Spain is under attack

Spain, or rather it's government, is under attack from inside and out. With the EU rotational six-month presidency only six weeks in Spanish hands, Prime Minister (or President of the Government if you prefer) José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's popularity sinks below that of Opposition Leader Mariano Rajoy for the first time since the former's reelection two years ago. His party, PSOE, is down in the popularity charts, too; the PP (Partido Popular) leads by over 6 points in the 'if the elections were held today' polls. This in the country's highly politically-polarized media, where statistics tend to reflect the views of the Pied Piper who pays the bills.

In a more personal poll, my e-mails, usually plagued with nonsense messages, are now showing increasingly anti-government stuff sent by well-meaning friends and (virtual) acquaintances of all political shades. (Please stop it!)

Back to Europe. Zapatero may have begun his downward climb -I won't call it a spiral yet- at Davos, the recent annual informal business-political-economic-etc. summit held in Swtzerland. He stood out as the only head of government present who had no English. As I said, not a good start for the President of a European Union where the lingua franca is English among the 27 countries, and more languages, that make it up.

Recent upheaval about the financial situation of Greece, has brought about a non-Spanish media frenzy that proposes a domino effect: if Greece falls into (officially admitted) bankruptcy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland will be next. And bang goes the Euro.

In the meantime, Zapatero's Number Two, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who stands in for her Europe-gallavanting boss more often than not, appears ever more haggard trying to persuade the inquisitive press that everything will be alright, not unlike a distracted mother kissing a grazed knee that will later be discovered to need painful surgery.

Today's Economist publishes an article by Charlemagne entitled: 'Old Spanish practices - Spain now leads the European Union, but not by example' (illustrated by Peter Schrank above) that includes the sentence, "Editorials across the EU have mocked the idea of Mr Zapatero advising Europe on economic recovery." And my good friend Sancho came up with 'Is Zapatero un cateto?' just the other day. Judge for yourself, but let's not forget that there at least two sides to every story.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2010

A powerful message

I first saw this cartoon by Pepe Medina on JimenaPulse. Titled Vida regalada, ‘A gifted life’, its simplicity carries a powerful seasonal message as does all of Medina’s work for Público, in print and online. It’s well worth having a look at for it makes you think. That is the job of cartoonists everywhere, to make us think. And a heck of a job it is: a distillation of feeling, requiring a sense of humour, a deft hand probably backed by years at art school, and a secret ingredient I have never been able to fathom but before which I stand, hat doffed, in awe and admiration.

Cartooning goes back to pre-history, or what else are those cave paintings Spain is full of? Indeed, the tradition of cartoons in this country is alive and well. Every newspaper and website of any consideration is crammed with excellent work. The work of Forges published in El País is a good example, although a good knowledge of colloquial Spanish may be needed. Of course, he’s been around since forever. So has Antonio Mingote, who is also a poet and a member of the Real Academia.

Why are there so many good cartoonists in Spain? I don’t doubt for a minute there are just as many and just as good anywhere else, but I happen to live here. The rhetorical answers to my question, only opinions, are that 40 years of dictatorship forces one to read between the lines and thus refines not only a sense of healthy skepticism but also one of irony. (As a young man under a dictatorship in another country I used to buy several different daily papers to get as balanced a view as possible, but I often found that the cartoonists, often persecuted, had done that for me already.)

The other answer is that there is also a healthy comics-publishing industry, perhaps the best example of which is El Jueves, a distant Spanish cousin of the old Private Eye. These publications are a wonderful training ground for anyone who breaks out into the perilous world of the freelance. Alas, however, too many of these are unlikely to make a living from their cartoons. A more regional example of this is Ricardo Tejeiro, who publishes in Europa Sur. Ricardo is also a writer and a psychologist, which last may well account for his acuteness on issues that are mostly local rather than national or international. There are so many of them, all of them good, that there is no room here to name each one. How I wish that were possible. But long may they all last. And long may they keep bringing us their powerful messages.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

Sex at Christmas

I don’t do it often but when I do, I have to admit to a certain frisson, which could be simply a matter of age, though that's what they want me to do. I’m not talking about sex. Well, I am, but on television and in the press. The Spanish press and television, for that is what I see more frequently. The above picture comes straight from last Sunday’s El País, and there’s more below.

This time of year brings out two of the most expensive genres of the advertising world: toys, including the expensive electronic types, and perfumes. The former doesn’t use sex very much unless you count the fact that a lot of dolls seem to come complete with genitals and the ability to pee and more at will. And, naturally, advertising for dolls is aimed at little girls, despite protestations from the more ‘advanced’ feminists who’d rather they played with lorries.

