1 00:00:00,610 --> 00:00:08,020 Hi, everyone. My name is Barbara Mowgli's and I'm a pitch the candidate in history at York University in Toronto. 2 00:00:08,020 --> 00:00:15,370 And I'm here to talk about trans national Francoism, the British and Canadian Friends of National Space. 3 00:00:15,370 --> 00:00:23,700 In this presentation, Ali, introduce you to the friends of National Spain, and I'll talk a little bit about what's been said about them so far, 4 00:00:23,700 --> 00:00:28,260 and then I'll dedicate some time to my own contribution in my own research. 5 00:00:28,260 --> 00:00:34,290 And I'll finish by suggesting that this study, all the friends of national Spain as a transnational network, 6 00:00:34,290 --> 00:00:39,670 is actually illuminating to better understand today's transnational right. 7 00:00:39,670 --> 00:00:45,850 Today's presentation is largely based on my recently published article entitled Transnational Francoism, 8 00:00:45,850 --> 00:00:52,810 the British and Canadian Friends of Spain, 1930s, 1950s, which has been published in the contemporary British history. 9 00:00:52,810 --> 00:00:55,870 So for more detail, you can always refer to the article. 10 00:00:55,870 --> 00:01:01,120 And if you still have questions, you can always email me or contact me at the end of this presentation. 11 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:07,350 I'll share my e-mail address so you can do so. In July 1936, 12 00:01:07,350 --> 00:01:12,360 when the Spanish Civil War breaks out because a group of so-called national 13 00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:17,670 is launched a coup against the democratically elected Republican government. 14 00:01:17,670 --> 00:01:24,780 British loyalist and author of a biography of Benito Mussolini Shores Italy leads defamation of friends of national Spain. 15 00:01:24,780 --> 00:01:26,460 In London. 16 00:01:26,460 --> 00:01:34,680 The Friends of National Spain was originally established by a small group of friends composed largely of dissatisfied conservative politicians. 17 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:39,030 Their goal was to foster a positive attitude in British government towards Franco's 18 00:01:39,030 --> 00:01:44,530 costs against the republic into improve Anglo Spanish relations in general. 19 00:01:44,530 --> 00:01:53,000 Their motto, as was that of the Nationals, was to restore the Christian order in the West. 20 00:01:53,000 --> 00:02:00,390 The members of the Friends of National in Spain, in England included Anglicans, Catholics, Methodists and Protestants. 21 00:02:00,390 --> 00:02:05,670 The ecumenical character of the Friends of National Spain was partly the result of seeking to develop a 22 00:02:05,670 --> 00:02:12,780 mass membership which would cut across existing political divisions and would reinvigorate the right. 23 00:02:12,780 --> 00:02:19,100 The friends of National Spain constituted a group of Christian nationalists so different from secular or civic nationalism. 24 00:02:19,100 --> 00:02:24,340 Christian nationalism advocates Christianity as a social political ordering mechanism. 25 00:02:24,340 --> 00:02:27,710 So it is as ethnic and political as it is religious SWIP, 26 00:02:27,710 --> 00:02:39,310 because Christian nationalism does use religious based understandings of differences to implement new social political orders or states. 27 00:02:39,310 --> 00:02:47,650 That's why they understood the Spanish Civil War in religious terms. They saw the Republican side of the conflict as anti Christian, as anti God, 28 00:02:47,650 --> 00:02:52,720 as communists in general, and so the enemy of Western Christian civilisation. 29 00:02:52,720 --> 00:03:01,450 That is why they thought to defending Franco's right to revolt against the republic was, in fact, defending Britain's interests as well. 30 00:03:01,450 --> 00:03:08,020 He on the right up included a nationalist propaganda poster that shows you what is that the nationalists were promoting that they were against. 31 00:03:08,020 --> 00:03:12,770 So you see Bolshevism, Masand, re symbols of Judaism and separatism. 32 00:03:12,770 --> 00:03:19,630 So essentially nationalist sentiment in Catalonia and the Basque regions in Spain. 33 00:03:19,630 --> 00:03:26,980 It is hardly surprising that London in England had become the headquarters of an organisation like The Sounds of Spain. 34 00:03:26,980 --> 00:03:33,100 London's conservatives had been riding against the Spanish Second Republic since before the Spanish Civil War broke out. 35 00:03:33,100 --> 00:03:38,140 So in July of 1936, they ruled against this social and economic carlos that, 36 00:03:38,140 --> 00:03:41,860 according to their view, resulted from the removal of the Spanish monarchy. 