Execution in Effigy- A Very Chilling Effect
The Deputy Prime Minister of Spain is executed in effigy in a sinister attempt to silence her for speaking up for women's rights.
A life size effigy of a woman hangs by a noose in the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, home to a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition. The painted mask identifies her, and her heresy is displayed through the Sambenito, the symbolic cloth of penance and humiliation, she wears.
She is Carmen Calvo, the Deputy Prime Minister of Spain. Democratically elected polictician. Socialist. Feminist. Woman.
She was executed in effigy during the early hours of the Feb 20, 2021 however the gruesome tradition dates back to the public execution of heretics during the Spanish Inquisition.
Carmen Calvo is a 21st century gender identity heretic. She hangs from a tree in the Plaza 8 de Marzo, the square where local feminists celebrate International Women's day.
Executed in Effigy - A gruesome History
The Spanish Inquisition was established by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1478. The stated goal was to establish a Catholic orthodoxy in Spain. Under the Moors, who invaded the Iberian peninsula in 711, Spanish society had been multi-religious made up of Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
As the Reconquista advanced and Moorish kingdoms fell to the Catholic monarchs, religious freedoms came to an end. Some Moors and Jews fled, some were expelled, but some chose baptism into the Catholic faith.
These New Christians or Conversos and Moriscos were mistrusted and suspected of practicing their religious traditions in secrecy. The Inquisition was given wide powers to seek out and punish all heretics. The unrepentant were burned alive in the public square.
Public burnings were used to instil fear and subdue opposition. Unfortunately sometimes the person was not available for their date with the Auto da Fé. Perhaps they had already died, tortured to death during their "repentance", or against all odds they had escaped.
The Inquisition did not like to miss out on the opportunity to burn a heretic. A steady stream of grizzly spectacle and ritual humiliation is required to compel orthodoxy. So they burned the missing heretics in effigy, wearing a mask with their likeness, their Sambenito displaying their shame.
Carmen Calvo and Women's Equality
Carmen Calvo has a doctorate in constitutional law. She entered politics in 1990s, joining the Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE), and was elected to the Congress of Deputies in 2004. In June 2018 she was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and minister for Equality.
She focussed on sex-based violence in the aftermath of the notorious Spanish 'Wolf Pack" gang rape case, so called because that was the name the five men christened their WhatsApp group. At trial they were convicted of the lesser crime of sexual abuse, with a sentence of 9 years in prison, rather than a possible 20 year sentence for rape.
The defence argued that the 90 seconds of video footage the wolf pack had shot during the attack – showing the young woman immobile with her eyes shut – was proof that she consented to the gang rape.
The prosecutor on the case, Elena Sarasate, said “The defendants want us to believe that on that night they met an 18-year-old girl, living a normal life, who – after 20 minutes of conversation with people she didn’t know – agreed to group sex involving every type of penetration, sometimes simultaneously, without using a condom.”
Studies on the trauma of rape show that the most common response of women who are attacked and overpowered during sexual assault is to become "frozen in fear”. Tonic immobility is an involuntary reflexive reaction triggered by the sense of inescapable danger. Rape victims describe feeling as if their body and mind has shut down, frozen, helpless, and unable to resist, move or speak.
The original judgement was upheld at appeal in the Navarre supreme court, though it was finally overturned in the Spanish supreme court.
The human rights group Women’s Link Worldwide described the Navarre Supreme Court verdict as the second worst judicial decisions in the world in 2018. First place went to a Sudanese court that sentenced Noura Hussein to death. As a 19-year-she killed her abusive husband during marital rape.
As a 16 year girl, Noura was forced into marriage with Hammad, a man almost 20 years older. Three years later she fled the abusive relationship but was tricked into returning by her family. Her two brothers and a male cousin held her down while Hammad raped her.
The following day Hammad raped her again. While attempting to defend herself she stabbed him with a knife. On appeal her conviction was changed to manslaughter and her sentence reduced to 5 years in prison.
