Living through the ‘Pact of Silence’: Political Violence in Biographies of Iaioflautas Activists in Spain

In the social sciences, Spain’s transición had for decades been considered an ideal and relatively non-violent transition from a dictatorship to a democracy. However, this assessment has rarely taken into account that democratization and socio-economic mobility came in exchange for the pacto del silencio (pact of silence), i.e., the taboo to address the violence of the civil war and the dictatorship in the political arena. In 2011, the transición narrative was put into question by the indignados movement, started by younger activists who, under the slogan ¡Democracia real ya! (Real democracy now!), protested against the continuous precarization of the young generation and the austerity politics in the wake of the financial crisis. Some months into their protests, they received support from a ‘grandparents’ movement’: The iaioflautas, older indignados activists, who define themselves as ‘the generation that fought and achieved a better future for our sons and daughters’. The movement brings together very experienced leftists, some of whom had already organized clandestine resistance under Franco, with newcomers who had never been politically active before. In recent years, iaioflautas have regularly been at the frontline of protests and civic disobedience, marked by their characteristic yellow vests. Their biographical experience is an important resource that endows them with a certain authority as historical witnesses, when they testify to the rescinding of transición’s underlying social pact, as well as when they point to post-franquist continuities in Spain’s democracy.

Based on campaign material and participant observation, this paper first contextualizes the movement and discusses the strategic advantages of a framing strategy based on seniority in the post-Franquist public sphere. On this basis, it looks at life stories with iaioflautas activists and reconstructs the effects of political violence on their biographies and their biographical work.