The latter, however, is all about sex. Perfume has always been about sex and the attraction of the opposite. Historically, though, it was first used, in Europe at least, to cover body odours I’d rather not imagine, much less deal with. Cleopatra may be another story more in keeping with the theme of this article. Mind you, she had to attract the likes of Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, with whom she had one and three children respectively. Perfume as empire builder – no wonder perfume is a potent armament. (Would that the Bush empire had sprayed perfume instead of bombs all over the Middle East…)

Back to today and sex in the media. Perfume advertising aimed at either sex -and sometimes what looks like a third- comes up on screen three times a year: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas. It can be broadly classified as Macho, Muy Macho and I’m Not Too Sure. This applies to perfumes for men and women alike. There are brands that are created for both sexes, others that have a same-name bottle for each. The bottles themselves are another thing: phallic for men and -what’s the opposite of phallic?- for women. Well of course!

I know that sex is a powerful advertising tool: I have been an advertising copywriter for decades, though I never worked on any perfume ads (I wonder why?). Indeed, I have no objection to sex, nor even to Christmas. It’s just that the two seem a bit incongruous together. I don’t object to a little nooky at Christmas time, either; it’s ‘family time’ after all. But I propose that perfume ads become a little more Christmassy and maybe a little less sexual. Or am I just an old fart?

Below are some more samples of what I mean, including a couple of TV commercials that have been placed at this time of year (click on the images to enlarge, if you must, but be warned that some of them may be unsuitable for children – unless they’re going to give you perfume this year, of course):

The right to know

Unlike almost every other country in Europe, Spain does not have what might be called a ‘transparency law’. Sweden has had one since 1766, but only Spain, Luxembourg, Greece and Cyprus don’t have one today, while Malta has put one into motion recently. There are 78 countries in the world with one but we can surely guess that Zimbabwe doesn’t and it wouldn’t require a much imagination to take a guess at a few more.

Severiano Fernández, professor of Administrative Law at the University of Cádiz, says, ”Spain wants to be a modern country but in these matters it lags well behind countries like Mexico.” Or even Guatemala, according to Access Info Europe, the Old Continent’s branch of an international organization that abrogates free access to information.

In a recent study that followed 41requests for information made to several different level public agencies, Access Info came to a devastating concluson: 78% of them did not receive the information requested. In some cases (43%) the information was actively denied and in another 43% there was no reply to the request at all.

So what is a ‘transparency law’? It simply gives the citizen the right to know what happens at, in or about government agencies and their activities. The agencies that taxpayers pay for, be they national, regional or local. It’s a Freedom of Information Act by another name.

In other words, in Spain we don’t have the right to know how our money is spent, how long a waiting list is at the hospital, how many soldiers are in the forces or how many Spanish casualties there have been in Afghanistan, or how many offices our Council is paying rent for, or what the cost of refurbishing them might be. If you’ve ever tried to find out any of these, or almost anything else, you’ll know what I mean.

The law of omertà is prevalent in Spain. The law of silence. Officials, secretaries, functionaries and their ilk have it down to a tee: their excuses for not giving information can be imaginative, but when that fails, there is always something called silencio informativo, or administrative silence. This is probably why letters to ministries, councils or official bodies of any kind remain unanswered. The lower the administrative ladder, the worse it gets. They must all believe they are the guardians of ‘official secrets’.

In most other countries with such a law, the time stipulated for a reply is 15 days. The Access Info report states that the average reply time in Spain (when there actually is a reply) is 38 days, though it uncovered too many cases where a reply had spent over 6 months ‘in the freezer’. Sweden is admittedly an exception, though certainly an admirable one: a reply must be made within 24 or 48 hours, depending on its urgency. By law. If the request is complex and needs a lot of searching, the person requiring it will get a phone call, within 24 hours, explaining the reason for the delay and giving an exact date for delivery. By law.

Strangely, the introduction of such a law was on the PSOE manifestos for the 2004 and 2008 elections. “Impulsaremos una ley sobre el derecho al libre acceso a la información que garantice que todos los poderes, autoridades públicas y entidades sostenidas con fondos públicos faciliten, en tiempo útil, el libre acceso a toda información o documento oficial, con la única excepción de lo que atente a la legislación de protección de datos o de secretos oficiales,” it said. “We shall propose a law on the right of free access to information that guarantees that all government agencies, authorities and entities maintained with public funds facilitate, in useful time, free access to all information or public document, with the only exception of that which attempts against the laws on data protection or official secrets.” We’re still waiting.

President Zapatero only mentioned it in passing some three weeks ago, probably because the Council of Europe is planning the first international treaty on this right at a convention that could be happening as soon as 2009.

It would be ironic if the convention was held in sunny Spain. Of course, we couldn’t find out how much it cost…

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008