The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, knows so well the manual that has allowed the Andalusian PSOE to rule the most populous municipality in Spain for almost 37 consecutive years that he picked the only small hole that remained is free to try to undo the lack and denial of the right to the Andalusian autonomy process in its infancy: commemorate in style the massive demonstrations of 4 December 1977 as Andalusian Flag Day.
The autonomous government approved a decree on November 8 to introduce the celebration, an idea that came from the founder of the Andalusian Party (PA), Alejandro Rojas-Marcos. On October 16, he shared the presentation of a book about the PA with Moreno and surprisingly came up with the idea. Moreno bought it immediately.
And today, 45 years after those demonstrations that planted the seeds of access to full autonomy, the flag designed by Blas Infante has been raised on all the balconies of the San Telmo- Palace showed Andalusism to always defend Andalusia first”. He quoted a few words from Joaquín Sabina, Andalusia’s favorite son, and a reference to the left, although since yesterday he said less that “he’s not so left anymore”.
It has also promised to keep the name of Manuel José García Caparrós in “a prominent place in Andalusia’s democratic chronicle”. Moreno was referring to the 18-year-old CC OO union leader and Cerveza’s Victoria worker who was shot dead by a National Police corporal during a demonstration in Malaga. He was “murdered on December 4, 1977,” Moreno said. The PP had always resisted using this word. Two weeks ago, in Parliament, he supported a proposal by Teresa Rodríguez (Adelante Andalucía) to release the minutes of the Congressional commission of inquiry into the case.
It’s not the first time that the also president of the Andalusian PP shows this profile – “since I’m president I’m an Andalusian activist, it’s my obligation,” he told EL PAÍS in an interview – but he’s never had himself to be so strong and live in Andalusian politics with an attached woman. They are the same pastures, although the most powerful was the defense of the welfare state, which the PSOE used for almost four decades to broaden its electoral base and almost blend into the landscape.
The official ceremony was attended for various reasons by representatives of all parties except Vox and Por Andalucía, but Rojas-Marcos had almost absolute leadership, sitting to the left of the Andalusian President in the Hall of Mirrors and in a privileged spot when the flag was raised in the San Telmo Gardens . Both faced the main balcony of the building’s Baroque facade in a storyline broadcast live by Canal Sur. The Andalusian was never a figure loved by the PSOE, not even during the eight years that the PA ruled the junta in coalition with the PSOE (1996-2004). The Socialists accuse him of having “betrayed” Andalusia because he had sought a way out of the mess with the UCD government, chaired by Adolfo Suárez, that broke out after the referendum on access to autonomy on February 28, 1980, the official one Day of Andalusia.
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The Socialists, led by Rafael Escuredo, used the 28F that marked the end of the UCD and the demise of the PA. In the first regional elections in 1982, the PSOE sent 66 deputies; the PA, three. December 4th has always been an ephemeris remembered by the Andalusians and the formations to the left of the PSOE, like the Communist Party and the Izquierda Unida, or now Podemos, who walked the streets of Seville again yesterday, around the day to celebrate what they consider the National Day of Andalusia. Socialists have always downgraded 4D. The first time this party commemorated him was five years ago.
Far from the halls of San Telmo, on December 4, the PSOE organized the first awards ceremony of its Andalusia, Socialism and Democracy Foundation, chaired by Escuredo. And there the answers to the official speeches were heard. The first President-elect of the Board said: “We must remind them that history cannot be sweetened, for history is written and irreversible”; “Some understand that Andalusism is the expression of an aesthetic”; “Some have come late to autonomy, but it is never too late when luck is good”; “The flag, the shield and the anthem belong to everyone and the only father of the Andalusian homeland is Blas Infante, one should say, because some forget it”. Most importantly, Escuredo urged his party’s secretary-general, Juan Espadas, “to be careful that no one alters, modifies, or invents history” so as not to be “erased.”
The complaint that the PP is rewriting the history of Andalusian autonomy since it ruled Andalusia after the 2018 elections is very common in the Andalusian PSOE, but so far very few voices have spoken out. The PP announces that former Ucedista minister Manuel Clavero Arévalo is “the father of modern autonomy” or, as was heard in San Telmo, that “there was no ideology” at the mass demonstrations on December 4th. And here the voice of the journalist Iñaki Gabilondo, who was among the winners along with the UGT and COOO unions, the Association of Women in Conflict Zones and the professor of labor law Miguel Rodríguez Piñero, sounded most clearly. “How come there were no ideologies? What there was was not taking sides or fighting acronyms, but regaining dignity and seeking justice… Of course he had an ideology!