The Cabildo of Tenerife (led by CC and PP) suggested this weekend to rename the Franco monument as Monument for Concord and redefine it as “a space for remembrance that fosters peace and understanding among citizens.” A motion will be put forward in plenary for this purpose. This announcement has attracted significant criticism, even from the City Council of Santa Cruz de Tenerife itself, which is governed by the same parties and has previously taken legal action against the Catalogue of Francoist Relics, concluding that this statue does not comply with historical memory laws.
The Insular Corporation, headed by Rosa Dávila (CC), released this decision following the publication last Friday in the BOC which initiates procedures to begin a file assessing whether the Franco monument is classified as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) as requested by various associations in the courts and as determined in a ruling last June.
With regard to this administrative process (the opening of a file to ascertain the BIC status of the statue), while the Cabildo has jurisdiction, it does not hold the authority to rename monuments, which falls under the purview of local councils, according to the Cultural Heritage Law of the Canary Islands. In fact, the Catalogue of Francoist Vestiges of the Canary Islands has been compiled by municipalities, who have been actively renaming streets and monuments associated with Franco across Spain.
The mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, expressed his disapproval of the idea of redefining the monument in a statement. José Manuel Bermúdez (CC) emphasised that “the Cabildo has embarked on the course that justice has mandated, which is to initiate the proceedings to declare the Ávalos monument as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC), something I consider appropriate. However, for it to propose changing the name of a sculpture that is owned by the municipality, which it cannot do because it is not under its remit, seems nonsensical to me.”
Why the monument cannot be given new meaning
“100,000 individuals from across the Canary Islands gathered in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in front of the monument that commemorates the departure of Generalissimo Franco, when he was the Captain General of the Canary Islands, to lead the national movement. This original creation by Ábalos was funded by the citizens of Tenerife through a popular subscription. In speeches given by provincial authorities and the Minister of Commerce, significant events of that day were recounted. The occasion culminated in a collective offering.” This is how the 1966 node introduced the inauguration of the monument.
Known as the monument to the caudillo, it is a structure designed and erected at the intersection of Rambla de Santa Cruz (formerly Rambla del General Franco) and Avenida de Francisco La Roche (previously Avenida de Anaga) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and is currently devoid of value declarations necessary for the protection of artistic, architectural, or religious heritage assets by the appropriate authorities.
Controversy Over Historical Monument
Various authorities are currently addressing the situation. “From this standpoint, preserving the monument in its entirety is not compulsory, given that it is a complex that transgresses the democratic ideals of coexistence and contributes to the misrepresentation of historical truth, whilst representing the most pronounced display of glorification of the dictator as a messianic persona,” emphasises the Catalogue of Vestiges of the Canary Islands, which was ratified by a majority within the Technical Commission of Historical Memory.
The coordinator of the Catalogue of Francoist Vestiges in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and lecturer in Art History at the ULL, Maisa Navarro, has stated to this publication that it is “unseemly” for such a reinterpretation of the sculpture to be suggested. Among the factors that obstruct this is the sculpture’s foundation (symbolising the island of Tenerife), the ‘Dragon Rapide’, the aircraft that Franco utilised to fly from the Canary Islands to Morocco to instigate the coup d’état; the portrayal of Franco “as a medieval crusader,” clad in a cape and wielding a sword, along with the nine shields of the provincial judicial divisions symbolising “the legal endorsement for the Civil War as just and lawful.”
An earlier report concerning the Catalogue of Vestiges of the Canary Islands, commissioned by the mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife from the University of La Laguna and overseen by the same researcher, concluded that the monument was created as a result of various propaganda initiatives aimed at turning the urban space near the port (similar to the Monument to the Fallen) into a lasting reminder of diverse ideological concepts that shaped Spanish history throughout the Franco regime: primarily, it served to perpetuate the memory of the port from which General Franco journeyed to Gran Canaria to commence the military uprising.
Furthermore, that study noted that the monument “offers an interpretation that imposes a distorted narrative regarding the war and its aftermath for the defeated, aiming at the eternal glorification of victory and, in this instance, the sanctification of the dictator’s persona.”
Legislative Perspectives
Navarro informs this publication that even if the Cabildo of Tenerife manages to secure a BIC designation for the monument through convoluted processes, the Democratic Memory Law of 2022 already mandates the removal of all references to war and insurrection. “Allusions present in place names, within the street index or in the titles of public centres concerning the military uprising and the Dictatorship, its leaders, participants in the repressive regime, or the organisations that supported it, will be deemed elements counter to democratic memory, including the dictatorship, and the collaborative civil or military units between the Franco regime and the Axis forces during the Second World War,” this legislation specifies, exclusively discussing the reformulation of the historical Valley of the Fallen as Cuelgamuros, as Maisa Navarro points out.
While the Law stipulates that “should there be artistic or architectural justifications necessitating the preservation of the above-mentioned components, an acknowledgment should be incorporated aimed at the reinterpretation of such elements in alignment with democratic memory.” However, the sculpture was never recognised as BIC prior to the enactment of historical memory laws, and technical assessments from both the Cabildo and the ULL have not identified artistic elements that warrant its retention in its current location.
“They aim to distort the essence of the memory laws by attempting to impose a theoretically artistic rationale,” the Art History professor asserts.
Consideration of Reports from Supportive Entities
Following the June ruling, the Cabildo initiated a process to ascertain whether the statue ought to be designated as BIC. In this pursuit, it has been decided that evaluations will be sought from: the University of La Laguna, the autonomous museum organisation, the official council of architects from Tenerife, the Royal Canarian Academy of Fine Arts San Miguel de Arcángel (which advocated for the statue’s BIC designation), the National Museum of Sculpture, and the Royal Academy of Extremadura (“as Juan de Ávalos originates from Mérida and possesses his own museum. Ávalos’ artistic contributions have always featured prominently in this institution’s programming).
