The Air Around It
Some symbols refuse to stay in the past.
Fifty years after Franco’s death—and after a dictatorship that ended with political prisoners still being executed—Spain is once again arguing over monuments, memory and the meaning of symbols inherited from authoritarianism.
But this is not only a Spanish story. From Europe to the United States and beyond, ideas and imagery once thought safely consigned to history are creeping back into respectable political life. The question is not simply what these symbols mean, but what happens to the air around us when they become ordinary again.
“The Air Around It” was first published in the US by CounterPunch and has now appeared in Spanish as “El aire que la rodea” in El Cuaderno.
English:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/09/20/the-air-around-it/
Español:
https://elcuadernodigital.com/2026/09/28/el-aire-que-la-rodea/
