Cutting the ham

This is a Spanish jamón being cut as it should, in fine, almost transparent slivers. Some consider it an art. Others see it as an offence.

Articles appeared recently in Europa Sur and in CampoPulse -and probably in other media as well - about a Muslim family in La Línea de la Concepción who denounced (a Spanish term meaning 'make a report or complaint') their son's teacher for mentioning ham during a geography lesson - a lesson about climate, using as an example one of Spain's 'cathedrals' of ham, Trévelez in the Alpujarras, which is 1700 m above sea level and dry and cold enough to produce some of the country's very best jamones. Apparently, the boy asked the teacher not to mention the pork product because it injured his Muslim sensibilities.

The matter came to the attention of the boy's family, who supposedly rushed round to the National Police station to file a complaint, accusing the teacher of maltrato de obra ('factual abuse'), racism and xenophobia, and the Judicial Police (an arm of the National variety) is investigating. The teacher's colleagues and the school's administration are indignant. So am I.

Pushmepullyou politics continues as usual

...as it has for altogether too long, especially when it comes to jurisdiction over waters (Sorry, I couldn't find a picture of a PMPY in the water). China and Japan are at it over a tiny island over on the other side of the world. Just across the Atlantic and a big squidge further down there are some islands that for me were the Malvinas in the morning and the Falklands in the afternoon (this needs more explanation but would send me right off track). Closer to home was the farcical invasion of the even tinier island of Perejil (Parsley Island for a rock sticking out of the water, for God's sake!) by Moroccan troops some years ago, an invasion heroically thwarted by valiant Spanish soldiers. Much closer is Gibraltar.

There but for the grace of Greece

Cartoon by abbé, from DominGo magazine 'dedicated to workers and pensioners'

The dominoes begin to fall. It was Greece last week, now it's Spain. Portugal and Ireland are not far behind, and Britain cuts back, too, after 'unsatisfactory' elections.

Cut, cut, cut. But cut what and from where and, more important, from whom? From here, some of the most drastic measures in Europe:

• Cut civil service salaries at all levels by an average of 5% in 2010 and freeze them in 2011. Includes autonomous regions and local councils.

• Cut back government grants, etc. to autonomous regions and local councils by €1,200 million.

• Freeze pensions at 2010 levels; no inflation increase.

• Eliminate 'birth check' of €2,500 per birth, in 2011.

• Cut state public investment by €6,000 million between 2010 and 2011.

• Cut back pharmacy costs by reducing prescriptions.

• Cut development grants and subsidies by €600 million.

• Eliminate retroactive payments for 'Carers Law'. Any retroactive rights to be paid over 5 years.

• Restructure financial (i.e. banking and building societies) system.

As usual, it's the 'little man', in Spain and Greece at any rate (don't know about Britain, it's all too confusing), who get battered by cutbacks. Among many other measures to be taken by Zapatero's government  there is no word about increasing taxes on the rich. Well, you'd expect that from a supposedly socialist government, wouldn't you?

Yet at the top of the heap sit the fat cats who made vast, often illegal and fraudulent profits on land speculation throughout the country. Even Zapatero admits it: "Those who have had nothing to do with the recession, who did nothing to create it, are the ones who will have to make the greatest efforts to get out of it." Great. Another good socialist concept.

If this sounds like revenge, so be it. If it sounds punitive, so be it.

As I've said before, I am no economist (ask my bank manager), but with employment at 20%, the highest in Europe, cutting back as it is proposed doesn't seem to add up, whatever the ECB, the IMF or the stock markets say. Or indeed, whatever Obama has to say: he called Zapatero to 'discuss' the situation earlier in the week. If cutbacks cause more unemployment, as they will, up go the unemployment costs. Elementary, dear Zapatero. So who gets cut back after that? The unemployed, of course!

Maybe not. To be fair, the government also announced that Spanish MPs' and Senators salaries will be cut by 15%, about which the left wing opposition, Izquierda Unida, suggested should "go a little further" by extending the measure to the top echelon at banks, building societies and large businesses (Note: Did you know that Telefónica is the largest telecommunications company in the world? Or that it and Endesa, Banco Santander, BBVA and Repsol, among others, are in the top 500 world conglomerates?)

Spanish unions are already calling for 'mobilizations', a day after the cutbacks were announced, with a nationwide civil service strike planned for June 2nd, and rumours of a national strike in the offing soon, too. They should get a lot of people out into the streets with over 4 million unemployed...  The best we can hope for is that nobody dies as a result, as those three bank employees did in Greece.

