sentimental surrealist

[pynchonoid]

<http://counterpunch.org/navarro12062003.html>

December 6 / 7, 2003

The Jackboot of Dada
Salvador Dali, Fascist

By VINCENTE NAVARRO

The year 2004, the centenary of Dali's birth, has been
proclaimed "the year of Dali" in many countries. Led
by the Spanish establishment, with the King at the
helm, there has been an international mobilization in
the artistic community to pay homage to Dali. But this
movement has been silent on a rather crucial item of
Dali's biography: his active and belligerent support
for Spain's fascist regime, one of the most repressive
dictatorial regimes in Europe during the twentieth
century.

For every political assassination carried out by
Mussolini's fascist regime, there were 10,000 such
assassinations by the Franco regime. More than 200,000
people were killed or died in concentration camps
between 1939 (when Franco defeated the Spanish
Republic, with the military assistance of Hitler and
Mussolini) and 1945 (the end of World War II, an
anti-fascist war, in Europe). And 30,000 people remain
desaparecidos in Spain; no one knows where their
bodies are. The Aznar government (Bush's strongest
ally in continental Europe) has ignored the
instructions of the U.N. Human Rights Agency to help
families find the bodies of their loved ones. And the
Spanish Supreme Court, appointed by the Aznar
government, has even refused to change the legal
status of those who, assassinated by the Franco regime
because of their struggle for liberty and freedom,
remain "criminals."

Now the Spanish establishment, with the assistance of
the Catalan establishment, wants to mobilize
international support for their painter, Dali,
portraying him as a "rebel," an "anti-establishment
figure" who stood up to the dominant forces of art.
They compare Dali with Picasso. A minor literary
figure in Catalonia, Baltasar Porcel (chairman of the
Dali year commission), has even said that if Picasso,
"who was a Stalinist" (Porcel's term), can receive
international acclaim, then Dali, who admittedly
supported fascism in Spain, should receive his own
homage." Drawing this equivalency between Dali and
Picasso is profoundly offensive to all those who
remember Picasso's active support for the democratic
forces of Spain and who regard his "Guernica" (painted
at the request of the Spanish republican government)
as an international symbol of the fight against
fascism and the Franco regime.

Dali supported the fascist coup by Franco; he
applauded the brutal repression by that regime, to the
point of congratulating the dictator for his actions
aimed "at clearing Spain of destructive forces"
(Dali's words). He sent telegrams to Franco, praising
him for signing death warrants for political
prisoners. The brutality of Franco's regime lasted to
his last day. The year he died, 1975, he signed the
death sentences of four political prisoners. Dali sent
Franco a telegram congratulating him. He had to leave
his refuge in Port Lligat because the local people
wanted to lynch him. He declared himself an admirer of
the founder of the fascist party, Jose Antonio Primo
de Rivera. He used fascist terminology and discourse,
presenting himself as a devout servant of the Spanish
Church and its teaching--which at that time was
celebrating Queen Isabella for having the foresight to
expel the Jews from Spain and which had explicitly
referred to Hitler's program to exterminate the Jews
as the best solution to the Jewish question. Fully
aware of the fate of those who were persecuted by
Franco's Gestapo, Dali denounced Bunuel and many
others, causing them enormous pain and suffering.

None of these events are recorded in the official Dali
biography and few people outside Spain know of them.
It is difficult to find a more despicable person than
Dali. He never changed his opinions. Only when the
dictatorship was ending, collapsing under the weight
of its enormous corruption, did he become an ardent
defender of the monarchy. And when things did not come
out in this way, he died.

Dali also visited the U.S. frequently. He referred to
Cardinal Spellman as one of the greatest Americans.
And while in the U.S., he named names to the FBI of
all the friends he had betrayed. In 1942, he used all
his influence to have Buñuel fired from the Museum of
Modern Art in New York, where Buñuel worked after
having to leave Spain following Franco's victory. Dali
denounced Buñuel as a communist and an atheist, and it
seems that under pressure from the Archbishop of New
York, Buñuel had to leave for Mexico, where he
remained for most of his life. In his frequent visits
to New York, Dali made a point of praying in St.
Patrick's Cathedral for the health of Franco,
announcing at many press conferences his unconditional
loyalty to Franco's regime.

Quite a record, yet mostly unknown or ignored by his
many fans in the art world.

Vicente Navarro is the author of The Political Economy
of Social Inequalities: Consequences for Health and
Quality of Life and Dangerous to Your Health. He
teaches at Johns Hopkins University. He can be reached
atnavarro at counterpunch.org.


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