Lavengro in Spain

Big Brother stops e-mail

A couple of months ago I found that a part of my outgoing mail was being stopped by some Big Brother organisation called SpamCop that sits in the Internet like a malevolent spider and takes it on itself to decide which addresses are sending spam and then arbitrarily blocks their outgoing mail. After considerable inconvenience I changed my address for certain mail, including one mailing list, and things seemed to have returned to normal – until this morning, when I received another mail from these fascists telling me that a message that I had sent to the list from my new address was also banned. Why can’t these clowns do something useful like stopping the spam that does get into my inbox instead of censoring perfectly legitimate and normal e-mail?

It goes without saying that their site is written in a language that is not English as I know it, that it is difficult to contact them, and that they point out that any legal action against their arbitrary judgement could delay restitution of service even longer than is the case.

Tourism in Spain

There is an interesting article in Spiegel (English, click here) abut tourism in Spain, especially on the Costa Brava and in Barcelona. It begins:

Babes, Booze and Brawls on the Beach

By Helene Zuber

Thanks to the boom in budget airlines, tourism in the Spanish region of Catalonia has become more about mass than class. But the Spanish authorities have had enough and are now clamping down.

The online advertising is not exactly coy: "Lloret de Mar: hot chicks and wild parties." The pictures show holidaymakers frolicking drunkenly on the dance floor by night, and kissing on the beach by day. And just to prove that the claim "undisputed high school graduates holiday destination" isn't an exaggeration, there are also no-holds barred testimonials, in a language any 18-year-old can understand: "Lloret is a cool town with cool chicks.

What it says is true. Tourists are becoming a problem. Last summer the centre of Barcelona had serious problems with impossible crowds of tourists (and others) urinating and vomiting in the streets while contributing little to the municipal funds that have to deal with this. Everyone has their own answer of course; it was pointed out that the absence of public toilets might have contributed to the fouling of the streets; some have now been installed and appear to be working well. Some say that the hotels are raking in the cash from tourists, who then cost the city money.

A couple of points about the article:

• I don’t remember the Mayor Joan Clos talking about ‘uncivilised’ behaviour (though that’s not to say that he didn’t). The focus was on what is known as incivisme, a rather milder word that can be translated as a lack of public spirit, of civil co-operation.

• I was away from Barcelona last weekend for the macrobotellón, the big booze-up by young people in the streets, so I have no first-hand comment; this, however, is nothing to do with tourism. I know that these events have been taking place on and off for some years, and the ones last weekend (not only in Barcelona) were called by SMS. The mayor announced that it would not be allowed but a couple of hundred of the usual suspects, not the drinking youngsters, set about wrecking shop premises in the old part of town. The young people argue that they have nowhere to go because bars are too expensive, but these events inevitably lead to noise, dirt and annoyance to local residents. Added to that is a feeling among middle-aged Spaniards that when they were that age they were busy with the serious business of installing democracy in Spain, but their children can only be interested in going out and getting drunk – and that’s not right.

ETA ceasefire

 

This morning (1 April 2006) I have read that, unlike what happened during the truce in 1998, there seems to be an absence of demands from ETA for the payment of a ‘revolutionary tax’ (extortion of businessmen) and of the kale borroka (street violence). This is presumably a good sign that the truce is genuine and that the end of ETA is a real possibility – though no-one pretends that the way to peace will be easy.
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Since I wrote the article below, an article has appeared in Spiegel about the ETA ceasefire (click here).
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ETA has declared a ‘permanent ceasefire’. This is excellent news of course, though it is too late for the more than 800 people that they have murdered over the last forty years. An enormous amount has been said here of course, but mostly this is internal political reaction and manoeuvring. I daresay that a lot has been said elsewhere so I will just make a few background comments here.

This is not the first time that ETA has declared a truce. The last time was in 1999, and it became clear later that it was in return for a change in the policy of the Basque Government, under the Nationalist PNV, to adopt a more nationalist approach – in other words to change the division of Basque politics from left and right to Nationalist and non-Nationalist. It also became clear later, because ETA said as much, that they had used the truce for regrouping and resupplying and had no intention of making it permanent.

Nevertheless, it is true that the Government of José Mª Aznar did talk to ETA. Whether it is right to use the word negotiation is an open question. I mention this because the PP now insist that they didn’t negotiate with ETA but have been complaining very loudly recently that Zapatero’s PSOE Government has been doing just that. The announcement by ETA has caught the PP completely on the wrong foot because they can hardly object to it, but by welcoming it they will have to support the government. They are saying that there must be no ‘political price’, by which they mean that prisoners must remain in jail, trials must continue, and that the prisoners (currently dispersed around Spain) must not be returned to the Basque Country. All that may seem reasonable, but the way that they are presenting it suggests that the Socialist Government is in ETA’s pocket, for which there is not the slightest shred of evidence. Nevertheless, it is known that there have been Government contacts with ETA in Oslo and Geneva, and it is suggested that the wording of ETA’s communiqué shows that it was agreed with the Government beforehand.

