La Ley de Memoria Histórica: reparación e insatisfacción Julio ...

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Permanecen, sin duda, no pocos riesgos. Unos de ellos, por demás evidente, no es instrumental sino conceptual. Las Memorias Colectivas, sus tendencias y sus luchas, no pueden ni oscurecer ni, menos, sustituir o cambiar la Historia. Las Memorias, las batallas de la Memoria, como hemos dicho en otras ocasiones, no pueden separarse un ápice de las Memoria de las batallas. Las Memorias tienen que templarse y confrontarse en el yunque duro de una Historia bien sabida, bien explicada y bien comprendida. La Historia prevalece sobre la Memoria, la justifica o la rectifica y, como bien público, colectivo y trascendente, no puede ser escrita a gusto de todos, pero tampoco al gusto de unos pocos. Las Memorias son cambiantes, generacionalmente cambiantes. La Historia, lo consiga o no, debe ser un espejo en el que todos, todas esas Memorias, puedan reflejarse sin acusar deformaciones. Nuestro país llega tarde a la reparación moral y material de sus tragedias en el panorama de la convulsa Europa del siglo XX. Esta tardanza no altera, en absoluto, su necesidad. Nosotros debemos superar las consecuencias de un conflicto de mayor entidad y gravedad que otros, como es la guerra civil y no el derivado de la proyección de ideologías, intereses y ansias hegemónicas a escala internacional que determinan las catástrofes europeas y mundiales del siglo anterior. Un conflicto civil es el peor de los traumas que puede vivir una sociedad constituida. Reparar sus consecuencias no admite ningún subterfugio. Una prueba de generosidad más y final es la renuncia colectiva a retomar la depuración de las responsabilidades, manifiestas y enumerables, que caben a personas y colectivos por haber desencadenado la tragedia que hoy se pretende reparar en lo posible. Es tarde para ello, y no caben lamentaciones por la forma en que la Historia ha transcurrido. Las responsabilidades son conocidas. Su depuración no es inseparable de la reparación de sus consecuencias. Por ello, el tránsito por la vía de las sanciones penales para los responsables no es obligatorio, aunque fuese plausible. Nuestra reconsideración del pasado puede transitar por el perdón de quienes fueron culpables. Pero no por el olvido de sus culpas. La llamada Ley de Memoria Histórica es un proyecto de Justicia que nos pone ante el reto de hacerla completa, ciega, generosa y reconciliadora. Y la responsabilidad colectiva de los españoles de hoy es asumir tal reto. Cualquier otra consideración es tan engañosa, tan falaz, como inútil. Madrid, mayo de 2009. The Law, with greater or lesser accuracy, tries to address this Memory to a much more decided degree than what took place in the Transition, without forgetfulness nor false reconciliation. From there it has been said with accuracy, as far as we believe, that the true spirit of the text reflects the feelings of a good part of a new generation which does not base the reconciliation in the transitional thinking of the 1970s but rather in the search for an historical legitimacy like that which the Republic had possessed subverted by an illegitimate uprising. The fundaments of democracy are thereby consolidated and not by the obligatory necessary transactions in a process of overcoming of old tragedies, but in the legitimacy granted by a freely elected regime. Was it necessary that this new spirit of reparation could work itself out precisely through a Law? Could the same goals have been achieved by other less-solemn but perhaps more pragmatic routes? Here are questions for which the majority of opinions would today be superfluous. The Law of reparation exists and the great challenge now is to make it effective, to use all its resources and to make its utility recompense its lateness. This is also due to very explainable reasons. Justice is stronger when it comes in its own time and tempo. But History almost always imposes its own prescriptions. Without a doubt, there remain no few risks. One of them, otherwise evident, is not instrumental but rather concep- 58 tual. The Collective Memories, their trends and their fights, can neither darken nor, even less, substitute or change History. The Memories, the battles of the Memory, as we’ve said on other occasions, cannot be separated by a hair from the Memory of the battles. The Memories need to calm down and confront themselves on the hard anvil of a History that’s well known, well explained, and well understood. History prevails over Memory, justifies it or rectifies it and, as a public, collective, and transcendent good, cannot be written to the taste of all, but neither to the taste of just a few. The Memories are changing, generationally changing. History, whether it achieves it or not, should be a mirror in which all, all those Memories, can be reflected without deformations. Our country arrives late to the moral and material reparation of its tragedies in the panorama of the convulsive Europe of the 20th Century. This lateness does not change one whit its necessity. We must overcome the consequences of a conflict of greater importance and gravity than others, as is the Civil War and not that derived from the projection of ideologies, interests, and hegemonic anxieties on an international scale which determine the European and world catastrophes of the past century. A civil conflict is the worst of the traumas that a constituted society can live. To make reparation for its consequences allows for no subterfuges.
An additional and final test of generosity is the collective rejection to reconsider the depuration of the manifest and innumerable responsibilities which fall on people and collectives for having unleashed the tragedy for which reparations, to the degree possible, are trying to be made. It is late for this, and lamentations overflow for the form in which History happened. The responsibilities are known. Their depuration is not inseparable from the reparation of their consequences. For it, the transition along the path of the penal sanctions for those responsible is not obligatory, although it would be plausible. Our reconsideration of the past can travel along the forgiveness of those who were guilty. But not the forgetting of their guilt. The Historical Memory Law is a project of Justice which places us before the challenge of making it complete, blind, generous, and reconciliatory. And the collective responsibility of the Spaniards of today is to take up this challenge. Any other consideration is as deceitful, as false, as it is useless. Madrid, May 2009 Arriba, Frente de Moncloa. Tanque capturado, Madrid 1936. Archivo Rojo. Archivo General de la Administración. Ministerio de Cultura. 59
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