(From the book La monarquía necesaria. Pasado, presente y futuro de la Corona en España. [The Necessary Monarchy. Past, present and future of the Spanish Crown] by Tom Burns Marañón. Publisher: Planeta, Barcelona, 2007. This article was published in Suplementos Libros de Libertad Digital, December 6, 2007.)

 

Tom Burns is back, which is excellent news. An Oxford-educated historian (He studied there with Raymond Carr,) and a vocational journalist (he was the Spanish permanent correspondent for the Financial Times for many years) he is an excellent connoisseur of our history and political life.  His trilogy of: Conversaciones sobre la Derecha, Conversaciones sobre el Socialismo, y Conversaciones sobre el Rey (Conversations about the Right, Conversations about Socialism, and Conversations about the King), is one of the most influential works to deepen the understanding of the Transition period, from dictatorship to constitutional monarchy.

 

The loss of direction for the independents of nationalism, the boom of Republicanism among Spanish leftist ranks, and the criticism against the King from conservative ranks, have placed the monarchic issue on the current political front. Burns has taken on this challenge in his double role as historian and journalist, and he has succeeded with his customary intellectual refinement.

 

The reader will be carried away by his prose, interesting text, and good choices of analysis. Nevertheless, the reader will miss certain issues, which the author has failed to include. This may be the result of desires to remain politically correct or to avoid straying from the central issue; or perhaps the text was sent to print before certain events took place; La monarquía necesaria is not a history book, but an essay. However, the historic account occupies more than half of its pages. Burns looks to the past to understand the present. He analyzes the errors of monarchs or politicians in order to grasp how we have gotten to this point and how/why Spaniards have a certain image of the Spanish Crown. The reader should not expect to find a recent history of the monarchy, but there will not be a line too many if one tries to understand the present situation.

 

Spain is a nation, if it can still be called that, in which monarchic feelings are scarce. If today the Crown remains a strong institution, it is because the Spanish people, and especially the political forces, consider it useful. That is the key to understand the continuous references to King Juan Carlos. We acknowledge our debt to the King, who facilitated Spain’s transition to democracy, as he was pivotal in containing the coup d’etat in February 1981; nevertheless, only time can restore the pro-monarchic feelings that existed in society long ago.

 

For the Left, a republic is the natural form of government. The Crown had an excellent relationship with former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe González, but Zapatero’s new Left goes beyond that. As Burns indicates, the Left’s vindication of the “Historical Memory” glorifies the Second Republic, and denounces the authoritarian origin of King Juan Carlos’s enthronement. Republican flags wave during leftist street protests, and the pro-Republican sentiment is encouraged by the government.

 

For some nationalists, the Crown is useful so long as it helps to transcend the constitutional framework and establish new ties, which recognize sovereignty. However, there are others who refuse its presence for any reason. Today, the different strands of Nationalism clearly aim at independence, a setting in which the monarchy’s role, if any, is unclear.

 

As Burns says, the Right has been the monarchy’s biggest supporter, and has best understood its constitutional role: To give continuity to a centuries-old heritage and to represent principles and values that are the foundations of our coexistence system.  

 

The author outlines well, a problem that has arisen in recent years, evidencing the Spanish people’s vision of the institution. The Left – during the Iraq war – as well as the Right – reacting to the pro-nationalist turn of the government and the negotiations with ETA – have demanded gestures from the King’s side that are not technically  required of his position. The political tension puts in doubt the “usefulness” of the monarchy.

 

Burns is right in the basic points, but there is room for some clarification; even on certain occasions, it is possible to make these points without failing to continue his own arguments.

 

The King and Felipe González tried to maintain a good relationship because it was advantageous for both. King Juan Carlos tried to reach a definitive understanding with Spanish Socialists to give stability to the monarchy. Therefore, in order to achieve it, he went beyond any advisable recommendation in his personal relations with González. This just generated bonds and dues that have put the monarch in a delicate position.

 

We were saying that the Right does it better understanding and accepting the monarchy. However, the monarchy is one thing and the veneration to King Juan Carlos – what we call Juancarlismo – is something different. Burns analyzes very well how Don Juan Carlos is not only a constitutional monarch. His strength comes from not having been just that. The King was a relevant and successful political actor. That is key to his popularity. However, there are also certain behaviors in him that would be unthinkable in Queen Elizabeth of England.

 

Ex Prime Minister, Adolfo Suárez, who worked as much with the authoritarian monarch, as the constitutionalist, is now becoming very uncomfortable with the King’s  close contact with politicians of his generation. In May 1984, the person writing these lines heard when Suárez said: “It is necessary to protect the King from himself,” in reference to the King’s tendency to go beyond his constitutional role, something otherwise understandable, if one looks at his biography.

 

Today, King Juan Carlos also makes younger Spaniards, who believe in constitutional monarchy, equally as uncomfortable. They do not appreciate, but fear, the referred close contacts. The embarrassment grows when certain behaviors of the monarch with businessmen at dinner tables come to light; if the Spanish justice worked correctly, some of them would spend some years in jail.

 

His Majesty finished with the aristocrats of the court, however with the passage of time he has been forming an even more dangerous new court to which he confides rather inappropriate political comments, exerting little discretion. If we were to also look to the old issue regarding the lack of proper control of the Royal House’s accounting books and the existing fear that the monarch might become subject of political blackmail, we can better understand the increasing worry being felt in liberal-conservative circles.  

 

The incident with President Chávez has filled newspaper pages, but it was kept out of this book for chronological reasons: It was already being printed. I doubt that Burns, as many of you, would have approved of seeing our King pointing the finger at another head of state while posing the question of why he would not shut up. We can understand the situation and the reaction, but that is not the monarch’s role. Regarding this issue, the Right has safeguarded the King; but not the Left. The incident has been used to deal a hard blow to King Juan Carlos from the pages of the pro-government newspaper; that is to say, from a group that the monarch has taken care of the most.

 

For Burns, the monarchy’s great challenge is that of the territorial issue. Indeed, other issues have ended up converging with this main issue. Zapatero’s twist – to transform the Socialist Party from Jacobin into Nationalist of any stripe – has not only helped nourish the centrifugal trends, but most importantly, it has also pushed the Constitution to the limit.

 

The territorial issue means so much more. It puts under discussion the rules of the coexistence system. What will the Crown do? Will it be able to survive? These are the big questions. In addition, let it be remembered that trying to integrate is the mission of the monarchy, but it must not be achieved at just any price. 

 

©2008 Translated by Miryam Lindberg