Tag Archives: Spain

AVT demo in Madrid: pure class, again

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The BBC deigned to report on the AVT’s demonstration in Madrid at which between 7,000 and 110,000 activists marched against the early release of José Ignacio de Juana Chaos, after he wrote threatening articles which named some judges. What’s interesting about the way the protesters and the BBC presented this demo was that it was somehow to do with de Juana Chaos’s previous offence, the murder of 25 people during his career in ETA. Ostensibly, however, that was not the aim of the march at all. After all, de Juana Chaos has served 18 years of his sentence for that crime and, were he any other prisoner would be out early. So yet again, a demonstration called against one thing ends up being really about another thing completely. Or a multiplicity of things, as there were the usual banners around alluding to some kind of Zapatero involvement in 11M.

The AVT has no credibility as a politically independent pressure group.

It was nice to see the 7,000 enjoying the sunshine in Madrid’s streets. Nice to see them waving their flags (some of them replete with fascist emblems). Nice to see their Nazi salutes while they sang the anthem of the armed forces. There’s no doubt about it: the AVT rent-a-mob are a classy bunch.

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One more thing: does anyone have any recent opinion poll stats on this topic? I haven’t been able to find anyone but was reliably informed by the BBC’s north American Spain correspondent that ‘the vast majority of Spaniards are against de Juana Chaos’s release’. That’s fine if it’s backed up with statistics… I just can’t find them. Much obliged to anyone who can enlighten me.

Scratching a bad rash

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I’m getting a bit sick of the design and layout arond here. Thinking about a change. Also, the content: more righteous indignation, less paranoid speculation. Or was it the other way around?

Actually, I’ve been reading Nick Cohen’s interesting criticism of the left in today’s Observer. He makes a number of salient points in his dissection of everything that is wrong today with liberal-left politics and its general failure to adapt to the 21st century. I don’t agree with him on everything. But he does remind me why I decided some time ago never to align myself with any political group or party because there are simply none who seem to have the right approach to things. Spain is a classic example: I’m not a Catalan nationalist but I’m sympathetic with those who would like more autonomy for Catalonia. At the same time, I couldn’t support any of the parties who push for greater autonomy here because their memberships and leaders seem to be conniving, divisive pricks to a man. Besides, if greater autonomy means more laws banning me from drinking calimotxo or Xibeca and smoking weed at the beach with my mates, then perhaps it’s not such a hot tip?

The Iraq debacle is another good example (and this is what Nick Cohen is focused on): I’m naturally a Labour man but how can I vote for that party when Tony Blair still insists that it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t. Saddam was an awful, murderous bastard but the hell which has been unleashed on ordinary Iraqis does not justify his removal. Nick Cohen’s main argument seems to be that the left has lost its way because in its opposition to illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, curtailed human rights at home, rendition and Guantanamo, it has failed to condemn the evil which so called ‘neo-conservatives’ are determined to defeat. There’s a lot of ammunition for this argument and those employing it get a very real thrill from expounding the claim that the left wing is stuck in a bygone age when it could rely on being morally superior and nothing more. And it is true that numerous anti-American and anti-Semite worms have crawled out of the woodwork just in time to make us all look bad.

But the problem with Cohen’s position is that all he’s doing is claiming the moral high ground for the neocons. Basically, he seems happy to tell the left that they don’t recognise that the world has changed and things aren’t as clear cut as they once were, while at the same time he’s stating quite firmly that this is a simple case of moral imperative: we had to remove Saddam at any cost. Clearly, he wants to have his cake and eat it.

He continues by drawing attention to the millions of left wingers who demonstrated against ‘the overthrow of a fascist government’. To emphasise his point, he makes trite references to Rome, Madrid and Berlin – as if the residents of cities which had once lived under the shadow of a dictator should somehow ‘know better’. The problem is that opposing the war was never the same as appeasing Saddam. Who cares if he was happy about the protests? The point of the demos was to let our governments know that we weren’t going to be hoodwinked into an illegal war which would end up killing tens of thousands of civilians. And we were absolutley right.

The problem for those who were (and, carazily, still are) in favour of the war is that they really did think they were going to get things over and done with pretty quickly. They didn’t realise that they were going to visit on Iraq a state of murderous destruction not seen since the dark days of Saddam’s purges. Or if they did, they didn’t care.

The point of all this is, I suppose, to say that in the case of Iraq, there is no moral high ground. We on the left had nothing to suggest in the way of alternatives to getting rid of Saddam. We need the oil, the Iraqis need democracy and the world is a better place without that awful man. At the same time, supporters of the war must accept that they have made a colossal mistake in Iraq, causing the deaths of many tens of thousands of civilians, enraging an already volatile muslim community, establishing the dangerous precedent of pre-emptive attack and handing vast strategic power to a much more dangerous country: Iran.