Peridis, El País 23-03-06.
Zapatero is appealing to the opposition leader Rajoy to make common cause against ETA but Rajoy says that he has been caught wrong-footed.
The symbol of light on the left is a direct crib from Picasso's Guernica (reversed).

The reason and the timing of ETA’s statement is interesting. It is known that ETA has come under great pressure recently; it has lost a large number of members, and every time that its leadership falls they are replaced by younger and less experienced people, so that the organisation becomes further weakened. Whereas at one time France turned a blind eye to ETA activity there (their HQ is in France), now there is excellent cross-border security co-operation and there is no refuge in France for ETA. An assault on their financial structure has also weakened them, and a few days before the last general election in 2004 (the one after the bombs, click here for my comments on that) Aznar said, quite reasonably, that they were ‘on the ropes’. A further point is the unexpectedly great success of the Political Parties Law, which resulted in the banning of Batasuna and its loss of public finance because it was a part of a terrorist organisation – and let me make it perfectly clear that it was Batasuna’s terrorist affiliation and not its politics that led to its banning; a breakaway group called Aralar, which has the same policies but condemns violence, operates quite openly and has seats in the Basque Parliament. What has happened is that the banning of Batasuna has put pressure on ETA to stop its violence so that Batasuna can be unbanned. As things stand, that political movement is unrepresented so that the pressure of the political wing on the terrorists has changed the balance of power in the ETA/Batasuna world, with the politicians now having the upper hand.

It is interesting to note that both ETA and the IRA came into being in undemocratic political situations, and both have finally admitted defeat to democracies against which they have been forced to admit that they can achieve nothing.

The policy of the extreme Nationalists is that they want the restoration of the situation as it was before 1839 (sic), when the Basque provinces enjoyed certain local rights. This is about as realistic as the claims by the Cornish Nationalists that they should be subject to the Stannary Court. In fact, the Basques now enjoy an extremely great level of autonomy, probably the greatest in Europe. The territorial claim is for the incorporation of Navarre and the French Basque Country into a land known as Euskal Herria rather than the usual Euskadi. It will hardly come as a surprise that the people of Navarre, who enjoyed similar but separate rights to the Basques do not wish to be incorporated into a Basque empire. In elections Basque Nationalists as a whole get around 50-55% in the three Spanish Basque provinces, around 20% in Navarre, and around 5% in the French provinces. It is clear that a vote for the Nationalists is not a vote for independence, and it is hard to see how an independent Euskadi could come into existence; one of the three provinces, Ávila, has a clear non-nationalist majority and would certainly be against it (somewhat embarrassingly as it contains Vitoria, the Basque capital) – as would many of the province’s influential businesspeople including Spain’s biggest bank, BBVA, which is based in Bilbao.

It is well known that the Basques and Catalans suffered under Franco (though they were not alone in that). They were not able to use their languages for official purposes and for a part of the dictatorship books were not published in their languages. However, Basque and Catalan nationalisms are different. Basque Nationalism derives from the Carlists of the nineteenth century, the traditionalist faction that wanted to maintain absolute monarchy and opposed any modernisation or Liberalism; it also has a racial component with references – even recently – to the rhesus negative blood that is said (incorrectly) to be typical of Basques. In this context ETA, which was founded in a Catholic seminary, should be seen as a thoroughly reactionary organisation; Basque Nationalism in general is not in any way a progressive movement. In 1936 the PNV wobbled over reacting to Franco’s coup. They were torn between support for a godless Republic that would guarantee their local rights and a fascist Catholicism that would impose centralised rule. They went for the Republic, which was divided into two parts by Franco’s advance with the Basque part having the only part of the Republican Army that had Catholic chaplains, and it is said that when the time came for them to surrender they did so remarkably willingly and with their weapons.

Over the years the PNV has been slightly ambiguous about ETA. Sure, they make the right noises but they also sometimes make, or at least acquiesce in, the wrong ones. They remind me of the Irish governments in the sixties that always spoke against the IRA but somehow never did anything practical against them.

And there perhaps is the rub. There are over a thousand people – politicians, journalists, academics, government officials – in the Basque Country who have been living for years with permanent escorts, unable even to go out to throw out the rubbish or buy bread without an armed bodyguard. Very few indeed of these people are Nationalists, and it is obviously hard to operate a democratic system when the opposition is under a handicap that does not apply to the Government. Presumably the Basque PP and Socialists will be able soon to dispense with their bodyguards and Basque politics can move to a situation closer to normality. Elections are due for spring 2007.

