25/03/2014
Javier Redondo is a professor of Political Science at University Carlos III in Madrid. Editor of La aventura de la Historia magazine
The founding fathers of the American democracy are those who took part in the Philadelphia Convention, which approved the United States Constitution in 1787. The state delegates appointed general George Washington first President of the newly born United States of America. Among first-rate founding fathers are the three first presidents: Washington, John Adams and Jefferson. Second-rate ones include the most active delegates in favour of one of the two plans: the Virginia Plan or the New Jersey Plan. And in the third place are all other delegates who signed said Convention.
Drawing a peculiar and superficial parallelism, our third-rate founding fathers would be the constituent deputies, second-rate ones would be the seven fathers of the Constitution and, lastly, the founding father, the architect of the system, the one who knew the former regime and developed a plan to dismantle it: Adolfo Suárez. This reasoning is not designed to draw parallelisms between both figures, George Washington and Adolfo Suárez, not least when nobody in the United States dares to reproach first commander in chief of the colonial armies for having previously served the British Crown.
Furthermore, even the basis of such parallelism could be refuted: our founding moment was not 1976, but 1812. We would therefore have to search in the American history for its refounding moment, this is, the critical moment from which a perverted model undergoes a thorough review. In that case, we would have to compare Suárez with Lincoln, who was determined to form in 1861 a mixed cabinet—the plural term was less used at that time—comprising slaveholders and abolitionists, democrats and republicans, men from the South and the North. And, as if this were not enough, Lincoln early learned that his greatest adversaries would come from his own party. They regarded him as an outsider, sly and deceitful.
What I seek to convey with this exercise is that Alfonso Suárez, regardless of his mistakes, psychology, behaviour and training, was what Spain needed; in such a way that Spain still needs him, even now that he has passed away. An icon able to prevail over the context, cyclical preferences and party disputes, and to bring together the efforts of a nation. Adolfo Suárez represents the best of an era: his plan was one of harmony and reconciliation. And any self-respecting nation gives credit to those who contributed to develop a body of doctrine and values. The civil culture of a nation is based on the figures to which it pays everlasting tribute.
Adolfo Suárez was a politician. He survived a hostile environment. He tripped and he was tripped. He was not an intellectual, nor did he have thorough training. He was not an idealist, but pragmatic. He was a seducer and a normal man, ambitious, determined to wield power and, moreover, providential. But Adolfo Suárez founded our democracy. There are several biographies which do not treat Washington and Lincoln in a friendly way; which recount tricks and dodges, hidden plans and revealing silences… But none of them questions their legacy.
What we need to know is that no country needs messiahs or redeemers, but honesty and principles. That politics is appealing for those who do it: it allows them to combine personal ambition with vocation for service. That it is not an end, but a means. That it is developed in a limited period, that it is not a civil service activity, and that a few years are enough to leave an incorruptible legacy.