<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - dictatorship]]> 10 <![CDATA[The revolt of an 87-year-old Majorcan military man]]>

He was short, but energetic. And, above all, he was loyal to the constitutional legality. The Majorcan military man Valerià Weyler did not like it at all that his colleague Miguel Primo de Rivera staged a coup d'état and became a dictator, with the approval of the monarch of the time, Alfonso XIII. He disliked it so much that, a century ago, in June 1926, at the age of 87, he led an attempt to overthrow Primo de Rivera and return to normality: the 'Santjoanada', so named because it was to take place on the 24th, Saint John's Day.

]]> <![CDATA[Fifty]]> Now that fifty years have passed since Franco's death, both the progressive and conservative press have been keen to take stock, not so much of the man himself, but of what the fascist dictatorship meant, a regime that politically structured the country for thirty-six years. Only Portugal has had a longer right-wing dictatorship; no other country in the world (and Salazarism wasn't nearly as deadly) had a comparable iron fist, not even the military dictatorships of Venezuela or Paraguay. This, evidently, must have consequences for civil and political life, just as it does if the dictatorship is left-wing and very long, as in the USSR, China, Cuba, and Romania, among others.

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