The Sumar deputy Nahuel González vindicates the cultural memory of the Republic and denounces censorship during Francoism in an intervention marked by controversy.
The Plenary Session of Congress this Tuesday has left a symbolic image on the occasion of April 14, anniversary of the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. The Sumar deputy Nahuel González López has displayed a republican flag from the speakers' tribune, amidst shouts of "shame" during the debate on the consideration of a PSOE bill to document the so-called "Spanish bibliocaust" during Francoism.
The gesture has occurred in the context of a debate focused on the seizure and destruction of books, the purging of libraries and the persecution of teachers, publishers and booksellers during Francoism, an episode that the parliamentarian wanted to connect with current challenges.
"When a book is persecuted, a critical conscience is persecuted"
During his intervention, González López has defended that cultural repression was not an isolated event of the past, but a phenomenon with present implications.
"When a book is persecuted, a critical conscience is persecuted, and when a library is emptied, an attempt is made to empty the democratic intelligence of a society", he affirmed from the rostrum, underlining that during the dictatorship there was a systematic persecution of thought and knowledge.
The deputy has stressed that this debate does not belong solely to historical memory, but rather directly challenges the present, warning that "the censoring impulse does not disappear, it adapts". According to what he has maintained, this can "dress up as management" or "disguise itself as neutrality", but it remains active in different areas.
Culture, democracy and republican memory
In his speech, the Sumar parliamentarian has vindicated the cultural legacy of the Second Republic as a project of democratization of knowledge. He recalled that there existed "a country that wanted to build a more beautiful world", valuing initiatives that sought to bring culture closer to the citizenry.
González López has defended that at the center of that project there was a key idea: that culture should leave the salons and walk through the squares, in allusion to the educational and cultural impulse of the republican period.
The deputy has linked that legacy with the political present, affirming that that aspiration remains valid: "We are here because that hope continues to have heirs, because that utopia continues to speak in the present", he pointed out. In the final part of his speech, he explicitly linked that memory with the date of April 14, defending that "taking a stand for the word, the school, and dignity continues to be taking a stand for a better country".
It was at that moment when he took out the republican flag, proudly reclaiming that past: "That happened one spring, on April 14, and it has the name of Republic", he said, awakening specific shouts of rejection from the hemicycle.