In the end, Nick Cohen’s article is more or less spot on, insofar as it discusses the facts of the dispersal of the left-wing in Britain… (I only wish he’d write another about modern conservatism). While there are aspects of his argument which I find I can’t agree with, he’s correct about two important things: the left wing has lost its way horribly and we have failed to display any reasonable degree of solidarity with the Iraqis: the true victims of all this mess. Think on.

PP says No! to peace

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Understandable, perhaps, when the demonstration was organised by trade unions… but what possible reason could the Association of Victims of Terrorism have for not attending the march? They are, after all, a nominally apolitical group. In the past, observers have been heavily criticised for suggesting that the AVT has become little more than a grassroots PP activism unit… but it’s all beginning to look a bit more obvious now.

The AVT’s website is dominated by criticism of the Socialist government and a banner which describes the ‘Civic rebellion’ to be ‘unstoppable’. In fact, looking through their site, it’s tough work finding a single example of what the AVT actually does to help victims of terrorism. I’ve been told that even if the AVT has strayed from its original aims, it was founded in good faith. I find this difficult to believe. The whole movement is based on a simple lie: that the necessarily random victims of Basque terrorism, and their families, could somehow all subscribe to the same complex, right-of-centre political philosophy.

One of my favourite sections of the AVT site is their ‘Culture and Entertainment’ section, which features several books about terrorism, Zapatero’s ‘Spain, state in emergency’ and conspiracy theories about the 11-M bombings. Great reading, I’m sure. Sad, though, that innocent and trusting folk all over the country are being invited – with some cojouling -to donate their money to these people who allow political prejudice to get in the way of peace.

Well *I* liked it

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I’ve got to admit that the best film I saw this year was the new Bond film, Casino Royale. I’m not saying that it was the best executed, acted, written or produced… probably it wasn’t. But it was by far the most enjoyable and quite frankly, I’ve kind of given up on watching films which are supposed to trigger some sort of emotional or intellectual response.

This process began with Donnie Darko, a movie which was made for people like me (drop-out, pot-smoking philosophy students who listen to independent record labels). Anyway, lots of people I knew loved it and eagerly recommended it to me so I watched it and thought it was completely abysmal. It just seemed so pointless that I didn’t care enough to ‘unravel’ the ‘secrets’ of the film. Ooh the old lady and the tunnels and the rabbit… it’s all so cryptic and yet full of imagery!

I felt sorry for George Clooney when the press started going on about Syriana and saying it was an indictment of US petro-policy and so on. Well, I didn’t exactly feel sorry for him: he’s an incredibly wealthy movie star who can do whatever he likes. But I did think ‘Oh no, poor old George is going to have a lot to live up to after all this attention’. And I was right: Syriana, whatever it was intended to do or say, did and said nothing to me. It was a jumbled, waffly, trite, emotive work in mental masturbation. It said “See, we’ve made the world shit” in the way that only a $50 million movie can.

I’m afraid that I was also singularly underwhelmed by this year’s smash hit, Pan’s Labyrinth (El Labarinto del Fauno). This film was made half to appeal to me and half to appeal to mental people like Gemma’s cousin in C.R. who believe in pixies and fairies (which they insist on spelling ‘faeries’) and other such nonsense. The half that was supposed to appeal to me was the fact that it was set in post Civil War Spain and there were nasty Franquistas running about everywhere.

The thing is: this is one of the least talked about periods of recent history here. After the Civil War which you can argue about for decades and never agree, Franco formed a dictatorship and set about rebuilding a heavily traumatised Spain in his own image. I’ve never seen a film which dealt with this subject matter and was interested to see Pan’s Labyrinth and how it treated this delicate, fascinating subject matter. Thing is, the film is set then but doesn’t really say anything about it. The setting is pretty much irrelevant to the plot – and as such doesn’t interfere with the delicate, magical story surrounding the little girl who’s the main character. The problem is that I can’t abide mythical beasts or any of that stuff and so even though I got what was going on, I couldn’t stand it.

Bond, on the other hand, was great. Simple, manly action; beautiful, exotic women in low-cut dresses; a dab of betrayal and lost love. It’s not a film which will change the world but by heck, it was thrilling and that’s what it set out to be.

