"He who controls the past controls the future; and he who controls the present controls the past." is a phrase from George Orwell's famous novel 1984. With these words, the lucid and courageous British writer reflected the pretension of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century to dominate the historical narrative in the service of their interests of power and domination.
At the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, we find that unfortunately totalitarian systems are not exclusive to the past 20th century, but continue in our century and it seems that they will continue to accompany us in the future. XX, but continue in our century and it seems that they will continue to accompany us in the future. Those sinister political regimes of the last century in which the State concentrated all powers in a single party (communist, fascist, national socialist or whatever it was called on each occasion) and controlled social relations under a single official ideology have not disappeared from the scene. Today we observe that about 40% of the world's population lives under dictatorial systems.
Apart from a long list of current dictatorships, there are democratic countries in which the politicians in power assume practices typical of totalitarian systems. One of them is to use history to fix an ideology and an official version of history that is the only accepted one and thus control all social relations and inspire the laws and customs of a country in a certain political direction.
There are two examples that are close to our cultural environment: the black legend (initially promoted by England and France to confront Spanish predominance in the 16th century but later assumed by Spaniards and Latin Americans with often spurious political and economic interests) and the Spanish democratic memory (understood as the articulation of public policies that claim to comply with the principles of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition for those who suffered persecution or violence during the civil war and Franco's dictatorship in the 20th century).
It has become a cliché to talk about the paramount importance of storytelling in political communication. The story is nothing more than the will to convey a message using narrative structure. And when we talk about a message, we are really talking about our "point of view". Whenever a message is conveyed using the simple narrative structure (presentation, development and denouement) it is easier to understand, easier to remember and easier to pass on to others. If we apply this to the history of a country, so that we can establish a kind of "storytelling", it is easier to understand, easier to remember and easier to transmit to others. "official history" The "good guys" and the "bad guys" can be very effective in achieving ideological predominance and a prolonged stay in power.
There is no objection to everyone telling their country's history as they see fit, based on what they have read, heard or experienced. And it is understandable that political parties use political communication as best they know how to convey their messages. The problem arises when an individual or a political group uses public funds, institutions and the public education system to impose an official narrative that suits their political interests.
In a true democracy, the political power should not establish a truth or an official history in which its political option appears as the only acceptable and healthy one for the life of the country, while at the same time it uses all public resources and all the power of the State to position the opposition parties and the citizens who support them as enemies of the good of the nation. This political Manichaeism goes directly against the ideological and political pluralism necessary to speak of a healthy democracy and not of a system that is installed in totalitarianism or is heading towards it.
The Spanish black legend continues to be used by various totalitarianisms -and not only by them- in Latin America (Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua) with the aim of identifying a culprit for the ills they suffer other than the current rulers. The so-called democratic memory is being used in Spain by the PSOE -with the excuse of the just reparation to the victims of the Franco dictatorship- to fix a compulsory historical narrative in which this party is the protagonist of all social advances while the opposition and anyone who opposes it is a fascist, heir of a bloody dictatorship that ended 50 years ago.
It seems that the anti-Spanish black legend has been and still is useful in Latin America as a "scapegoat" to blame for all the ills suffered by some of their countries without many people realizing that perhaps the current situation is due more to the work of the independence leaders of the 19th century and their heirs in the last two centuries than to the three centuries of Spanish viceroyalties that left societies far more advanced than those found when our ancestors arrived in America, which are also those of most of these Latin American leaders. Two centuries after the American independence processes, it seems at least suspicious to continue blaming Spain for the backwardness of their countries and the human rights abuses caused by their current satraps.
Regarding the democratic memory, when a political party, which has ruled Spain for 6 years during the Second Republic and the Civil War and almost 30 years of the current democracy, arrogates to itself the exclusivity of the story of the history of Spain during the twentieth century, we can speak of political manipulation with spurious interests. History, let alone the history of a century as conflictive as the past in Spain, cannot be in the hands of any political party because it is difficult for it not to take advantage of the situation for totalitarian purposes. The pretension of being the only party in Spain with the right to judge the actions and deeds of other Spaniards during decades of the past is also totalitarian.
In a democracy there cannot be a party that says how to judge the history of the country or who are the good and who are the bad. That should be freely judged by historians and citizens, not by the political power. The interest in keeping alive the memory of a political regime that ended 50 years ago by a party with 145 years of history -and not a few blood crimes behind it and the current collaboration of one of its former presidents with the Venezuelan dictatorship- is truly suspicious and should not be admitted due to the serious risk of democratic deterioration it entails.
In a democracy, political power must limit itself to guaranteeing freedom of thought, information and expression, for if it engages in limiting these freedoms for political reasons, it is undermining the foundations of democracy and paving the way for totalitarianism. We cannot allow in our democratic societies any form of "ministries of truth".
