The First and Second Spanish Republics were born out of insurgent radicals who forced the king to either abdicate or flee for his life and limb. In the view we are not supposed to take, Spain has been trying since the 1870's to build a vibrant civil society, democratically run, and imbued with egalitarian principles. This, thanks to those radicals, anarchists, and republican anti-monarchists who've never gone away in more than 100 years and are reappearing and reimposing themselves in the streets of Madrid and Barcelona right now demanding a Third Republic.
On the other hand, the view of history we are supposed to digest is a fluke of history forced one 19th century king to abdicate only to have the military install "order and stability" a short time after. Then, in April 1931, another fluke caused the Bourbon king to flee until Franco emerged to set things right by 1939.
There is fact, and there is fiction.
The fluke, if you will, is the radicals; and here they come again stubbornly sprouting through the concrete.
We are supposed to believe - because we are told as much - that Juan Carlos is abdicating because of ill health. Granted, like the end of the First Republic, this king was carried back in not on the shoulders of revolutionaries but rather the French- and UK-backed military of Franco. Just like, not far from Spain, we are told to believe Egyptians want the "order and stability" of a new dictatorship over democratic free elections.
But there is fact, and there is fiction.
If four out of five dentists surveyed recommend saccarine-laced, cancer-causing chewing gum for their patients who chew gum, what are we to make of those dentists?!
Tyrants and constitutional monarchs have always suffered ill health, and we are never told much about it, and they go on and on useless in their own faculties but not useless to the state which needs them. Mental illness and inbreeding plagued many a European monarch but interestingly as long as the elites got their wealth, "order and stability" was declared. No one cared much about these genetic defects that were constantly replenished with marriages to first and second cousins.
And this is the point. As the late Tony Benn observed about the abdication of Edward VIII in the UK, 1936, it was less about a marriage to a divorced woman and more about the possible erosion of the office of the monarch and, therefore, the powers exercised by a handful of bureaucrats. Especially a prime minister. Without the king and the powers invested in that office, the raison d'etre of a prime minister "exercising" these powers disappears.
Benn noted that any president with the powers of the prime minister under a "constitutional" monarch - such a president would be considered a dictator.
This is probably why not 24 hours after the Spanish abdication the UK Buckingham Palace Press Office released a photo of their 88-year old queen carefully astride a pony on what we are told is among her daily rides. Vigor? "Continuity," is the word barked at us over and over again by the royalists. "The 'A-word' is not in her vocabulary."
Juan Carlos's health is as relevant to this story as his estranged wife Sofia's avowed homo-hatred, her espousal against gays and gay rights, or the state of their marriage.
What is relevant?
Spain is in a toilet, like many other Mediterranean nations. The banks tell us the European economies are turning around, but this is belied by the truth of widespread unemployment and misery, especially among young Spaniards. European workers are becoming refugees. Austerity continues to slash at the gains of the last 50 years. "Turn around" must be understood here to indicate that the financial world has found new ways to make profits, and nothing more.
So, thankfully, the insurgents of the 1870's have never died. They were brilliant in 1931, and they are ever-present today. In the recent European Union elections, more green sprouts emerged. Not believing the hype that things have turned around, pro-Republic, anti-monarchy parties, like PODEMOS, gained seats in Brussels.
Now, PODEMOS, United Left, Equo, and Republican Catalan Left Parties are all demanding a referendum on what Spain is to become, a republic or a monarchy. Elites are worried, and they seemed to ask Juan Carlos "Por que no te callas?".
Nixon advises the old Bourbon from his grave. Let the Republic inspire the masses.
No pasaran. Pasaremos! Campesinos, la tierra es vuestra.
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