Lavengro in Spain

BBC and terrorism

I have mentioned more than once (here for example) that the BBC is reluctant to call ETA killers terrorists, so it is with interest that I see this from the BBC. Perhaps it’s a mistake. After all, the headline calls him a separatist, the BBC’s usual term for ETA murderers, and this description is repeated later in the article (see screenshot).

'No threat' to Basque separatist

A convicted Basque terrorist is trying to "blackmail" a Belfast court by warning he faces near-certain death if returned to Spain, it has been claimed.

Curiously, De Juana Chaos is the man on whose behalf the BBC posted an ETA propaganda poster.

The Guardian and Spanish practices

Giles Tremlett reports in the Guardian on the education policy of the government of Extremadura:

The region's socialist government has launched a €14,000 (£12,600) campaign aimed at teaching young people how best to set about "sexual self-exploration and the discovery of self-pleasure" – or to put it less delicately: masturbation.

It’s a wonderful story – so who cares a jot that it’s untrue? 

Graeme of South of Watford has the full story.

Land of freedom

The Guardian:

The government's controversial regime of using virtual house arrest against terror suspects has suffered a fresh blow with a decision by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, to revoke a second control order rather than disclose the "secret" evidence in the case.

Johnson has written to the lawyers of a former imam to the Iraqi community in Britain …  telling them that he made the decision after considering the impact of a law lords ruling in June that he was obliged to disclose the detail of the allegations against him … There are now 14 remaining control orders in force and the lawyers involved are expected to challenge the home secretary to disclose the "secret" evidence involved in each of them on a case-by-case basis over the next few months.

 

The Spanish Constitution:

Section 17
1. Every person has the right to freedom and security. No one may be deprived of his or her freedom except in accordance with the provisions of this section and in the cases and in the manner provided for by the law.

2. Preventive arrest may last no longer than the time strictly necessary in order to carry out the investigations aimed at establishing the events; in any case the person arrested must be set free or handed over to the judicial authorities within a maximum period of seventy two hours.

3. Every person arrested must be informed immediately, and in a way understandable to him or her, of his or her rights and of the grounds for his or her arrest, and may not be compelled to make a statement. The arrested person shall be guaranteed the assistance of a lawyer during police and judicial proceedings, under the terms to be laid down by the law.

4. An habeas corpus procedure shall be provided for by law in order to ensure the immediate handing over to the judicial authorities of any person illegally arrested. Likewise, the maximum period of provisional imprisonment shall be determined by law.

My emphasis in both cases.

Green Spain

Spain is known as a desert where the rain never falls on the plain and where unemployment is massive.

There is a certain amount of truth in that. The meseta is dry, though the coastal areas are not. Employment is high at present, but in a country that relies so heavily on tourism employment always has a strongly seasonal element. Tourist arrivals have been down 8% this summer and the property bubble has famously burst, leaving the building industry and the property market in chaos.

So what is Spain doing? Apart from planting lots of trees, we find an answer in The Washington Post (free subscription barrier):

… Green jobs have become a mantra for many governments, including that of the United States. But few nations are better positioned -- or motivated -- to fuse [sic] the fight against recession and global warming than Spain. The country is already a leader in renewable fuels through $30 billion in public support and has been cited by the Obama administration as a model for the creation of a green economy. Spain generates about 24.5 percent of its electricity through renewable sources, compared with about 7 percent in the United States.

But with unemployment at 18.5 percent, the government here is preparing to take a dramatic next step. Through a combination of new laws and public and private investment, officials estimate that they can generate a million green jobs over the next decade…

Spain's ambitious effort is being closely watched by the Obama administration and other governments forming their own green-job plans…

Somehow I doubt whether Her Majesty’s Government is among those that think they have anything to learn from Spain.

The 11 megawatt PS10 solar power tower [near Seville] produces electricity from the sun using 624 large movable mirrors called heliostats. (Wikipedia)

The trees in Spain

Zapatero’s government promised to plant 45 million trees in four years. What has happened? In fact, the average number of trees in Spain is increasing by an average of 284 million a year (sic). With 300,000 hectares of new trees a year, Spain is second only to China and doubles the achievement of the USA.

In 1939 the government planned to plant 6 million hectares in 100 years, reaching a total of 11.3 million hectares. Just seventy years later the total is 18.3 million hectares.

The increase in trees has been caused mainly by people abandoning the countryside to live in cities, and easily far outweighs the area lost to fires.

