I only know about this at the level of a Wikipedia article. Or maybe a short newspaper article. Some of you doubtlessly know more.
Some Spanish military officers, pining for the certainty of a fascist authortarian state, assaulted the Congress of Deputies in 1981. They held the deputies hostage. Some showed real physical courage. The prime minister and deputy prime minister refused to sit down when ordered so, despite having guns pointed at them.
I'd like to conclude that, despite this failed coup attempt, Spain is a thriving democracy today. But I think political parties today are addressing problems more connected with austerity after 2008 than with nostalgia for Franco. I conclude with a couple references about violence in politics.
- Hannah Arendt. 1969. On violence. In Crises of the Republic New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Georges Sorel. 1950. Reflections on Violence (Trans. by T. E. Hulme) London: Collier-Macmillan.
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2 comments:
About our Spanish Hero tons of ink has been spilled all over the places and the general result has been a society going through a calamari attack. Definitely the operation was a complete success as it managed to stabilized the Monarchy in Spain. The result was a win-win scenario for Juan Carlos if we comment that the coup had the finality of establishing a National Unity government with ministers from all parties, Communists included with Economy and Labor Relations as their ministries. The head of that government was given the Key nickname The White Elephant and was the tutor and later aide from the king himself General Alfonso Armada. At the end the Coup went into a catastrophic spiral when the leader of the military the took the Congress was given the list and read that there were ministers from the Socialist and the Communist Parties. Finally the King appeared late at passed midnight on the only tv channel that existed with his historical message. Implicated peopled spent less than 5 years in prison and a tupid veil covered the topic until recent years when the censorship at the press on monarchy affairs was relaxed. Various attempts have been made during the last lustra to change the State Secret's Law in order to unclassify that period but were blocked by the ruling party of time. Today the King is on exiled in Abu Dabi after some investigations by the Switzerland 's Justice on Money Fraud that we came to now only after it appeared on French and British press.
On the other way the main point of your post was correct. Detaching the rule of the army from the democratic elected representers can have positive feedbacks when a elected politician wants to trespass the red line.
Just to give you and example of the ink I share a documentary from 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krUuTBe0-og&list=PLVUa6TIGm-qPDVRaRjczW-UHdEnjQJnJx
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