Going away

I am going away for the weekend to work on my book in Cambridge. I will be staying in Queens’ College. Top universities are one thing that Britain does well; they are one of the few things in Britain that have an international rather than national outlook. A recent survey of world universities showed Cambridge second to Harvard with Oxford in tenth place. Tokyo (twentieth) was the only non-American university.

 

I will be back on Tuesday.

The Importance of Being Dame Judi

Yesterday I saw a DVD of Shakespeare in Love. Apart from the play on reality and unreality, truth and fiction, and the wonderful theatrical jokes – not to mention an interesting theory about the death of Kit Marlowe – we saw Dame Judi Dench in the role in which she won an Oscar as best actor in a supporting role for what is little more than a cameo part; for no more than seven minutes in the entire film she gives an unforgettable performance as Queen Elizabeth I. She has also played Queen Victoria with Billy Connolly as John Brown, but at Christmas, when I was in Britain, I saw her dealing with the rather more challenging role of a truly dominant woman – Lady Bracknell.

It was an excellent TV adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Of course the question was how she would handle that line – and superbly, she went to the opposite extreme to Dame Edith Evans and muttered ‘A handbag’ in a wonderfully scornful, dismissive tone of voice. It was a film, which allowed the production to escape from the confines of the stage, and the settings were excellent – Algernon arriving by balloon to visit Cecily in the country, indeed. I have a couple of minor quibbles. Miss Prism was robbed of her line that Cecily might omit the chapter on the fall of the rupee, it being too exciting; it may be that the reference is now a little obscure (though it was deliberately obscure when Wilde wrote it) but it meant that, uncharacteristically, she was denied the last word as she rushed off to meet Canon Chasuble. Surely an alternative could have been found. And the wonderful exchange about the spade:

Cecily: When I see a spade, I call it a spade.

Gwendolyn: "I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different."

was omitted completely for no apparent reason at all. But the production ended well with an interesting play on the revelation of Jack/Ernest’s identity that left the whole question of reality and unreality wide open. All in all an excellent presentation and well worth seeing.

Waving the flag

It's the devil that waves the flags.

El Roto, El País, 14-3-06

And now the devil has claimed that arch-flag-waver Milosevic. See my message Nation and State.

Los peligros de Guirilandia

El viernes fuimos a comer en el centro de Barcelona. Elegimos El Corte Inglés para aprovechar la vista sobre Plaça Catalunya y la calidad indudable de la comida. El problema para nosotros es que el centro de la ciudad es Guirilandia, y los nativos nos toman por guiris, y nos tratan como ingenuos. Jane, mi mujer, llegó un poco antes y se sentó al bar tomando una cerveza. Yo llegué un poco después, decidimos ir directamente al restaurante, y ella pide la nota. El camarero se la presenta y paga su bebida con un billete de cinco. Pocos momentos después llega el platillo con el ticket y el cambio, € 2.20. Es un poco caro casi tres euros por una copa ¿no? Claro, El Corte Inglés no es el bar de la esquina, pero aun así… Hay más. En el ticket consta el precio de la cerveza € 1.80 y, debajo del ticket, hay otra moneda de un euro. ¡Qué raro! Por una casualidad extraña una parte del cambio se había escondido. ¡Qué vergüenza! ¿Se puede suponer que el camarero hace trampas con el cambio, pensando que los guiris no saben el precio de una copa y tampoco comprueban el ticket y el cambio? Pues sí, en Guirilandia se puede suponer precisamente esto.

Vamos a comer, salmón, espárragos, suquet de rape, todo de primera clase y calidad. Y llega la nota. Quiero dejar una propina de unos cinco euros, y tengo monedas. Y no sé cómo puede haber ocurrido pero una moneda de un euro se deslizó debajo de la nota. ¡Qué coincidencia!

 

Por cierto, ¿cuánta gente sabe lo que dice el Diccionario de la RAE sobre los guiris?

guiri. (Acort. del vasco guiristino, cristino).

1. m. coloq. Ál. tojo (ǁ planta papilionácea).

2. com. Nombre con que, durante las guerras civiles del siglo XIX, designaban los carlistas a los partidarios de la reina Cristina, y después a todos los liberales, y en especial a los soldados del gobierno.

3. com. coloq. Turista extranjero. La costa está llena de guiris.

4. com. coloq. Miembro de la Guardia Civil.