I used to love the more avant-garde, emotional, witty and moving films made by directors like Godard. Actually, I still do… thing is that no one’s making films like that these days and the closest alternative is the pseudo-art-movie. I’d rather eat fresh bangers and home made mash than a pre-cooked fancy ready-meal from Sainsbury.

The new ‘anti-nacionalismo’

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Spanish-language blog, El Siglo de las Luces, has a well written and interesting post about moves by the Spanish right to expand its influence by forming and supporting supposed NGOs and pressure groups around the country. These groups traditionally start out as single-issue before becoming more and more embroiled in the two topics which seem to excite the political extremes in this country: left versus right; and the question of nationalism (this term usually only referring to Catalan and Basque nationalism/separatism.

The classic example of this is the AVT (Association of Victims of Terrorism). Ostensibly formed as a support/pressure group for victims of ETA and their families, the AVT long ago became a sort of rent-a-mob for high profile, low impact demonstrations in Madrid where protesters gnash their teeth and do the whole Two Minutes Hate thing.

I’ve written about the AVT before (I stand by everything I wrote six months ago) and currently words fail me to describe how bitterly I dislike their nasty mixture of pressure politics, rhetoric and sheer anti-reason. There is simply no point in attempting an ordinary criticism of the AVT because they are so astoundingly out of it. Sometimes, I think it’s part of a clever plot to utterly confound critics: where do I start? they’ve opened a battle against logic on so many fronts that I get headaches just trying to list them.

Instead, I recommend reading that blog post at El Siglo de las Luces. And consider that even though it may not be working that well, the PP’s strategy is pretty clever. By politicising members of the Spanish working class (nominally against one thing they don’t like, e.g. subsidies for Catalan language, ETA, etc), the PP have forged a plan which, should it eventually start working, could well extend their platform of support and – more importantly – their political influence throughout Spain.

All this environmental stuff

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I know I’m meant to be worried. Sometimes I do worry. And I’m glad that the news is talking about climate change and pollution again. I do consider it to be a far greater risk to my life than, say, ‘international terrorism’.

But when it comes down to it, I’m not planning to do much to help to deal with climate change, CO2 emissions, etc etc. There are a few reasons that I’ve come to this conclusion and the first is that stupid one I always criticise other people for using: I cannot make any difference so there’s no point bothering.

Now, before you say I’ve lost my mojo, just think. Given that I already conserve energy in a loose, easy sort of way at home, I’d say that my energy consumption is probably average for Spain. The new TV uses a lot of juice but then I never drive. If I managed to reduce that energy use to nil, the resulting effect on the overall consumption of energy in Spain (or in Catalonia or Barcelona, for that matter) would be so infinitesimally useless and pathetic that all I would really have succeeded in achieving would be ruining my quality of life by forcing myself to eat raw vegetables and lentils soaked in (spring) water over night. Never mind the emissions that a diet like that would cause.

A popular statistic around at the moment is that if the UK closed down all their CO2-emitting power stations, it would take China only six months to fill in the gas gap that we’d left behind. What about India and China together?

The problem with climate change is that there is literally nothing any of us can do to help the situation. Why not recycle? Did you know that most of the stuff you recycle ends up in land-fill? Gemma and I recycle religiously… it’s something to do, you know? And yet I know that it’s a complete waste of time.

When it comes down to it, the single worst thing I ever do to the environment is air travel. I like to fly to places. It’s much quicker than taking a canoe or a bullock-cart. It’s selfish of me and I know it’s not helping but I like to see my parents once a year if I can. How else am I going to do that? If I forswear that I’ll no longer fly then I guess they’d eventually fly out to see me here. So what would I have achieved then? I’ve got two sets of parents (both parents and both step-parents), a brother, a sister, a step-sister and two half-sisters. By my refusing to fly, I’d force them to fly. So there’s no point bothering with it.

My other reason for not helping any more than I already am is skepticism. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that things aren’t quite as bad as Al “I couldn’t even beat George Bush in an election I’d won” Gore would have us believe. The initial warnings on climate change, emissions and environmental damage which came out thirty years ago warned about very similar consequences and that it would be too late by 2006. Well, we haven’t done a single thing about it and now we’re being told we’ve got more time, even though the picture being painted is that things are even worse than we thought they were.

My point is: either we’re already screwed, or the science isn’t completely right. If the science is right, we’re already too late to do anything. While this doubtless smacks of lazy refusal to do more to combat climate change, it’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I was a real environmentalist a few years back and I’m still pissed off that Bush didn’t ratify Kyoto. So what’s changed? I got so sick of the religiosity behind the environmentalist movement that I started to question it. My central belief when it comes to politics has become: whatever people keep saying over and over again, mistrust it.

