The project ‘The Voice of Memory’ is presented as an innovative tool to connect with all audiences, especially young people, using current digital language to narrate the events preceding the 1936 coup d'état. Minister Ángel Víctor Torres emphasizes that this format, which includes news and moving images from the era, allows for a closer experience of historical reality, comparing its effect to that of historical novels.
Torres underscores the crucial role of this project in the fight against historical disinformation and simplistic narratives about the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship. He points out that, despite attempts by ultra-sectors to whitewash Francoism, this project is based on real information and actively combats the distorting narrative often spread on social media, particularly among young people.
The minister hopes that readers will draw their own conclusions about the advancements achieved during the Second Republic in terms of labor, political, economic, and social rights, such as divorce or the increased presence of women in public and scientific spheres. He recalls that these advances were curtailed during Francoism, a period of 40 years of darkness, fear, and absence of freedoms. He highlights the importance of current democracy, achieved after the dictatorship, and how it allows for freedoms previously unimaginable, such as the freedom to love openly, in contrast to the persecution suffered by the LGTBI community in past eras.
Torres regrets that aspects such as the social and democratic advancements of the Second Republic are less known. He highlights that Spain was an advanced country for its time, with active social dreams and struggles, and criticizes how a retrograde sector imposed a coup d'état to nullify the popular will. The project, according to the minister, serves to detect the danger of intransigence and how totalitarianism advances through propaganda and fear, a mechanism that, although without the internet in 1936, was already used by media aligned with fascism.
Finally, Minister Ángel Víctor Torres calls for the protection of democracy, describing it as a 'pearl'. He acknowledges its imperfections and the need for continuous improvement, but defines it as the system that has brought the most progress and freedoms to Spain. He expresses his incomprehension towards those who, having come to power through a democratic vote, oppose recognizing those who fought for the freedoms enjoyed today.
