The Guardian reported that the Spanish officer who led the failed military coup here in Spain in 1981, in an attempt to overthrow the fledgling post-Franco democracy, has died, coincidentally in the same week that the government declassified documents relating to the event.
Antonio Tejero, who died aged 93, was one of a network of pro-Franco police and military officers whose efforts to return the country to dictatorship were thwarted when the then King, Juan Carlos, refused to support the coup and ordered the generals to obey the democratic constitutional order.
Photographs of Tejero wearing the evocative patent leather hat of the Guardia Civil and brandishing a pistol at MPs in Congress on 23 February 1981, are among some of the most indelible images of our country’s young democracy.
Tejero’s family announced the death on Wednesday, in a statement that said Tejero had devoted his life “to God, Spain and his family”.
Why is it important for us? Because it reminds us how far the Franco regime and its subsequent followers used Christian words and symbols to justify its repressive and anti-democratic policies, in the same way that right wing parties today, in Russia, the US and elsewhere – even in the UK – are seeking to exploit religious symbolism to narrow our culture and exclude people of other faiths. Religion and politics do mix, but not like this.
Read the full story on the Guardian here.
Picture above – Antonio Tejero by Diario Región (Oviedo)Agencia EFE – Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimonio Bibliográficohttps://bvpb.mcu.es/es/consulta/registro.do?id=492157, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97560932