Part 3: The dark clouds of fascism return.

The poetry of Miguel Hernández lives on in so many hearts. Joan Manuel Serrat, a famous Catalonian musician who was disqualified by Franco’s regime from entering the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest because he wanted to sing in Catalan, and with a career spanning six decades, devoted an album to Miguel Hernández.

In 1974, Joan Baez sang Miguel’s “Llego con Tres Heridas,” (I Come with Three Wounds) on her Spanish and Catalan album, ‘Gracias a la Vida.’ The words are on a plinth by his grave.

“Llegó con tres heridas:
la del amor,
la de la muerte,
la de la vida.”

(“He arrived with three wounds:
that of love,
that of death,
that of life.”)

Also on his grave are his words: “Libre soy. Sienteme libre. Solo por amor.” (“I am free. Feel me free. Only for love.”)

The university in Elche is named after Miguel Hernández, and so is Alicante’s international airport.

Unsurprisingly, the stag and hen parties hardly notice Miguel Hernández’s name in big letters on the side of the airport after stumbling through customs, bleary-eyed after too many smuggled whiskey shots, boarding a coach to get legless on Benidorm Strip.

But his story doesn’t end there. In 2012 the family of Miguel Hernández expressed their unhappiness with how the right-wing Popular Party-led local authority at Elche City Hall were handling his legacy. Blaming costs, the council decided to move his archives – around 5,000 of them – to nearby Quesada, a socialist-led authority where Miguel’s wife Josefina was born.

Miguel’s family campaigned for many years to have his named cleared of ‘crimes’ imposed on him by Franco’s regime. In 2010, they got them wiped from the records. But the following year, the Supreme Court rejected the family’s petition to void the summary judgment by the Franco-era military court on the grounds that it followed the law of the time. The socialist Zapatero government’s Historical Memory Law in 2007 had allowed for pardons but did not declare pre-democratic court rulings void.

In 2024, the indictments against Miguel and several other Republicans by the Franco regime were officially annulled by the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez. The courts that condemned them at the time were also declared illegitimate. But the right-wing Partido Popular (PP) and far-right Vox – respectively the second and third largest parties in the Spanish parliament – had won control of the local council in Orihuela. With support from the PP, the far-right Vox Party opposed and blocked any annulment of the legal proceedings opened by the Franco regime against Miguel Hernández.

Laid to rest in Alicante’s city cemetery, El Cementerio Municipal, and close to the grave of Miguel Hernández are other victims from both sides of the civil war. Be they victims of air raids, like the bombing of Alicante’s food market by Italian planes on 25 May 1938 which killed up to 395 people, or those executed by Franco’s firing squads. 724 victims who were shot between 1939 and 1945, after Franco declared the war over, are also served by a memorial inscribed with their names.

After the Great War – although nothing great about it given 15 – 22 million people lost their lives – the League of Nations was set up in 1920 to prevent such a conflict ever happening again. It failed. So, after World War II, major organisations like the United Nations (UN) in 1945 and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1959 were set up to ensure international peace and security. Other important bodies contributed to foster stability like the Word Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and what is now the European Union. But in a febrile world where fascism is threatening to set the world alight once again, respect for such institutions or endeavours are being undermined.

Politics is a different ball game now. The jackboots and Messerschmitts have gone. But they have been replaced with populism, culture wars, catchy slogans, lies, bribes and a contempt for international law and order.

Spain’s gross domestic product (GDP) is the best in Europe, partly because the socialist government benefits from the contribution of immigrants. But that doesn’t translate to wins in the ballot boxes. The performance of Vox – a party as close as you could get to a reincarnation of Franco’s fascists – with its strong defence of Catholicism and so-called traditional values – brags of its growing popularity. Indeed, large numbers of young people in Spain are falling for the hype with almost 40% of Spanish men aged between 18 and 34 saying they plan to vote for Vox. How long before models will be frogmarching down the catwalk in jackboots for the new Spring collection? It’s not a good look.

In 1981, Orihuela Council acquired the house where the poet, Miguel Hernández lived from the age of four. Respecting the differences of political opinions all changed in 2025 when 17 colourful vinyl plaques of the poet, erected in 2012, most of them with the Republican flag in the background, were removed from the nearby Rincón Hernandiano by Orihuela’s Cultural Department which was now run by Vox. They claimed the plaques were removed because they were “damaged”, and when removed, “further disintegrated” due to their poor condition. There were some protests in the council and police had to be called to remove protesters after the Vox Councillor for Culture, Anabel Garcia, defended their removal by equating victims of the fascists with victims of the Republicans. She said: “We must apply the same criteria of protection and recognition to the victims of the Second Republic.” Of course, there were atrocities performed on both sides, but it should be remembered that only one side overthrew a democratically elected government.