In Spain the term 'public servant' is not used. Instead, it's funcionario público, or 'public functionary'. The problem is in the word funcionario. Over the years this has taken on a peyorative meaning, often illustrated by the person you want to see at the Town Hall, who just happens to have gone out for breakfast at 10 and won't be back until after noon if at all. But as Ignacio Fernández Toxo, head of the Comisiones Obreras union, said this morning: "A funcionario is not only [the one described above] but also the doctor at the health centre, his nurses, the policeman on the corner, and the woman who cleans the street outside your house." I understand that in Britain, these are called 'frontline services', but I don't understand Britain, so better leave this one alone (until my next post, which is likely to be about something I don't understand).

The peyorative funcionario term, could well be applied to Zapatero and his ministers, who were probably out having coffee several months ago when everyone was warning them about the recession and its consequences and about the drastic measures that would have to be taken. Yesterday, they woke up and smelled the coffee. Late, as ever.

And speaking of something I don't understand: why have the stock markets got us by the Ed Balls? I don't own stock; I don't gamble, legally or otherwise. I don't even read the FT, The Economist, the WSJ, El Economista, Expansión or anything like that. Maybe that's why I don't understand. But do you, Average Citizen?
(c)  Alexander Bewick 2010

Is this the stupidest TV commercial ever?

Looking at it from Spain, it certainly is. It's also an insult to Spain as well as to my, and hopefully your, intelligence. A certain local mountain rag, which shall remain nameless here forever more, recently ran a whole story on Jamie Oliver's escapades in that mountain town, apparently part of a series the cook is doing on Spanish food. Oliver is intent on making a fool of himself: he capsized in his attempt to change the eating habits of US over-the-top consumers (consuming is what they do best, so why change?), his well-meaning endeavours with school meals in the UK has had ... um ... his coffers filled, if nothing else.

Back to Spain.

Some of the comments on YouTube, mostly but not all in Spanish: "That's all I needed." "I found this video appalling ... making light of bullfighting is just sickening." "SHAME ON JAMIE OLIVER!!!!!!!!!" "I do not care about Jamie's ignorance in confusing Mexico and Spain." "Shame on Jamie Oliver. You are an ignorant species! Really pathetic!!" "Insulting and non researched at all. Can somebody tell me why do BRITISH PEOPLE think that Mexican hats are worn in Spain? Also, paella is not from Andalucia but from Valencia. So, please do your research." "Obviously they mix everything any way they like. They might even think that Mexico is a province in Spain."

Quite.

(C) Alexander Bewick 2010

Ashes to ashes

Nature has a way of taking care of itself. The Eyjafjallajokull (go ahead, you pronounce it!) volcano in Iceland  has apparently entered a calmer stage, whereby more lava and less ash (picture above) is spewing forth. Nevertheless, chaos is still spewing from just about everywhere with any connection to Europe. Anywhere in the world, that is. An entry on Wikipedia, that not entirely reliable encyclopedia, explains what exactly the ash is and does.
As far as I'm concerned, I've seen enough about it for over a week. Now I wake up in the morning with gratitude: I wasn't going anywhere, I'm not anywhere else, I'm at home unstranded. That the world's air transport system, especially the European, came to a standstill at the hands of Mother Nature just goes to show that we humans are as powerless over her as we have ever been. Not unlike a power cut, when we realize how much we depend on it but only notice when it isn't instantly available.

I have every sympathy for people stranded hither and yon, particularly those with small children and no credit on their credit card. But little sympathy for football hooligans trying to hooliganize matches abroad - whichever abroad it may be. Little sympathy, too, for business travellers who must, must, must get to a meeting somewhere else - if they stayed home and videoconferenced instead, our air might be a lot cleaner. And I have no sympathy at all with Brussels fonctionaires trying to get to Luxembourg (go by car, it's close) or Strasbourg or any other place they are intent on bureaucratizing - if they stayed put, life would be a lot simpler.Least of all have I any sympathy for those who pay exorbitant amounts of money for 'private transport'. The news showed someone who paid €1200 to a driver to take them from Paris to Vigo in Northern Spain. With that kind of money, they could have stayed in great comfort for a couple more days in that beautiful city - and enjoy it, as opposed to 'seeing' it.

