Pérez-Reverte suspends the convention on the Civil War after the controversy: “Some battles are won and others are lost. This is a postponed battle” | Culture | EUROtoday

Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Jesús Vigorra, organizers of the times on the Civil War who jumped into controversy when the author David Uclés introduced his withdrawal final Sunday, have introduced their postponement “until a new date”, after denouncing violent threats and strain on the contributors. The occasion was going to be held in Seville between February 2 and 5 on the Cajasol basis. The organizers have launched an announcement during which they are saying that “the intention expressed on social networks by ultra-left groups, proposing to demonstrate violently in front of the place where the 11th edition of Literature is scheduled to be held in Seville” made them “advise Cajasol to postpone the announced debates until a new date.” The two signatories, who within the be aware add some inquiries to the title of the cycle, renaming it 1936: The battle all of us misplaced?attribute the suspension to “an intolerable campaign of pressure that Podemos and related media have been exerting on some of the participants”, so as to make them surrender their participation, in a session whose content material “they knew perfectly well” and whose attendance “they had confirmed months ago.”

—I’m 74 years previous and have a variety of navy service behind me. There are battles which might be received and others which might be misplaced,” Pérez-Reverte informed EL PAÍS this Wednesday afternoon.

—And is that this a battle received or misplaced?

—This is a postponed battle.

Podemos has not been sluggish to answer the accusations of the 2 organizers. “We have better things to do.” [que organizar un boicot]the reality. What they’ve proper now could be a vital disaster of legitimacy, of status. What occurs to Pérez-Reverte is that he thinks he lives up to now. And, fortunately, our nation has modified quite a bit in latest many years and issues that could possibly be performed earlier than – standing in an equidistant place to keep away from getting moist – are now not doable,” mentioned the final secretary of the get together, Ione Belarra in this system. Everything is a lie.

Juan Antonio Delgado, the candidate of the purple get together for the Junta of Andalusia, has additionally expressed himself on this regard: “Neither Podemos has coerced anyone, nor have we called any participants. We have simply limited ourselves to giving our opinion on a public event on social networks like many other political forces and memorial organizations. And if it bothers you that we criticize, then welcome to democracy,” he informed EL PAÍS. Delgado, a former civil guard, additionally questions, like Belarra, the title of the convention. “Not all of us lost, the democrats lost. Then, waiting, progress lost,” he famous to insist that on the difficulty of reminiscence “you cannot be equidistant with fascism or with those who defend totalitarian ideas.”

The controversy broke out this Sunday when the author David Uclés (Úbeda, 36 years previous)—creator of the best-seller The peninsula of empty homes (Siruela), novel based mostly on the Civil War, and model new Nadal award with The metropolis of lifeless lights— He introduced his resignation from attending, essentially, as a result of he didn’t need to share the invoice with the previous fashionable president José María Aznar and with the previous normal secretary of Vox Iván Espinosa de los Monteros: “They have tripped up democratic values ​​and measures that make us a modern and empathetic society,” Uclés informed this newspaper. He had additionally proven his discomfort at showing in a cartel underneath the slogan “the war we all lost.” “I think the correct title would have been the war that we suffer all, which is what I defend in my book, where I deal with the intra-history of the conflict. But we didn’t all lose it,” he added.

This Wednesday afternoon, after learning of the organization’s decision to suspend the forum, the young novelist declared to EL PAÍS: “These are the things that happen when you don’t play fair and manipulate, putting us all under that motto on the poster and lying about the title of the event.” [los organizadores aseguraron que el título llevaba unos signos de interrogación que no aparecieron en el cartel]. I am glad that the days have been postponed, because they have also begun a defenestration campaign against me. And I am glad that other guests have resigned in the face of such powerful people.”

Pérez-Reverte and Vigorra address the central issue of the conflict and attack Uclés in the statement in which they announced the suspension of the forum: “One week before the conference began, and without prior notice to the organization, the novelist David Uclés (whose attendance was confirmed by himself for a conversation with the writer Luis Mateo Díez about Civil War, youth and literature), who had known perfectly well the program of the conference for months, announced on social networks, in a pitiful and childish that offends any intelligence, his refusal to participate due to the presence of Aznar and Espinosa de los Monteros.”

Uclés announced that he would not attend the forum in a three and a half minute video broadcast on his social networks, in which he argued his position in detail. Others joined his departure, such as that of the coordinator of Izquierda Unida, Antonio Maíllo; the deputy secretary general of the PSOE of Andalusia, María Márquez; the president of the Council of State, Carmen Calvo; the writer Paco Cerdá, and the sociologist Zira Box, as confirmed by the Cajasol foundation. “The vocation of Letras en Sevilla is for all voices and sensitivities to be represented, and it’s also unimaginable to rearrange this system in so few days with audio system of the identical high quality and balanced ideologies. It is healthier to cease, reschedule and look to the autumn,” sources from the foundation have explained to this newspaper.

Pérez-Reverte and Vigorra defend in their statement that everything was due to the “coercion” of the participants, which was “public and private,” including, they say, telephone calls. Some, like Minister Félix Bolaños and “all the historians with the exception of Zira Box”, maintained their commitment and confirmed their attendance.

The exception among historians, the sociologist and professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Valencia Zira Box, He gave his reasons in a published column in elDiario.es: “I may argue heroic motives that will enchantment to ‘mine’ and that will match with many with whom I share a political vote. But it would not be true. The actuality is extra prosaic, and that’s that the involuntary overexposure on networks and the strain felt by many individuals from whom I might have anticipated a calmer argumentative trade have made me quit going to an area during which I imagine we ought to be. No downside”.

The Andalusian Federation of Democratic Memory (FAMD), the entity that brings together the largest number of memorial associations in the community – the territory with the most reprisals and mass graves in Spain – has rejected these days the celebration of these days, understanding that its approach “doesn’t contribute to a democratic coexistence based mostly on the protection of human rights on the ideas of reality, justice and reparation, however as a substitute perpetuates forgetfulness and, with it, impunity,” as stated in a statement. The FAMD questioned both the title of the conference, “the war we all lost”, and one of the starting points of the cycle, that the Civil War was something “inevitable”. “This approach adopts an equidistant view that normalizes and whitewashes the 1936 coup d’état and the Franco dictatorship, deliberately ignoring the systematic repression exercised for decades against the civilian population in peacetime.”

“We believe that the postponement of these days is a triumph of citizen mobilization and of course we rule out that it is due to ultra-leftist pressure,” Pepe Barragán, spokesperson for the federation, told this newspaper, alluding to the arguments for the cancellation offered by the promoters of the meeting. “It is democratic pressure,” he stressed. Barragán highlights how the debate on the origin of the conflict also moves away from the purpose of the memorial entities. “We don’t place ourselves up to now, which is completely studied, however we need to attain the current and the longer term, the memorial motion is attempting to heal the injuries of the victims who’re nonetheless dwelling and people of the kinfolk of those that have already died, to present them dignity, we aren’t right here to take away the previous,” he pressured.