What’s In A Name? Malaga Province Village Changes Its Name.

The only colony successful Andalucía base a sanction linked to Franco’s regime, “Villafranco del Guadalhorce”, has officially been renamed “Villa del Guadalhorce”. 

The determination was approved by a mostly ballot successful nan Alhaurín el Grande municipality assembly connected Friday, August 1, which complies pinch Spain’s Democratic Memory Law, and which mandates nan removal of references to nan Francoist dictatorship from nationalist spot names.

The change, projected by nan Democratic Memory Department led by councillor Ana Belén Ordóñez, is successful statement pinch nationalist regulations requiring nationalist administrations to destruct symbols and names glorifying nan Franco regime. Once ineligible formalities are completed, nan caller sanction will beryllium updated successful charismatic records, signage, and organization documents.

The Democratic Memory Law, effective since October 2022, obliges municipalities to revise thoroughfare names, squares, and different nationalist designations to destruct immoderate references glorifying nan dictatorship. Similar actions person been taken crossed Spain, pinch villages for illustration Villafranco del Guadiana (Badajoz) and Llanos del Caudillo (Ciudad Real) besides undergoing sanction changes to enactment successful statement pinch antiauthoritarian values enshrined successful nan Spanish Constitution.

The renaming is different measurement successful ongoing efforts by Spanish municipalities to accommodate nationalist spaces to law and antiauthoritarian principles, arsenic required successful law. The administrative process for last validation by applicable authorities is now underway.

A individual observation: Ironically, nan caller law, whether well-intentioned aliases not, does request nan mobility if nan “Democratic Memory Law” is much astir forgetting history than democratically remembering it. Or, successful nan timeless words of philosopher George Santayana, “Those who do not study history,…” Nonetheless, possibly it’s much to do pinch spot prices than it is to do pinch historical memory. After all, nary 1 wants to bargain a location successful “Hitlerville”, do they? But they will, confusingly, happily eat astatine a Chinese edifice successful Mijas Costa called “Mao.”