Miguel Hernández Foundation had already had its funding cut by Vox back in 2023, so it was no surprise to them to find the far-right dragging their feet when asked to return the vinyl pictures they had removed. The Partido Popular (PP) decided to abstain on the issue. Abstaining was a tactic the PP had used before when the opposition asked that the homophobic Bishop of Orihuela-Alicante, José Ignacio Munilla, who once wrote that “socialism is an enemy of the cross,” be asked to retract statements he made in support of so-called ‘conversion therapy.’ The excuse given then by the PP was that the opposition was also asking for the withdrawal of subsidies to entities linked to Munilla’s church.

Another motion that left the Vox Party without support was when they called for migrants in Orihuela all be deported to Brussels.

But there were plenty of opportunities for Vox and the PP to work together in Orihuela, for example when there was an opportunity to indulge in some standard populist fare and remove the rainbow flag from Orihuela’s City Hall. Or when they set up the Department of Family Affairs which collaborated with numerous Catholic and anti-abortion organisations, some of which, thanks to their 2025 budget, would be in receipt of grants without having to resort to such inconvenient things like ‘competitive bidding processes.’

Immigration is a contentious subject. I can understand why people are concerned when thousands of migrants pour in, speaking their own language, setting up their restaurants and businesses, occupying scarce housing, stretching resources from medical centres to schools where teachers struggle to integrate an influx of foreign children. Despite all this, Spain is not about to deport the Brits from the Costas. In any case, the British are quite capable of doing that for themselves. Riding a wave of panic over migration, the British shot themselves in the foot by voting for Brexit in 2016 which was exalted as a great panacea for the country’s immigration woes. By imposing sanctions on itself, Britain was rewarded with an estimated £140billion smaller economy, longer waiting times through customs, a block on students getting a chance to study abroad, and, with many already living abroad, British immigrants flying back to the UK if they were unable to meet their medical costs. But trusting snake oil salesmen meant that now migrants would enter the UK in even greater numbers as vacancies caused by departing Europeans had to be filled by immigrants from outside the EU. Also lost after Brexit, was the Dublin III Regulation which enabled the UK to legally return people who crossed the Channel after travelling through France or Belgium.

In the US, after the cats and dogs started eating the brains of Americans, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were kicking down the doors of immigrants and picking them off the streets before deporting them, President Trump’s crackdown won the praise of the far-right mobs. But, in violation of US law, lawyers and human rights advocates were pulling their hair out over his haphazard rush to deport people without even a court hearing.

If in the US, Trump scorns democracy, it is likely because it is a law-based system that risks seeing him and his cronies thrown in jail. Like his friend Vladimir Putin whom he also sees as a ‘victim.’ There’s nothing left for the dictators but to build alliances, not with the people, but with other law-breaking autocrats that will turn a blind eye to their abuses of power.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Tories casually discuss withdrawing from the ECHR while the far-right promise to stop small boats landing on British soil despite them being no more than 2% of the amount of immigrants entering Britain.

In the UK in 2024, after the horrific murder of three girls at a dance class in Southport, the far-right spread false rumours that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker. Egged on by the lies and scapegoating of the far-right from individuals, newspapers and TV stations, mobs stormed through the streets to burn asylum seekers alive, smashing windows and setting alight former hotels that housed them. They torched mosques and attacked anyone that looked foreign or might be helping migrants who were guilty of nothing more than going through the legal process of seeking asylum. Keir Starmer’s centre-left government was left with no option but to address the ever-repeated problem of ‘small boats’ of migrants crossing the channel. Under the guise of Reform UK, the far-right were now rubbing their hands together promising that only they were the ones that would solve the problem of immigration (created by their Brexit!)

Over five right-wing Prime Ministers – six if you want to include Keir Stamer – have allowed asylum applications to build up, all the while watching the nation blame the migrants. There were fears that efficient processing would only encourage more to apply. That must have inspired Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick to order cartoons of Mickey and Minnie Mouse to be painted over at an asylum centre for unaccompanied child migrants. Compare that to Archie’s act of kindness. What Archie showed in contrast was empathy, perhaps considering that any of those Spanish victims could have been a member of his own family escaping famine or persecution. It was not a massive leap for him to apply that same level of empathy to the gathered strangers wanting to board his boat to sail to safety. Today, the answer is in who bellows the loudest. All insisting that only they can fix migration. A cacophony of political parties is bellowing now. The loudest in Britain is Reform UK and the Tories. In Spain it is Vox and the PP.