So that’s it. I’ll keep up with the useless recycling, the energy saving light-bulbs, the public transport and the support for green alternatives to burning coal for electricity production. But I’m going to keep up with my air travel, my expensive, energy hungry gadgets, the coal fire at home in Devon in the winter, putting the heater on, using the tumble-dryer etc etc etc. I make no apologies. I’m just sick of the whole business.

ERC: most evil people in history?

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It has come to my attention recently that there has been something of a campaign of misinformation recently concerning the Catalan nationalist political party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. I feel that as someone committed to truth over opinion, sophism and rhetoric, it falls to me to refute these claims and redress the balance somewhat.

Myth 1: ERC are a misguided bunch of beardy nationalists who are no more threat to Catalonia’s future than the long dead Gen. Franco.

Response: This is a complete lie. Anyone who knows anything about ERC knows that they are the most dangerous political party in existence today. Worse than the Basque Communist Party, worse than the Galician PP, worse even than CiU. ERC hold as a central party commitment the subjugation of all non Catalan speakers, the construction of a 30M wall all along the region’s border with Spain, a complete boycott of Madrid and that the Olympics should be held in Vic – even though they were only held in Barcelona 14 years ago!

Myth 2: ERC have other policies besides a neo-fascist Catalan superstate.

Response: This is a complete lie. Anyone who knows anything about the leadership of ERC knows not to trust a man with such a well-groomed moustache. Remember when Carod-Rovira snuck off to speak with Basque nazis in France? Well, the whole story wouldn’t have come out if it weren’t for brave officers from Spain’s ‘intelligence’ services taking time out from not monitoring Al Qaeda operatives who instead decided to spy on an elected official. And thank God they did! If he hadn’t been rumbled, it is believed that Rovira’s plan was to sell a field in Manresa to the terrorists so that they could use it as a training camp.

Myth 3: The boycott against Catalan products was organised as a response to Catalonia’s proposed new Estatut by a bunch of neo-fascist pricks with nothing better to do.

Response: This is a complete lie. Anyone who knows anything about Spain knows that the real neo-fascist thugs are the ones proposing to increase Catalonia’s autonomy from Spain via democratic measures. Besides, the boycott had nothing to do with a climate of confrontation during which the head of Spain’s army threatened to invade Catalonia. The reason brave Spanish patriots boycotted Cava is because Carod-Rovira called on Catalans not to support Madrid’s bid to host the Olympics – even though it’s over 14 years since they were held in Barcelona! Suggestions that the boycott was linked to a tiny group of concerted radicals who operated a suave ‘word-of-mouth’ campaign via email, internet forums and text messages are totally unfounded.

Myth 4: It’s disingenous to refer to ERC as ‘nationalist socialist’ at every single opportunity, clearly suggesting that they are the natural successors of the Nazis.

Response: This is a complete lie. Anyone who knows anything about political parties should know that ERC are a left-wing nationalist political party and that when the Nazis called themselves ‘national socialists’ they weren’t lying and trying to trick Germany’s large number of uneducated but left-leaning industrial workers: they were just telling it like it was! So what if it’s CiU who have officially stated that they don’t want any more muslims coming to Catalonia? So long as no one else reports that, we’ll be able to pin it on ERC within a week!

In closing: I hope I’ve done something to assuage some of your doubts about the true nature of Esquerra Republicana. The final piece of information is of key importance though: even the PP are better than them.

Think about that as you watch your neighbours go to the polls on Wednesday.

PP in far-right placation (again)

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Much has been made by anti-Catalanista bloggers and commentators of the behaviour of certain minor extremist groups who take direct action against people they consider to be ‘fascist’ or otherwise undesirable. I’ve been directed to read one particular article about JERC teenagers causing trouble at a political meeting, by the man who penned the piece, naturally. The argument against interrupting meetings, threatening ‘undesirables’ and generally interfering with those who espouse an apparently antithetic ideology is simple: these thugs, by preventing other parties from expressing themselves freely and without fear, are attacking the very basis of our democratic society. They’re as bad as brown-shirts burning books.

So I’ve been surprised to see that these fearsome defenders of human rights, crusaders for freedom of expression and opponents of ‘bully boy tactics’ are as yet silent on the case of Pepe Rubianes. This actor’s latest play, a work about the poet Lorca (murdered by the fascists, incidentally), has been cancelled by the mayor of Madrid.