There have also been cases of true solidarity. One of them had a young couple with small children (two and four) being offered a flight on a private jet to get them back to Amsterdam from the Canaries, where they had been on holiday over Easter, for which they had saved up for three years. Dad had been unemployed for over a year and Mom earned €450 a month cleaning offices part time. The kind millionaire also paid for a car trip from Valencia on and up.

The Dunkirk spirit rose out of the ashes, too, when someone tried to get across the Channel in a rubber raft or three - well, not exactly a raft, more of a Zodiac, I believe. The spirit was dashed by the French authorities, who didn't think this was a good idea. But the spirit will not be put down quite so easily what with the Royal Navy coming to the rescue (should get Brown a couple of votes...).

To get to the point (at last): the Chaos Theory was proven thanks to that unpronounceable volcano. Or, as the Honorary Spanish Consul in Reykjavik put it in an interview, "We were blamed for a lot of the recession. Now this!" I think she meant Iceland, which turns out to be a lot more than a frozen food outlet. 

(C) Alexander Bewick 2010

Fascism is alive and well and living in Spain

Falange Española de las J.O.N.S. (or its full title: Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista) is approximately translated as 'Traditionalist Phalanx Formation and National  Unionist Offensive', a difficult translation at best, particularly when imagining that 'Nacional Sindicalista' could easily have been 'Nacional Socialista' -and may well have been in its darkest past- that would very easily be translated to National Socialist, or Nazi. It is the euphemism used before, during and after the Spanish Civil war for the blueshirt Fascist party of Spain. It still exists as a group, organization or political 'party', whichever you choose to call it. Its members are the ones you see giving the Fascist salute at the kind of commemoration very few wish to remember. Aside from the strutting and strong-armed salute, their symbols include the five arrows and yoke that once identified Spain's Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, and that spread terror among the populace for over fifty more recent years.

Falange Española is behind at least one of three cases being brought against Judge Baltasar Garzón, who sits on Spain's Central Criminal Court, the Audiencia Nacional. Together with the ultra right wing union Manos Limpias ('Clean Hands'!) they appear as the accusation against Garzón for his attempting to investigate crimes against humanity during the Franco dictatorship. His stated objective in pursuing those crimes is, or was, to try to clear up who exactly lies in the innumerable common graves and ditches, into which were tossed the bodies of just about anybody who opposed the illegal Franco regime. 

The Ley de Memoria Histórica (Historical Memory Law) of 2007 has the following provisions:

• Recognition of the victims of political, religious and ideological violence on both sides of the Spanish Civil War and of Franco's regime.

• Condemnation of the Francoist regime

• Prohibition of political events at the Valley of the Fallen - Franco's burial place.

• The removal of francoist symbols from public buildings and spaces. Exceptions may be given for artistic or architectural reasons, or in the case of religious spaces.

• State help in the tracing, identification and eventual exhumation of victims of Francoist repression whose corpses are still missing, often buried in mass graves. (My italics.)

• The granting of Spanish nationality to surviving members of the International Brigades, without requiring them to renounce their own nationalities.

• Rejection of the legitimacy of laws passed and trials conducted by the Francoist regime.

• Temporary change to Spanish nationality law, granting the right of return and de origen citizenship to those who left Spain under Franco for political or economic reasons, and their descendants.

• Provision of aid to the victims and descendants of victims of the Civil War and the Francoist regime.

In other words, Garzón was doing what the law says he, or other more timid judges, should be doing.

The other two cases against him are brought by rightist interests as well. One of them is supposedly investigating fees he received for a series of lectures at New York University, promoted by Banco Santander and its President, Emilio Botín. Although this case was archivado ('filed', presumably in the waste paper basket) last year, the matter was raised again because it is alleged that there might be some connection with a case against Botín that was dismissed by the judge after the lecture tour. He is accused of malfeasance and bribery. The third case is clearly political inasmuch as Garzón, who was for a short time a minister in the PSOE government, is being investigated about covert phone taps in a case of corruption that currently involves some thirty people, many higher-ups, in the government of the Valencia region, governed by opposition PP.

A meeting held recently in support of the judge, called by the country's two main unions, UGT and CC.OO. and held at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, has elicited calls for the resignation of its Rector, who was present and on the dais. Most of the calls come from the PP, who happen to run Madrid as well.