Controversial Legislation on Gender Self-ID
The context for the hanging of Carmen Calvo in effigy is the introduction of new gender self-id law proposed by the Unidas Podemos(UP), the PSOE’s partner in the Spanish coalition government.
A governing agreement outlining various legislation to be brought forward was signed between the parties. One of the agreements was to finalise legislation to allow gender self-id and remove all barriers to transition.
The PSOE are not opposing trans rights1. But in her equality brief for PSOE Carmen Calvo says any conflict between these new rights and the existing rights that protect women based on their sex, including those relating to equality and sexual violence, must be addressed in the context of Article 14 of the Spanish constitution:
“Spaniards are equal before the law and may not in any way be discriminated against on account of birth, race, sex, religion, opinion or any other personal or social condition or circumstance.”
The controversy around the bill mirrors a divide that is playing out across the world.
Some activists chose to express their opposition to Carmen Calvo by executing her in effigy wearing a Sambenista that says "I am lost ... where is the patriarchy?"
This chilling spectacle is a clear warning to all women who raise concerns about aspects of gender self-id legislation. But is the hanging of Carmen Calvo in effigy hate?
Using Hate Speech to Silence Political Speech
Lidia Falcón, the 85 year old lawyer who founded the Feminist Party of Spain in 1979 came under attack for Hate Speech in 2020. A practicing lawyer, she has fought against sexist discrimination and sex-based violence for over 60 years. She was prosecuted six times for expressing political opinions critical of the Franco regime.
In December 2019, Mars Cambrollé, the president of Plataforma Trans Federation, filed a complaint under the 2015 Hate Crime law accusing Lidia Falcón of equating trans people with criminal behaviours, including the crime of pedophilia.
A year later, in a judgement delivered on 22 December 2020 the Prosecutor's Office found no hate crime had been committed. They said the statements made by Lidia Falcón were not motivated by hate towards trans people and her communications had been nuanced and contextualised.
In an interview with Raquel Rosario Sánchez for the Dominican newspaper El Caribe, Falcón says the Hate complaint constitutes political persecution. She notes that the Hate Crime law protects people based on sexual orientation, gender identity and race, but women are not protected by the law.
Chilling Effect
In this article I pointed out that individuals prosecuted for allegedly breaching the Hate Speech laws may ultimately be vindicated, but this vindication comes at great personal and financial cost.
The chilling effect makes people fearful to take the risk of speaking up for fear of the repercussions and so the window of allowable speech shrinks.
The picture of Carmen Calvo hanging in effigy sends a chilling and sinister message to feminists in Spain, and feminists world wide, who voice legitimate objections to legislative changes that conflict with laws that protect women from discrimination and violence, and change the way services for women are funded and commissioned.
Feminists who challenge these new laws are not seeking to discriminate against or persecute trans people. But they point out that society has much more work to do in the project to create a safe and equal environment for women, and that any conflicts in rights must be addressed.
LGBT+ organisations that campaign for these laws do not seek to discriminate against or persecute women, but their failure to acknowledge that there is a conflict of rights, and the tactics of silencing opposition through proscribing legitimate speech creates a polarised and toxic discourse.
Just like the Inquisition some activists use a steady stream of grizzly spectacle and ritual public humiliation. High profile women who object are targeted and singled out. The public square, like the crowds who attend public executions for the enjoyment of the spectacle, joins in, chanting TERF.
It is time for people to stand up to the chilling effect.
As much as I agree with your view in general terms, as I am Galician, I would like to correct a few things you’ve stated in this article.
Santiago de Compostela is not a city known as “home to a tribunal of Spanish Inquisition”. It was founded to established a new capital city of the faith replacing Braga, that, not only was the old capital of the Kingdom of Galicia, but one of the most important cities of Gallaecia before the roman invasion (for more information, research, if you will, about Diego Xelmirez and his Pium Latrocinium in 1102).
About Compostela, as a place where inquisition trials and executions were taken place, absolutely true. As they were celebrated in many other places such Toledo, Seville, Barcelona, Paris, Bavaria, Milan or London. Because Christianity was present in whole Europe, his most famous coercive tool too. About this subject, I’ll return later.
