Remembering in Silence

Daniel Hannan has a good reflection on the memory of the Spanish Civil War.

An excerpt:

And it was a terrible period. Both sides were awful: authoritarian, anti-democratic and bloodthirsty. Most of us, I suspect, would been somewhere in the middle, supporting personal liberty, the rule of law, property rights and free elections. But that option was closed. The few who tried to advocate it, like José María Aznar's grandfather, found themselves condemned to death by both sides.

Spaniards had good reason to want to bury the whole foul business. Now that they have decided to unearth it, they are doing so in the manner of an archaeological dig: gently, reverentially, and with patient brushwork. Foreign observers occasionally ask why they don't make more noise about it. The answer is that they won't wave their fathers' shrouds as political banners. The dead have suffered enough.