The historical memory case has raised international condemnation. A frequent comment goes something like this: "It is shameful that a judge is accused of doing his job." In Argentina, where many exiled victims, or  descendants, of the Franco regime still live, Garzón is viewed as a hero for his persecution of those who committed crimes during the Videla 'years of the disappeared' (one of whom is right now on his way back from Spain to face the music). A case is being brought there, via the Spanish courts, against those who are here pressing for his dismissal. Condemnation is unanimous throughout Latin America, and also in Europe; the matter has been the subject of headlines and opinion pieces in most of the world's more serious press. Internet sites in support of Garzón are multiplying (one of several on Facebook here).

The Spanish judicial system is a mess. At the top, i.e. the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, it leans heavily to the right, despite protestations such as 'leave the judiciary alone'. In a democratic state, one should be able to assume that its judiciary has no leanings at all. Of course, that would be impossible if only because its members are human and have their preferences, however subdued. From following his career it is easy to see that Garzón himself leans to the left, together with many of his colleagues. This might evoke the Chinese saying I just invented: 'Too many leaning trees make the forest bare.'

I support Garzón. Do you?

(Update 23/04/10: Falange Española has been eliminated from the accusation against Garzón in the case against him for investigating crimes during the Franco era. The reason given by Supreme Court Judge Lucero Varela is that the ultra-right organization did not present his request for amendments to their accusation in time. Room for another article on the judiciary: Political interference?)

(See also Shooting oneself in the foot)

(c) Alexander Bewick 2010

Corruption as a way of life

Luis Roldán Ibáñez is a free man today, having spent 15 of a 30 year prison sentence in jail. At age 66 he is entitled to receive a pension although he has never returned the €10million he stole as the first civilian to head the Guardia Civil. "I have paid dearly for what I did," he says, "but there are those who got away scot free."

Of course there are, lots of them, but none as corrupt as this head of one of the country's principal police forces from 1986 to 1993 - plenty of time to steal plenty of money. He stole taxpayers' money, amassing a fortune estimated at €30million; he received large 'commissions' from the builders of thousands of Guardia Civil buildings; he escaped justice for 11 months and was eventually caught in Bangkok; he falsified university diplomas throughout his career; he created fictitious companies in Spain and Switzerland to hide his ill-gotten gains; he evaded taxes (well, he would, wouldn't he?), his case contributed largely to the fall of the PSOE government of Felipe González.

Not bad for the son of a taxi driver.

The man blames former spy Francisco Paesa for his misfortunes, for giving him away in Thailand, and says Paesa has the missing millions. Paesa has never been brought to court, which supposedly pains Roldán immensely. It is widely believed, however, that they are 'compinches', in cahoots to this day.

Roldán was originally condemned to 31 years in prison but Spain's new Penal Code had this reduced to 20. He spent the last five at a Centro de Inserción Social in Zaragoza, a sort of half way house in his native city.

And now he is a pensioner. With €10 million in the (Swiss?) bank.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2010

A load of bull

I confess: I used to 'follow the bulls'. A youthful fantasy that I had something, anything, to do with Hemingway. I lived in the US long enough to get pangs of nostalgia about life in Spain. That included being clued up on the 'art' of bullfighting. But something happened shortly after my return to this country almost twenty years ago, after attending a couple of bullfights.

I was sitting in a local bar watching the San Isidro season on TV, a major month-long season in Madrid. All of a sudden I asked myself, "What the hell am I doing here?" I haven't been to a bullfight since that day. Occasionally I have watched something to do with the corrida but always about the breeding of those magnificent animals, or the horses that attend the rejoneo, or bullfighting on horseback. As a former horseman, I am in awe of their riding skills and the training that goes on behind the scenes.

As I write, Cataluña is debating banning the bullfight from the region, and Madrid has just announced that it will declare it a Bien de Interés Cultural. In Andalucía, the President of the Partido Popular, Javier Arenas, has announced that he will seek a parliamentary debate and subsequent 'non-law proposition' to "defend our traditions, our culture and our fiesta nacional (another name for the bullfight)."

Call it political polarization: Cataluña is governed by a centre-left coalition and Madrid by the Partido Popular; Andalucía has been run by the PSOE since the advent of democracy thirty years ago and whom Arenas has been trying to dethrone for at least four elections. But I don't want to get political on the subject of bullfighting: let the politicos do that, it's their job.