The Mayor and the Minister

Following an earlier shorter message about the Mayor of London, I now return to the matter. An observer of Britain from Spain certainly, and one from Mars probably, sees this:

The Mayor of London got drunk at a party paid for out of public money and held in City Hall. As he left he was approached quite legitimately and civilly by a journalist, whom he insulted gratuitously (see transcript below). He refused to apologise for the insult either then or later. A formal complaint was made. The body established by law to look into such matters did so, and it decided that he should be suspended for four weeks for bringing his office into disrepute. There is provision for an appeal to the courts against this decision and the Mayor is availing himself of it. The suspension will not be imposed while the appeal is considered.

The Minister for Culture is married to a man whose financial and legal dealings are controversial though not, apparently, illegal. The Minister’s involvement with her husband’s financial activities led to a complaint being made about her. The body established by law to look into such matters did so, and it decided that she had not acted in an improper way and cleared her. Her husband has not been charged with, let alone found guilty of, any illegal activity. Even were he to be (and I know that he is not out of the Italian woods), her own involvement should not be taken for granted. The presumption of innocence should apply.

What is interesting about these two tales of the established proceedings taking their course is the reactions that they have provoked. In some quarters the ire surrounding Livingstone’s suspension has been matched by equally fervent support for Jowell in her predicament.

Why is this? It is easy to suggest a lack of coherence but that is not what I wish to do here. Those who adopt these two positions are being perfectly coherent. The problem is not intellectual coherence but the criterion on which opinions are based. My criterion is that the law should be applied properly and without favouritism, and there is no evidence that I have seen to suggest that it has not been in either of the cases that I describe. But other people use a different criterion in comparing and judging these situations.

Bureaucrats shouldn’t be able to suspend an elected representative, people say; but Parliament in its wisdom provided for precisely that possibility. This rule shouldn’t apply to the Mayor of London, people insist; well, they may insist, but Parliament in its sovereignty made no express provision for the Mayor of London to be excluded from the provisions of the Local Government Act 2000. The Board of Jewish Deputies has no standing in the case, it is claimed; but who is to decide such a claim? Outraged of the Blogosphere or the Standards Board for England, whose decisions are always subject to an appeal to the courts that it has acted ultra vires? As far as I am aware no such appeal has been made

Putting all of this together, it is clear that the criterion being used to unify this position is not the application of the law; on the contrary, it is the defence of the upper reaches of the Labour Party from assault by the established law of the land. Powerful élites will always defend their own and that certainly seems to be happening here, but apart from that there has always been a strong element of victimism on the traditional British left, and in the defence of Livingstone against the law we see an attitude that is morally indistinguishable from a football fan screaming in the street after the match that his team was robbed, the ref was blind, and the other side started the trouble anyway.

This is the confusion of means and ends for political purposes: the political end of advancing the interests of the Labour Party justifies the means of rubbishing constitutionally and democratically established procedures. It is the playing of the man (or in this case the committee) instead of the ball. It is the attempt to place political pressure above an established constitutional process. And it is – obviously – undemocratic.

I think it is time to revisit Sir Thomas More in the words of Robert Bolt (A Man for All Seasons), speaking to his son-in-law Robert Roper:

“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”

In modern Britain the law is seen as something to be enforced. But in democratic Spain it is seen – not surprisingly given the country’s history – as something to be defended, for without* the law there is chaos. My criterion is that of the law, not that of the sectional interest of any party or group that would override it, and I make no apology for saying so.

*That without can be taken in either of its possible meanings. 

(Tony Hatfield has commented on this message on his own blog - click here)

 Transcript of the Finegold – Livingstone exchange

Finegold: “Mr. Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did it…”

Livingstone: “Oh, how awful for you.”

Finegold: “How did tonight go?”

Livingstone: “Have you thought of having treatment?”

Finegold: “How did tonight go?”

Livingstone: “Have you thought of having treatment?”

Finegold: “Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?”

Livingstone: “What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?”

Finegold: “No, I’m Jewish. I wasn’t a German war criminal.”

Livingstone: “Ah, right.”

Finegold: “I’m actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?”

Livingstone: “Well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard. You’re just doing it ‘cause you’re paid to, aren’t you?”

Finegold: “Great. I’ve got you on record for that. So how did tonight go?”

Livingstone: “It’s nothing to do with you because your paper is a load of scumbags.”

Finegold: “How did tonight go?”

Livingstone: “It’s reactionary bigots…”

Finegold: “I’m a journalist. I’m doing my job.”

Livingstone: “… and who supported fascism.”

Finegold: “I’m only asking for a simple comment. I’m only asking for a comment.”

Livingstone: “Well, work for a paper that isn’t…”

Finegold: “I’m only asking for a comment.”

Livingstone: “… that had a record of supporting fascism.”