Thursday, November 6, 2008

Returning home...

Continuing from the previous post on Spain and expats, but on a more sober note, there is a fascinating aspect of Spain's recent new legislation seeking to make good many of the wrongs of the Spanish civil war.

A large number of people were forced to flee Spain during the war and many remained in permanent exile, sadly becoming expats through no choice of their own. Now it seems that the new law of restitution will offer descendants of those exiles the opportunity to apply for citizenship of Spain. Apparently this could amount to as many as 500,000 people, although it is not known how many are likely to apply.

Another amazing part of the legislation is to allow former members of the International Brigades to apply for citizenship. Now quite elderly, these are people from overseas who travelled to Spain voluntarily and joined these brigades to fight against fascism.

Whilst this new law has apparently been controversial in Spain, it is sure to touch the lives of many people in a most poignant way - and it is exceptional to see this potential creation of large numbers of expats and what we could perhaps describe as repats...

2 comments:

Martin MY said...

An interesting legislation, somehow though I don't think there will be a mass of repatriation.

Keith Pow-Williams said...

Yes, the response could be limited, given the upheaval involved in shifting country - however, apparently it is thought that there are up to possibly 300,000 children and grandchildren of exiles in Argentina alone. However it goes, a wonderful opportunity for those wanting to go back to their roots...