An opinion piece in EL PAÍS highlights how some elderly people in Valencia and Madrid describe the current government as a 'communist dictatorship', while defending Franco-era aspects like infrastructure. The author critiques this nostalgia, recalling the famines and shortages of that time. On November 20, veteran antifranquists expressed disbelief at such reminiscences.
On a Valencian street, two elderly women carried their shopping bags and claimed to live under a 'communist dictatorship', as recounted by the columnist in EL PAÍS. The author is surprised, given these women's age to have experienced the Franco regime, but infers they distinguish between dictatorship types. In Madrid's Salamanca neighborhood, ladies with vermouth denounce being 'gagged' by the 'Sanchista dictatorship', led by the Madrid president.
The piece ironically notes that in communist dictatorships, tax defrauders and those enriching from sanitary materials in crises are pursued, whereas in ideal democracies, professional hoax spreaders are rewarded and truthful journalists ignored. It questions who instills ideas that Franco improved infrastructure, like dams, comparing it to achievements of Hitler, Mussolini, or Pinochet, while overlooking the disappeared.
Franco's economic policy caused over a decade of famine, alleviated by emigrants' remittances, prisoner labor, and emerging tourism. On November 20, unforgettable, Nati Camacho and other veteran antifranquists, who endured prison, clutched their heads: 'Madrid was full of shanties!, water didn't reach many neighborhoods!, people built their houses at night!'. That was a 'Time of Silence'. Under Franco, some lived better, and others, as Vázquez Montalbán said, 'climbed the stairs better'.
The author warns that highlighting anything positive from Francoism now leads to being labeled a Francoist, in an era where criticism is the new imprisonment, not jail.