 |
| Congress
of Deputies, Madrid. Photo: Roberto GarcÍa Fadón |
I guess it is partly an excuse that this is the Congreso de
Diputados in Madrid – Spain’s equivalent of the House of Commons. Still, I
can’t help thinking it’s a bit excessive even by the standards of Spanish
bureaucracy (for example, earlier that day I had made a complaint about poor
service at Atocha station, and been given four
copies to take away with me).
The aim of the exhibition ‘Constituciones 1812-1978’, according
to the blurb, is to ’tell the citizens about a significant part of our
political and constitutional history in a simple and educational manner’.
So does it succeed in doing this? At a basic level, yes. Spain
has had no less than seven constitutions, five from the 19th and two from the
20th century (the current one dates from 1978). The precious documents (and the
pens used to sign them) are arranged in alcoves around the edge of the room,
clockwise from the earliest, screens above each one picking out what was new – for
example the 1812 constitution, which the king had to swear to, limited the
power of the monarchy. The 1869 version established the right to trial by jury
and freedom of worship. The 1931 constitution abolished official religion,
stipulated a minimum wage and gave votes to women. The 1978 constitution… not
sure – instead of information about the rights conferred we get films of
committee meetings and shots of Spanish culture at the time, including Julio
Iglesias with three skimpily clad blondes and a very young Placido Domingo.
I would have liked a simple infographic
showing which rights were granted and which withdrawn each time – the power of
the monarchy seems to wax and wane over the decades, for example. They could
have taken a leaf out of The British Library’s 2015 Magna Carta exhibition,
which had small screens throughout showing how almost all of the document’s provisions
gradually became irrelevant, but what was important was how it has been
understood and used over time.
There is little sense of what Spaniards thought of the
constitutions or how the constitutions affected their lives. For me the
exhibition only sprang to life at the end, with a montage of posters and leaflets
about the public vote on the 1978 constitution. ‘No vote from the left for a
constitution of rights!’ said one. ‘We will start to change things giving a
‘yes’ to the constitution’ said the Partido del Trabajo (workers’ party) of
Spain. What was at stake? Did this constitution roll back some of the rights
established in 1931, including unemployment benefit, a minimum wage (Spain
currently has a very low minimum wage of about €850 a month) and the right of
every Spaniard to apply for a civil service job? Or did it confirm and extend
them?
There are other stories which could be told. The 1812
constitution, for example, was drafted in Cádiz under the great pressure
of the Napoleonic invasion, and was the first liberal constitution in Europe.
It was shared by ex-Spanish colonies like Venezuela and Colombia and is seen as
heralding the breakup of the Spanish empire and as raising the status of those
Latin American countries to nations of free and equal citizens. It also put the
rights of Catalonians, Basques and all other Spanish people on an equal
footing. And later, the removal of rights of the Catholic Church in 1831 is one
of the factors blamed for the Spanish Civil War.
A series of film clips at the end added much-needed
excitement and relevance to society and the wider world. So Renoir’s
schoolteacher (Charles Laughton) in the 1943 film This Land Is Mine recites sentences about human rights to the boys
at their desks as the Nazis come to take him away. Gregory Peck as Atticus
Finch defends his falsely accused client in
To Kill a Mockingbird, and turn-of-the-century factory worker Carey
Mulligan gazes, enraptured, at Meryl Streep’s Emmeline Pankhurst in Suffragettes (2015). In a documentary
clip, young US activist Aaron Swartz cites the first amendment and defends
WikiLeaks.
But I did like my takeaway thick paper copy of the current
constitution and, at a time of mistrust and contempt for politicians, admired
the attempt to make politics – no, political documents – relevant. But more
links with everyday life would have made it much better.
Constituciones 1812-1978 is at the Congreso de los
Diputados, Carrera de San Jerónimo 36, Madrid until May 31, 2019.
Congress of Deputies picture credit: Roberto GarcÍa Fadón on Flickr
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