No, I want to look at the word 'culture' as it is so often applied to the corrida. In English the word is used as something positive ('a cultured people', for example) but I have always felt that the word cultura in Spain ought to be written 'kultur', in the Soviet fashion. The country is plagued with casas de cultura that are usually no more than places for the local politicians to hold political meetings and the occasional 'cultural' event - ones that espouse only the interests of the local governing party even though the building is a public asset 'owned' by everyone, of any political colour.

Used in the more English sense, and associating it with bullfighting, goes a little deeper. Add 'tradition' and I have a problem.

Is there anything cultural about killing defenceless animals? Is it right just because it's a tradition? Is every tradition the right thing just because it has been done for a long time? Clearly not.

The debate is on, yet nowhere have I read about the possibility of bullfighting without killing the bull onstage, as they do in Portugal and a few other places in the world, though the bull is usually killed outside the ring, and used for meat, unlike the ones in the picture above -by JimenaPulse, to whom thanks- which get cremated.

As I said, the debate is on.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2010

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

Are they building society?

In a lingustic twist I first heard from a Polish friend -and one that would amuse my friends Prospero and Sancho- the Spanish caja de ahorros became in English a 'cage of horrors'. I mention it only because the English version in Spain is getting close to being the truth.

As I write, the news is full of more horrors of the financial variety. The Spanish government took over a relatively small building society, Caja Castilla La Mancha, during the weekend. Ministers of all kinds have been on the box reasssuring the public that 'everything's fine', 'the banking system is solid', 'stronger than ever', etc. etc. Caja Castilla La Mancha, CCM for short, has some 2.6 million depositors, many of whom have been withdrawing their money rather rapidly of late - the queues were around corners in the news. CCM had a 'temporary liquidity problem', according to one of those political heads. How temporary is temporary? How long is a piece of string?

Caja de ahorros transliterates to 'box of savings', or Savings & Loans in the US and Building Society in the UK. We know about those there. It's a different story in Spain; Spain is different, said a successful ad campaign for tourism years ago. It is.

The autonomous region of Castilla La Mancha is governed by the PSOE, so naturally the opposition PP is putting all the blame on the national government. They fail to mention that Caja Madrid (governed by the PP) is having its own internecine war among the factions headed by regional head Esperanza Aguirre and the capital's mayor, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón. But why? What has politics to do with a building society?

In Spain, every autonomous region has its own building society, often several, as in the cases of Madrid, Catalonia or Andalucía, for instance. The majority of their Board of Directors is appointed by the region's government, as is the Chairperson (hate that word!), in a form of apportionment that naturally favours the party in power. That's what's happening at Caja Madrid, for example.

Building societies in Spain, like everywhere else, were born to serve those who did not have access to the normal banking system and from the 18th to the mid-20th centuries were known as montes de piedad, or 'amounts of mercy', which is/was a euphemism for pawnshop (image). They were established in provincial capitals and obliged to open branches in rural population centres. Their services were pretty much restricted to mortgages and smaller loans and became powerful institutions. But banks provided all the services the building societies offered and a lot more.

The cajas de ahorros, which were run largely by management committees made up of their depositors, couldn't therefore compete for our money so they were 'democratized'. The cost was a loss of depositors' control and the opening up of the whole system, with the market presently divided about 50-50 between cajas and banks. In fact, you'd be hard put to know the difference unless you thought about it.

The difference, of course, is at the top. A bank is run by a Board elected by shareholders and a caja is run by political appointees. It must be said, though, that these appointees are often no more than figureheads, and the actual business is run by professional bankers. Don't ask me what happens at a Board meeting when those political claws come into play, though.

In answer to the headline's question: they certainly have done in the past, especially in Spain, where the rural population took longer than most other countries' to move to the cities. Whether they will fall apart as so many others have, we shall see.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

Gambling on the box

There is a worrying trend spreading virus-like on Spanish television. Having no Sky or similar facility, I don’t know if the trend is spreading abroad, or even if it has come to this country from elsewhere.

As though there weren’t enough problem gambling in Spain, now we have every television channel and lots of radio stations offering quick riches at all times of the day and night – there are even whole programmes dedicated to it, mostly in the small hours but not all. Send a text message to such-and-such a number and you can win anything from €1000 to €500,000 – or x amount per month for the rest of your life, or for a year. Easy, isn’t it?

The catch words are ‘you can win’. No guarantee that you will. All you’re doing is taking part in a lottery. Each message will cost you well over €1, depending, I suppose, on the prize money.

That is as much gambling as poker, El Gordo or a slot machine. Unlike these, though, there is no legislation in Spain to control it. According to El País, the TV stations’ advertising income has plummeted and they are taking advantage of a legal vacuum.