Now, the main subject I want to explain correctly, the “effigy”, as it’s addressed in the article.
That “effigy” is known in Galicia as “O Meco”. It’s a human size doll exposed during Entroido (a celebration that coincides in time with spanish carnival, although it has a pagan origin, and therefore it’s older than “Carnaval”).
“O Meco” represents someone who didn’t behave properly with the rest of society. Nowdays, as well, it can be a representation of someone who was bad treated (for example, old people who died victims of COVID).
I want to be clear in this. Most of the population don’t agree in the representation as “O Meco” of Carmen Calvo. This was only an action made by some misogynists who supports the sexists behaviours of the “queer” ideology.
Precisely, this individual action represents the absolutely ignorance about the origins of “O Meco”, and I think I must explain it here in order to foreign people can understand how serious this unique Galician tradition has been vandalized.
“O Meco” was a foreign priest located in the parish of Sanxenxo, a coastal town in the north of the province of Pontevedra. This mas sexually harassed women repeatedly. An example: when a couple wanted to get married, “O Meco” required to have sex with the future bride first or else they couldn’t get married.
People got enough of this unbearable behaviour of continuous abuses and they hanged “O Meco” in a tree. When authorities demanded who killed “O Meco”, the whole town, men and women all at one told “We all killed O Meco”. And that’s how it ends the leyend. Galician writer Martin Sarmiento wrote about it in 1756 if you want to read the complete story.
It’s a story about fighting patriarchy and literally defending the basics rights of the women. Nothing to do with queers.
The meaning of “O Meco” is pointing that someone who takes advance of his power or position and uses against the people will face consequences, because people will fight against it.
And I would like to emphasize that in any case, when a Meco is hanged now is a death threat or anything at all. It’s just an expression of social unrest. “O Meco” was executed in a time and place where church members and nobility were simply untouchable. This was one of the few exceptions in the history of the Kingdom of Galicia that people were forced to take the justice into their own hands, as Rosalía de Castro, XIX century writer and feminist would say.
Therefore, Carmen Calvo cannot be represented as “O Meco” because she hasn’t behave in that way. In fact, she has ben one of the very few politicians who have made reservations concerning “trans” Law project (not as full frontal as many of us would like, though).
Turning to the subject of inquisition. In my humble opinion, inquisition should be addressed as just inquisition, or Christian inquisition (more accurate) or even European inquisition, because such abhorrent practices were established in the whole continent. And I want to declare that I’m not even christian, nor affiliated with other religions or such chauvinistic ideologies. I actually despise them equally.
About the introduction of inquisition in “Spain” ( in XV century definitively there wasn’t anything near to that concept), it’s true that the usurper Isabel of Trastámara (known as self proclaimed queen of Castile) established in “her kingdom” regulations on tribunals, etc. But, the introduction and implementation of the Inquisition in the Iberian peninsula was in the XIII century, in the crown of Aragón, during the kingdom of Jaume “the conqueror” and by the hand of Ramon de Penyafort.
And finally. If you allow me, I suggest instead, as we do today in Galiza, to remember the victims of such disgusting practices, commemorate their memory (as we do, for example, with Maria Soliña, in Cangas) and educate so society won’t allow this happen ever again.
I would like to you understand that our ancestors were the victims of this insane practices and not the executioners.
I hope this explanation can enlighten the general vision. I apologize about the length although I’ve tried to shorten as much as I could. And of course if anyone would like an explanation about something specifically I’m glad to help.
Excellent article Iseult. This is gaining pace worldwide and it's very scary. iv'e come off Facebook for a while, was last on there in November as if I brought this subject up I got absolutely no response NONE! Women seem to be not bothered or don't relise what we will all lose. It's like one of those movies like The Stepford Wives people are like robots devoid of feelings. I know lots feel like me as I meet them on Twitter but I'm hiding behind an alias myself because of family issues. I'm hoping to be brave soon but it would help if Women had support from the Government. I feel for those Women in Spain but fear we are on the same journey.