Thu, 30 April 11:00 2009

A very long night to remember

Writer Javier Cercas, who was 19 in 1981, intended to write a novel about the attempted coup d’etat in Spain on February 23 that year, but preliminary research persuaded him that the plot did not require disguising as fiction.
Instead he wrote ‘Anatomia de un instante’ published on April 8, retelling the events of that day, maintaining amongst other things that it was ‘a bad moment for Spain’ when nobody made a good impression. Cercas also claimed that King Juan Carlos’s ‘indiscretions’ and desire to be rid of the president of the government, Adolfo Suarez, indirectly encouraged the coup. It all began just after 6pm on February 23, 1981, when Guardias Civil officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, erupted into the Hemiciclo, the parliament chamber in Madrid. A vote was in progress to approve Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as successor to Adolfo Suarez who had steered Spain to a multi-party democracy and headed the Union del Centro Democratico, a coalition of small parties that had governed since 1977.
To generalised relief, less than a month earlier, Suarez announced his decision to resign. UCD was visibly disunited, ETA was on a killing spree and Suarez’s position at the head of the government was untenable. The old guard, used to the old ways, believed that only a coup d’etat could put the country back on an even keel, but the coup collapsed.
Juan Carlos, nominated by Franco to succeed him, used his rank and the loyalty of the generals in charge of each military region to call them to order, reminding them that he was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
In a televised address he insisted on the legitimacy of the 1978 Constitution and the democratically elected government.
The coup fizzled out before the explosion arrived. On February 24, 18 hours after occupying the parliament chamber, Tejero and his men surrendered. To say, as Cercas suggests, that ‘very few people were willing to face up to things’ that night is simplistic. Rather than passivity there was fear and immense regret in countless homes that night as socialists and communists involved in local politics burned books and papers. Some planned to escape from the military dictatorship they believed would once again clench Spain in a mailed fist.
The attempted coup served an immense purpose to the politicians held captive in the Hemiciclo that night, to those behind the aborted conspiracy and to the Spanish population who did not sleep during that long night. Because five years and two months after the death of Franco, democracy was consolidated and there was to be no going back.

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