, in certain circles, for human rights, the hatred of the different and the continuous poisoning with lies that, sometimes, only convince the followers, but also alienate some sectors of the population from public affairs.
“No, the Francoist State and political regime never reached that legitimate representation as a State of Law, its very origin prevented it, it never went beyond being a pseudo-State of Law” (Julio Aróstegui).
As Patricio Alwing sentenced, “where the truth is not respected, trust between people is broken, doubts arise, disqualifications and consequently hatreds and the temptation of violence. Lies are a prelude to violence and are incompatible with Peace”.
Today, as yesterday, as always, we must vote for the options that we consider more correct in their programmatic proposals, our ideological affinities or of any other nature… But our vote must also carry implicitly the rejection to barbarism, totalitarianisms, racisms, militarisms, antifeminisms or negationist or dehumanizing processes…
The memory that we claim is the one that unites us in defense of freedom, of liberties, the one that is its product and its tool of understanding. Memory is a sediment of freedom, because to imagine a better future it is necessary to remember the past. And in our country, it is essential to exhume it, to vindicate it, also with the vote, as well as the truth and our democratic memory.
Platform for the Truth Commission.
Democracy