37 00:03:41,860 --> 00:03:49,770 So the Spanish monarchy fell in April of 1931 when the democracy was finally established in Spain. 38 00:03:49,770 --> 00:03:56,040 When the Spanish Civil War broke out, they supported the nationalists passionately, largely because of their anticommunism, 39 00:03:56,040 --> 00:04:01,860 but also because they saw in the coup against the Republic the possibility not only for national but also transnational 40 00:04:01,860 --> 00:04:07,860 conservative revolution towards the restoration of what they thought was the natural order of the monarchy in the church, 41 00:04:07,860 --> 00:04:18,390 not democracy, but the monarchy and the church. The propaganda said by defensive Nigel Spain, by means of pamphlets, lectures and meetings, though, 42 00:04:18,390 --> 00:04:24,780 was far less successful in mobilising British opinion than that said by Republican groups. 43 00:04:24,780 --> 00:04:27,630 In fact, for Fonkoze supporters constituted a minority. 44 00:04:27,630 --> 00:04:37,270 For example, in January 1937, only 14 percent supported the nationalist led by at the time already, General Funchal. 45 00:04:37,270 --> 00:04:46,060 I've included here a picture of Franco for those who are not familiar with what he looked like. 46 00:04:46,060 --> 00:04:51,310 Less than six months after the friends of Donald Spain was officially established in England, 47 00:04:51,310 --> 00:05:00,830 a Scottish branch was inaugurated in Glasgow under the gaze of General Franco's portrait and Edinburgh branch followed in June 1938. 48 00:05:00,830 --> 00:05:04,370 Echoing the objects of the London based Friends of Spain, 49 00:05:04,370 --> 00:05:09,110 the Scottish branch explained that the society aims at spreading the true facts about the conflict 50 00:05:09,110 --> 00:05:14,840 in Spain and thereby offend the Christian religion against the attacks of the anti got campaign, 51 00:05:14,840 --> 00:05:17,430 meaning the Republican campaign. 52 00:05:17,430 --> 00:05:25,200 Its founder, Walter Scott, revealed that the Scottish Friends of National Spain had been established out of sympathy with the Spanish Christians who, 53 00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:29,100 according to him, were suffering against the forces of communism. 54 00:05:29,100 --> 00:05:34,680 So establishing a Scottish branch of the Friends of National in Spain was based on moral grounds. 55 00:05:34,680 --> 00:05:39,890 The Scottish Friends of National Spain collected financial aid and other contributions for the nationalist 56 00:05:39,890 --> 00:05:46,920 Tasco received by Marie-Louise Louis Mocksville Scott of urban anti-communist woman who promoted fascist Italy, 57 00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:55,410 Nazi Germany and, frankly, Spain. So what I've explained thus far is not new. 58 00:05:55,410 --> 00:06:01,770 Until now, historians knew about the friends of national Spain, but they understood it as a British organisation, 59 00:06:01,770 --> 00:06:08,100 a pro nationalist network resulting from domestic concerns on economic and political interests. 60 00:06:08,100 --> 00:06:16,970 Specifically, the friends of National Spain had been studied as part of a broader into word mobilisation in Great Britain for a Christian revolution. 61 00:06:16,970 --> 00:06:24,740 Although these accounts reveal the existence of an organised and influential forum over its support for Franco with divisions in England and Scotland, 62 00:06:24,740 --> 00:06:31,540 they failed to identify the transnational nature of the network. 63 00:06:31,540 --> 00:06:36,520 Last year, while I was doing research on Christian nationalism in Canada for my dissertation, 64 00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:41,950 I discovered a series of pamphlets and leaflets that had been published by the English headquarters of the Friends 65 00:06:41,950 --> 00:06:50,100 of National Spain and had been shipped to Montreal to be delivered to a local branch of the Friends of Spain. 66 00:06:50,100 --> 00:07:01,550 This discovery proved the defence of national Spain was not an exclusively British organisation, but was actually a transnational pro Frankl movement. 67 00:07:01,550 --> 00:07:07,910 Identifying cross-reference is related to the friends of national Spain in the English, Scottish and Canadian newspapers, 68 00:07:07,910 --> 00:07:13,970 as well as sure printed material and long personal papers of former friends of National Spain members. 69 00:07:13,970 --> 00:07:21,460 I demonstrated the defensive national Spain was, in fact, an international phenomenon. 