“Venceréis pero no convenceréis

"You will win but you will not convince"

The significance of this quote came up in my Spanish history class a few days ago.  The context of the quote is the following-

A celebration of Columbus Day in 1936 (beginning of Spanish civil war) was being held at the University of Salamanca and included a guest list of very diverse political figures. At one point during the evening, General  José Millán Astray (a close ally to Francisco Franco) stood up to begin the chants of the Falange party. he jeered: ”¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte!” (“Death to intelligence! Long live death!”), provoking applause from the Falangists. This party feared intellectuals because their reason and criticism of society threatened the centralization of power that they craved.

It was moments later that Miguel de Unamuno, president of the Universidad de Salamanca, rose from his chair to speak. He boldly turned to the General and the comrades and uttered the following:

“This is the temple of intelligence, and I am its high priest. You are profaning its sacred domain. You will win [venceréis], because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince [pero no convenceréis]. In order to convince it is necessary to persuade, and to persuade you will need something that you lack: reason and right in the struggle. I see it is useless to ask you to think of Spain.”

He was then ushered out of the room in order to evade harm from the falangists.

It’s crazy to think that the rooms where I take classes are the sites of all of these historical events. Each day I walk down streets which were plagued by civil war less than one hundred years ago. The restaurants that surround my neighborhood were the havens of intellectuals fighting for basic freedoms during the Franco era. Salamanca, and in particular the University, was the protector and caretaker of the spirit of the reason and progress.

Heavy stuff.