Source: El País.

Picture of cork oaks: Wikipedia

Discipline in schools

Discipline in schools is always a problem, and it is getting worse. The government of Madrid (i.e. the government of the province that includes the city, not the Spanish government) is planning to give teachers the status of autoridad pública. Teachers in state schools are already funcionarios (established public employees) but an autoridad pública, a status enjoyed by police, judges, doctors, airline pilots, health inspectors, social security inspectors and others, is different in two important ways: an attack on them carries a heavier penalty than would otherwise be the case, and their word carries a presumption of truth in the event of a dispute.

It sounds good to me, a UK-qualified teacher who has taught children in Spain.

Terrorism

Writing in today's Guardian Peter Preston has some useful things to say about Spain and its problems with ETA. He makes the point that ETA members are younger than before. This is true, but it also means that they are less experienced. The average period that someone spends in ETA before being sent to prison has fallen dramatically in recent years, as have the average age of the members of the ETA command structure and the length of time that they spend in that position. It should also be mentioned (Preston doesn’t) that 31 July was ETA’s fiftieth birthday and some kind of ‘celebration’ was widely expected.

Preston also uses the T word. He speaks of ‘Basque terrorism’, although the sub-editor who headlined his article writes of ‘Basque separatist madness’. But there are Basque separatists who oppose violence (EA and Aralar) and they may not like this association.

Also, it occurs to me that a refusal to use the word ‘terrorism’ in any circumstances offers the convenient advantage of preventing discussion of the morality of the more dubious actions of the West in the past: the carpet-bombing of German and Japanese cities, events in Ireland and so much more.

I am certainly not one of those who always start from the position that we are wrong and the other side, whoever they may be at the time, are thus by definition right. Far from it, but I see no harm in talking about things without restrictions.

Let's get our (British) priorities right

Two Spanish Guardia Civil officers have been killed in the second ETA bomb in two days.Scores of people including children were injured yesterday. So how does the BBC lead its European news?

Travel chaos after Majorca bomb

A car bombing in the Spanish island of Majorca has killed two Civil Guard officers and led to ports and airports being shut for several hours.

Thousands of tourists were affected as some flights were turned back or diverted to other Spanish islands.

Geography

The Costa Brava is the coast north of Barcelona. Alicante is quite a long way south. The BBC doesn’t know this:

The German health minister, Ulla Schmidt, has been criticised after her official car was stolen in Spain, where she was using it during her vacation.

Thieves stole the keys from the chauffeur's accommodation near Alicante, a popular retirement and holiday destination for Germans on Spain's Costa Brava.

Map: Wikipedia Commons

Don’t believe what you read in the papers

It is wise not to take newspaper reports at face value, but if you’re a journalist yourself, believing what you read in your own paper is, I suppose, an occupational hazard. Peter Preston in the Guardian has fallen into that very trap.

On Friday 29 May Giles Tremlett wrote in the Guardian:

Conservatives woo far right ally in Spain

A Spanish political party previously aligned with some of the most extreme rightwing parties in Europe and backed by Blas Piñar, a leading apologist for former dictator Francisco Franco, has allied itself with the British Conservative party.

So, the Guardian’s intention is to link the Conservative Party with the far right. He goes on:

The party defines itself as conservative but, according to its website, backed the so-called Vienna Declaration that brought together extreme rightwing parties from across Europe in 2005. Its allies then were Austria's Freedom party, the French National Front of Jean Marie Le Pen, the Flemish party Vlaams Belang, Alessandra Mussolini's Azione Sociale and extreme rightists from Romania and Bulgaria. Though some of the parties are openly xenophobic or Nazi apologists, Alternativa Española says it is not racist.

All of this is perfectly true, as a look at the Alternativa Española (AES) web site shows, and it is probably what Peter Preston relied on when he wrote today about the British Conservatives sitting with ‘Spanish neo-Francoists’ in the new European Parliament. The problem is that is not going to happen. At last year’s Spanish general election AES managed a grand total, in all of Spain, of 7,078 votes (0.03%)! Their chances of being elected are, quite simply, zero. The Guardian’s original article failed to say this, and Preston, who claims a knowledge of Spanish affairs, didn’t think that the far right is next to non-existent in Spain.

Ironically, any Spanish sympathisers with Francoism are to be found in the conservative Partido Popular, which is a member of the EPP group – the group that the Tories are leaving!