70 00:07:21,460 --> 00:07:27,700 What I found out is that the Montreal based Friends of Spain was recruiting members by July nineteen thirty eight, 71 00:07:27,700 --> 00:07:35,620 becoming a member of the Canadian Friends of Spain, men paying five dollars in fees towards propaganda, which was a lot of money at the time, 72 00:07:35,620 --> 00:07:40,780 and which tells you what sort of membership the organisation in Canada have. 73 00:07:40,780 --> 00:07:45,370 So we're talking here about upper class Canadians. 74 00:07:45,370 --> 00:07:51,710 The members of the Canadian Friends of National Spain were not as ecumenical as those in England, but they were multi-ethnic. 75 00:07:51,710 --> 00:07:57,110 So, for example, members included Catholic Canadians of Irish, Ukrainian, English and French. 76 00:07:57,110 --> 00:08:06,770 The son. They constituted Canadians in between with identities that did not fit into the two nations narrative of Canadian nationalism. 77 00:08:06,770 --> 00:08:12,080 So, for example, you'd have Irish and English Canadians who are not Protestants, but Catholics, 78 00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:20,590 Ukrainian ethnic minorities and French Canadians whose first language was not French but English because of their mixed the son. 79 00:08:20,590 --> 00:08:27,140 The British friends of National Spain would have embody that upward looking sense of identity based on religious fraternity. 80 00:08:27,140 --> 00:08:37,050 And then to surpass ethnic and nationalist quarrels, to engage, to set in a global quest for the survival of Western civilisation. 81 00:08:37,050 --> 00:08:43,570 I call national Francoism the international and coordinated support for Franco. 82 00:08:43,570 --> 00:08:50,370 And we know that the friends of national Spain was a form of transnational Francoism because from 1938 to 1939. 83 00:08:50,370 --> 00:08:55,800 The press reported that the talks and still being organised by friends of National and Spain 84 00:08:55,800 --> 00:09:02,830 in Montreal was permanently in contact with the London Friends of National Spain headquarters. 85 00:09:02,830 --> 00:09:09,860 The London headquarters not only printed and shipped material to Montreal for the local branch of the friends of nationalist Spain, 86 00:09:09,860 --> 00:09:16,670 but they would also recommend visitors who could deliver speeches on their view of the Spanish Civil War. 87 00:09:16,670 --> 00:09:20,690 So, for example, in my article, you will find a case of Bernard Fay, 88 00:09:20,690 --> 00:09:30,200 a Frenchman who was an anti-Semite and a sympathiser of Nazi Germany and Italy, who visited Spain and actually became friends with Franco burnout. 89 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:38,030 They met the two men are the friends of National Spain in London and gave a speech in London as well as in Montreal. 90 00:09:38,030 --> 00:09:44,000 Only months later. So we do know that through the exchange of material and contacts, 91 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:49,460 the friends of National Spain became a trans national network that exemplified 92 00:09:49,460 --> 00:09:56,560 very much the transnational Francoism that I'm talking about in my article. 93 00:09:56,560 --> 00:10:03,290 With the outbreak of the Second World War, though, ideological companionship with fascism was considered unpatriotic and so soon 94 00:10:03,290 --> 00:10:09,250 enough of national Spain disappeared from sight both in Britain and in Canada. 95 00:10:09,250 --> 00:10:14,560 In 1950, though, a new version of the Friends of National Spain was formed in July that year, 96 00:10:14,560 --> 00:10:18,460 the Scottish Society of Friendship with the Peoples of Spain was formed. 97 00:10:18,460 --> 00:10:25,040 And shortly thereafter, an Anglo Spanish Lake of Friendship was formed in London. 98 00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:27,050 Unlike the original friends of National Spain, 99 00:10:27,050 --> 00:10:34,470 this new network was theoretically more concerned with diplomatic relations supposedly than it had no political aims. 100 00:10:34,470 --> 00:10:40,160 Older than the restoration of formal diplomatic relations with Spain, 101 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:46,520 the society presented itself as a new, non-sectarian, voluntary and self-appointed body. 102 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:53,570 I've included here a picture of Jean Maxwell Scott, the Scottish Friends of National, a stain honour president in the 50s. 103 00:10:53,570 --> 00:11:00,380 It must be noted that neither Montreal or London ever had any women in leading positions of the organisation. 