The reason for this censorship is that Rubianes has made himself unpopular with the Spanish right wing. A few months ago, he uttered some pretty offensive comments about Spain during an interview on TV3. This incident led to him being threatened with a law suit, and further enraged those same supporters of freedom and critics of Catalan TV – for having the nerve to broadcast his outburst. When it became known that this monster (who had, in the meantime, apologised and tried to explain his comments) was to perform an unconnected play in a municipal theatre in Madrid, the right wing wiped the foam from their mouths and started a campaign to stop him. At all costs.

So the campaign went into action. Blog posts were written, threats were made, demonstrations were (apparently) called. All this pressure came to bear on the one man who could do something to stop this disgraceful indulgence. Mayor Gallardon couldn’t handle that pressure. Whether it was the awareness that he was elected by ‘Libertad Digital’ reading pricks or a more personal hatred for the freedom of expression, Gallardon moved to stop the play from being performed. Another great day for democracy and freedom of expression under the PP.

At first, this case looks much like those where political meetings have been violently broken up by ultra-nationalist youths: the employment of mob rule to prevent people you don’t like from saying things you don’t want to hear. But this case is far worse. In this case, the mob has spoken and elected officials have moved to placate it. The precedent is far more dangerous and deserves strong opposition from those who oppose repression of free speech.

So where are the crusaders?

Wine, wine, wine

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I’ve just discovered that Spain is the world’s third largest producer of wine. Behind France and Italy (I must admit that I can’t remember the time I last tried a glass of Italian), Spain produced nearly four million tonnes of wine in 2005. I suppose that it makes sense: from the ubiquitous Rioja, through Cava to the Valencian fare sold for four pounds a bottle in England, almost every region in Spain produces its own variety of God’s greatest gift. Personally, I’m a great fan of Priorat. The Catalan county which gives Priorat its name has a minuscule population of fewer than 10,000. And yet it manages to produce a wine whose quality and richness is even now being ‘discovered’ by the bodegas of New York City and London. Read more about Spanish and Portuguese wine at Catavino.

Speaking of wine, Gemma and I watched the film ‘Factotum’ tonight. An adaptation of one of Charles Bukowski’s semi-autobiographical novels, it tracks the jobs, drinks and women of Henry Chinaski who weaves his way between work and bed and racetrack in the form of Matt Dillon. I hadn’t read Factotum before. I loved Post Office and Ham On Rye and so knew – more or less – what to expect. I wasn’t disappointed. The direction and acting in the film were smart and well adapted to the subject material. I laughed my head off at parts. And it stars Marisa Tomei… always a good sign, right Costanza?

Graeme at South of Watford drew my attention to the mad ravings of a Libertad Digital blogger today. Pio Moa (or Pio Mio, as I call him) wrote a piece yesterday which basically argued for the use of violence to wrest power from the democratically elected socialist government. The justification he offers for starting a new civil war is that the socialists conspired to bring about the Madrid bombings two years ago in order to steal the election which followed days later. Naturally, this theory is totally lacking in evidence but then most crazy conspiracy theories are. It would be easy for me to say that this guy needs to drink either more wine or less wine, depending on his current wine consumption.

Pio, I’d be more worried about the crack if I were you.

The PP loves victims of terrorism

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During their time in power as well as during their disgraceful period in opposition, the PP have put nearly all of their energy into dividing Spain. Their constant jibes and threats – targeted against not only the left-wing but against distinct national groups within Spain – have changed this country and have increased tensions between Catalans, Basques, Spaniards, immigrants, conservatives, liberals and socialists.

This is a typical modus operandi for a one-policy party. Political entities of this type have no real philosophy or plan behind them other than the manufacture of fear among the populus. And they’re very successful at it. Intelligent, reserved Spaniards and Catalans whom I know are hesitant to pursue their own political goals because of a perceived threat that if modernisation of this country ‘goes too far’, the right wing will ruin things again.

The PP use this fear to divide the people of Spain. They use it to radicalise Spanish politics. These methods only ever benefit the PP and are all the more disgraceful because they are merely a means to attempt to regain power: as we have made very clear before, the PP does not believe in anything except its own right to control Spain.

To try and derail peace talks between the government and ETA, peace talks which the PP have already agreed to, purely in order to win political points, is the most abhorrent and repulsive act so far committed by this party. Their aim is clearly to gain power at all costs: even if it means that the streets of Spain run with the blood of more victims of terrorism. To call the PP simply power-hungry and divisive is to miss the point. The PP care so little for the people of Spain that they would rather see them dead than alive; if it meant that they controlled la Moncloa. So the question now is whether you’d like to see more victims of terrorism or fewer. The PP know which they’d prefer, and that’s why they’re trying to provoke more violence.