The Feixina and political reading
When the Arca association asks to stop politically manipulating the Feixina monument, as it has done in recent days, it is difficult to know if it speaks from naivety or from a very specific – and very typical – form of political intervention. Because there is only one possible reading of the Feixina, and that is political. The monument was conceived politically, erected politically, and inaugurated politically. By a dictatorship.
The Feixina is not just any building from the past. It is not an architecture that, despite being born in a fascist context, can survive re-signified thanks to new uses or new readings. It is not a church or a barracks converted into a cultural center, nor a factory recycled into a civic space. The Feixina is a fascist monolith. And monoliths have always been symbols of power. Political power.
In this case, there is no room for interpretation. The monument responds exactly to the typology imposed by Francoism as an exaltation of the regime. It was designed with these parameters and inaugurated by Franco with all the propaganda liturgy typical of the time. To pretend that this can be depoliticized is absurd.
ARCA insists on a supposed heritage value that, curiously, the vast majority of heritage experts do not share. It also clings to the architect's name, as if that were enough to elevate the monument to an indisputable artistic category. But the architect could hardly decide anything: Francoism imposed the form, the symbolism, and the meaning of its monuments. Creativity was subjected to propaganda function.
In fact, the clearest proof that the Feixina continues to be a political symbol is its use by Vox. The far-right party has found its natural stage there, which it uses for its celebrations. This is no coincidence. Political symbols have this capacity to attract those who still recognize themselves in them. And the Feixina, no matter how much some insist on presenting it as a simple heritage piece, represents what it intended to represent when it was erected.
The great mistake, probably, was made by a left-wing government that believed it could depoliticize a political symbol and integrate it into a friendly reading of urban heritage. But there are symbols that cannot be deactivated because they have no other function than the symbolic one. And this is where it is particularly revealing to hear certain people claim that the issue should not be "politicized." This also happens with the Catalan language, with historical memory, or with so many other debates that affect collective identities and rights. Often, whoever demands that a topic be depoliticized is the one who has already imposed their political view and wants to present it as if it were neutral.
La Feixina is political. It always has been. The real debate is not whether there is political manipulation or not, but what democratic relationship we want to maintain with the symbols of a dictatorship. And this, inevitably, is also a political decision.