In 2023, the PP Party took control of Alicante City council, juggling their political ideology with the needs of one of Spain’s most liberal cities. In 2025, Spain’s ruling socialist government, the PSOE named the city a ‘Lugar de Memoria Democrática.’ (A Place of Democratic Memory.) I only hope democracy doesn’t become only a memory and that this beautiful city will always be flooded with art, dance, music, poetry and colour. But if, long after his death, Miguel Hernández still felt the struggle to preserve democracy, Archie Dickson, the man who sailed those thousands of Spanish Republicans to safety, felt it even harder.

In 2024 vandals defaced Archibald Dickson’s memorial in Alicante with a black swastika.

Further Reading: –

‘The Spanish Holocaust.’ Paul Preston. Harper Press. 2012.

‘El exilio de los marinos republicanos.’ (The Exile of Republican Sailors.) Victoria Fernández Díaz. U. Valencia. 2009.

‘Captives: Concentration Camps in Franco’s Spain, 1936 – 1947.’ Javier Rodrigo. Ed. Crítica. Barcelona. 2005.

‘Los Náufragos del Stanbrook.’ (The Castaways of the Stanbrook.) Rafael Torres. Algaida Editores S A.

‘Man’s Hope’. André Malraux. 1938.

‘Adventures of a Young Man.’ John Dos Passos. 1939.

‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’. Ernest Hemingway. 1940.

‘Homage to Catalonia’. George Orwell. 1938.

‘Alicante at War: From the Republican Rearguard and Shelter City to the Destroyed, Defeated, and Francoist City.’ Rosser Limiñana. 2018. Volume I. Alicante City Council.  

Documentary on the horrors of exile in North Africa. ‘Desde el Silencio,’ Exilio Republicano en el Norte de África’ (‘From the Silence,’ Republican Exile in North Africa’) by Sonia Subirats and Aida Albert. YouTube.

‘Refugees and the Spanish Civil War.’ History Today. Larry Hannant.

‘The air combat of 4 July 1938 in Alicante.’ Ernesto Martín Martínez.

‘What happened at Santa Barbara Castle.’ Juan J. Amores.

‘Repression and Exile: Landmarks of the Civil War in Alicante.’ View from La Vila. Guy Pelham.

‘From foodships to the front lines: a forgotten Manchester heroine of the Spanish Civil War.’ Angela Jackson.

‘Who are the Harkis? The Algerians who fought against independence.’ Middle East Eye. Yasmina Allouche

‘Miguel Hernández: the power of Alicante’s Civil War poet.’ View from La Vila. Guy Pelham.

‘Miguel Hernández archive: a victim of politics or economics?’ El Pais. Ezequiel Moltó.

‘Vox does not close the door to the return of Republican vinyl records from Orihuela.’ L Verdad. Jesus Nicholas.

‘Vox in Orihuela removes ‘protestable’ images of Miguel Hernandez.’ La Vox de República.

‘Tensions erupted in Orihuela City Hall (Alicante) over the removal of portraits of Miguel Hernández by Vox and the People’s Party (PP).’ La Sexta.

‘The hard-right Vox party is winning over Spain’s youth.’ The Economist.

‘In Spain, what once seemed impossible is now widespread: the young are turning to the far right.’ The Guardian. María Ramírez.

‘Riot at asylum seeker hotel will not stain our town’. BBC News, Yorkshire. Victoria Scheer, Tom Ingall and Phil Bodmer.

‘Trump and Putin are carrying out a pincer movement on Europe’s democracies. Suddenly, it all feels a bit 1939.’ The Guardian. Simon Tisdall.

‘Spain’s voters have kept the far right out of power, but for how long?’ The Independent. Erika Jaráiz Gulías.

‘Gateway to exile: the last secret headquarters of Spain’s Civil War leaders’. View from La Vila. Guy Pelham.

‘How the Tory war on immigration backfired.’ The Guardian. Amelia Gentleman.

‘Socialism is ‘an enemy of the cross.’ Catholic News Agency. Nicolás de Cárdenas.

‘1939 British Union Of Fascists Blackshirts march.’ Kino Library.

Thanks: –

To the people who pick up the litter in Alicante. Tu haces Alicante.