104 00:11:00,380 --> 00:11:11,380 But Scotland always had women of the Maxwell Scott family occupy leading positions in the Friends of Nationals fan bases. 105 00:11:11,380 --> 00:11:17,910 I like Scotland and England in post-war Canada. The friends of national Spain seem to have been completely disbanded. 106 00:11:17,910 --> 00:11:26,940 Quebec's demands for more independence led to a concern that Canada was to fall apart and be divided between Catholics and Protestants. 107 00:11:26,940 --> 00:11:31,110 And so the former members of the Fence of National Spain became more and more concerned 108 00:11:31,110 --> 00:11:38,220 about local events rather than being concerned with transnational networks and movements. 109 00:11:38,220 --> 00:11:46,810 A new local focus was taking place in Britain as well, with the dismantling of the British Empire while in the 30s, the friends of national Spain. 110 00:11:46,810 --> 00:11:56,650 We'll talk about Christian interest in America and in Europe after World War two, they would limit their discourse to Christian Europe. 111 00:11:56,650 --> 00:12:04,570 Only the secretary of the Scottish Friends of nationalist Spain seemed to still persist in the idea that the revolution had to be transnational. 112 00:12:04,570 --> 00:12:11,860 However, even he believed that the leader of that transnational conservative revolution resided in Europe. 113 00:12:11,860 --> 00:12:17,430 In the process of relocating Francoism at the centre of a new discourse on European Christian identity, 114 00:12:17,430 --> 00:12:24,640 the possibilities for a new front British movement to have an international significance diminished as a consequence. 115 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:33,040 Canada never experienced the resurgence in organised with support inspired by Britain. 116 00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:39,250 By specifically focussing on the transfer of reaction or imaginary on events in Spain from Britain to Canada, 117 00:12:39,250 --> 00:12:46,050 this study discloses the impact that the British Friends of National Spain had upon the Canadian extreme right. 118 00:12:46,050 --> 00:12:51,180 It demonstrates that Francoist propaganda that in Canada was significantly influenced by reactionary groups in 119 00:12:51,180 --> 00:12:58,930 Britain and suggest that Canadian pro Franco mobilisation was reline is not dependent on British Francoism. 120 00:12:58,930 --> 00:13:05,810 In stressing the cooperation between different Christian denominations for the establishment of defensive national in Spain, at home and abroad. 121 00:13:05,810 --> 00:13:17,190 I argued the defence of national Spain became a means for the development of a form of Christian nationalism that was, in fact, transnational. 122 00:13:17,190 --> 00:13:22,970 Today, the idea that Europe is formed by a group of associated Christian states has emerged once again in the wake. 123 00:13:22,970 --> 00:13:28,370 Write this course. Radical populism in countries like the Netherlands, 124 00:13:28,370 --> 00:13:33,590 the United Kingdom or Germany have referred to their Christian roots to the pick an idea of who they 125 00:13:33,590 --> 00:13:40,350 are as nations and as Europeans will also defining those who represent a threat to their identity. 126 00:13:40,350 --> 00:13:45,450 By insisting that Christian nationalism can be a trans national tool to find belonging. 127 00:13:45,450 --> 00:13:50,250 My study challenges the larger assumption than pluralism and religious nationalism are 128 00:13:50,250 --> 00:13:56,190 inherently opposed and suggest that it is precisely the influence of the latter over the former. 129 00:13:56,190 --> 00:14:06,700 That allows for the institutionalisation of racism. My sure article entitled Christian Europe and the Normalisation of the Radical Right. 130 00:14:06,700 --> 00:14:07,870 I explain it a little bit. 131 00:14:07,870 --> 00:14:14,830 The connexions between today's Christian nationalism and the Christian nationalism expressed by the friends of national Spain. 132 00:14:14,830 --> 00:14:21,040 So for more detail on that topic, please refer to the article. That's all for today. 133 00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:27,940 Thanks so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed the presentation. Please don't hesitate to shoot me an email if you have any questions. 134 00:14:27,940 --> 00:14:32,530 My email address is the mullahs are your cue thought, s.A. 135 00:14:32,530 --> 00:14:35,285 Thanks so much for watching and see you soon.