02-15-2015, 07:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-15-2015, 07:47 AM by panamaniac.)
(02-15-2015, 12:14 AM)eizenstriet Wrote: The Spaniards were laid back enough 40 years ago, but the official apparatus sure wasn't. I remember when I was touring Europe after finishing my academic years that one of general Franco's Guardia Civil (the guys with the 3-cornered hats) rushed at me in menacing fashion with his machine gun leveled because I had taken a picture of him. During a casual conversation in a bar, when political questions were raised by me, a patron looked around the room carefully and said: "Sir, we do not discuss such things."
Good for the country that the lid of oppression was lifted. I will soon be going to Barcelona and am very much looking forward to it and to interacting with an unencumbered citizenry.
Indeed. I did a semester in Madrid in 1976, the summer after Franco died. All the discussion was about whether Spain would change now that Franco was gone. They could not have imagined what followed. The parallel here in Uruguay would be their own period of dictatorship, mid-70s to mid-80s. Today it's probably the most progressive place in Latin America.