Re: [OT] aargh.. the big swirl of offtopicness sucks me in, too. help!
> Franco was remarkably successfully at establishing a Castilian
> hegemony. Are you saying he should have tried harder?
Considering that he was from Galicia, it's not exactly accurate to talk
about a "Castilian hegemony". You are probably confused by the fact
that some people call "Castilian" what is "Spanish".
Franco was a control-freak who happened to be at the right place at
the right time. By the end of Spring in 1936 Spain was in a very
difficult situation, as the 5-year old Republic seemed unable to
provide the necessary safety to the population.
The sublevation did not happen in a vacuum and a lot of people (inside
and outside of the military) joined its cause once it started, with the
inevitable result of a civil war. If it had not been him and his buddies,
it would have been another group.
After the war was over, Franco did not let go, of course. Prone to
megalomania and surrounded by sycophants, he quickly saw himself
as the savior of the country.
The population, exhausted and happy that the ordeal was over, did not
care enough to make a big fuss. For years, the trauma was vivid enough
in the minds that those who lived through it, that they saw Franco as a
lesser evil.
Similar to what is happening in the US now: people are so terrified after
9/11/2001 that they are not complaining much about a governement that
is shredding their rights.
Like all the authoritarian people, Franco understood that, to be able to
control others, he could not allow them much leeway, especially regarding
languages that neither he nor his close circle could understand.
But I've never heard of anybody who ended up in jail for speaking, writing
or singing in Catalan, Basque, Galician or Bable.
Franco was *obviously* not a thorough totalitarian.
He installed an authoritarian regime with the tacit complicity of about half
of the population and the complete support of the Catholic Church, very
authoritarian itself and very powerful. But if you did not openly rebel against
the regime, the regime left you alone.
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