The organization that is supposed to control gambling in Spain is the Loterías y Apuestas del Estado (LAE) but it classifies text message gaming as a competition and thus allows it without regulation.

There is a serious gambling addiction problem in Spain – not surprising when every bar has at least one slot machine and there are so many ‘official’ ways to gamble: lottery, pools, specials, etc. And then there is online gambling, which, according to JARCA, a self-help problem gamblers organization very active in the Campo de Gibraltar, is creating more addicts than ever. Add these to the desperation of unemployment and you have a bomb. And we won’t even go into Bwin sponsoring Real Madrid on their shirts.

Gibraltar, too, is a major international online gambling centre, confirmed by a quick look through Google, where you will find all sorts of juicy get rich quick schemes. Most of them, though, have a link to some sort of self help organization such as Gamblers Anonymous, that they refer to in a miniscule section variously titled as ‘Social Responsibility’.

Compulsive gambling is an illness and recognized as such by the World Health Organization. It is the same as, say, alcoholism or drug addiction and has much the same consequences.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

Shooting oneself in the foot

This is the scenario: Judge Baltasar Garzón initiates an investigation into systematic corruption in the Partido Popular (PP) of Madrid and other important cities. Arrests are made and heavy bails are set. Plenty of PP bigwigs are allegedly involved, some of whom are aforados, including a President of an Autonomous Region governed by the PP and several national and regional deputies (and more to come, apparently).The excrement hits the fan and the PP, which is under its own investigation for spying among its own ranks in Madrid, is in retreat.


When you’re cornered, you attack, don’t you? Mariano Rajoy, the Leader of the Opposition, says that Garzón, who was once, for a short time, a high-up elected PSOE parliamentarian and now sits as one of sx judges on the National Criminal Court,  is persecuting his, Rajoy’s, party. Like manna from heaven, rather than excrement, for the PP, the Minister for Justice, Mariano Fernández Bermejo (PSOE, photo), is discovered to have gone on a weekend hunting jaunt with the famous Judge Garzón – not very cleverly at the northern Andalucía estate of a member of the PP. To make matters worse, the Minister of Justice did not have the right gun licence for Andalucía, so was hunting illegally.

This scenario turned out to be ideal for both parties: they are able to raise smokescreens of cross accusations instead of dealing with the economy, which neither party seems able to do. Indeed, the PP scored a victory today: Bermejo resigned his Ministry "but I will continue to work from my position as a Deputy". He had presented his resignation last week but Zapatero didn’t accept it. Until he had to, obviously (See my article: The need to be right, below.)

Bermejo was on a roll until then. He was ‘renovating’ the judicial system, which badly needs it. (The budget for this phase of the renovation is €20 million, and the budget for handing out free long-life light bulbs throughout the country is €40 million.) But he was not well liked by those he was supposed to be renovating: there have been strikes by court officials, court Secretaries and even an unprecedented and allegedly unconstitutional strike by judges. His successor is Francisco Caamaño, who is known as a deft negotiator and well respected. It will take a lot of negotiating to unravel this mess.

In the meantime, the PP licks its chops – though not for long if Garzón has his way. But then, they’re all in an electoral battle in Galicia and the Basque Region, so they may be otherwise occupied.

But one thing must be said: Bermejo is one of very few Spanish politicians to have resigned for a misdeed. This brings to mind the non-resignation of several PP ministers of the Aznar era, who should have resigned for much more serious things, including the mishandling of the Prestige environmental catastrophe, the Yak-42 aircraft accident that killed 62 Spanish soldiers on their way back from Afghanistan – or indeed, Aznar himself, who got his country into the Iraq disaster in the first place, though he was elected out before he could do any more damage.
(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

Terrorists create terror, that's their job

Terrorists are back in the headlines. We’ve just heard of two attacks by the ‘Real’ IRA in Northern Ireland. On the inner pages of a paper, we read about Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Israel, etc. etc. We even read about ‘non-terrorist’ attacks in the US and in Germany, which by virtue of the madness of their perpetrators, create terror nevertheless.

But today, March 11, marks the fifth year since the largest terrorist attack ever in Europe (unless you count wars, which are another form of terror): the attack by Islamic terrorists on commuter trains in Madrid. One hundred and ninety-two people were killed, hundreds were injured and millions still remember it.

Today, March 11, should have been a day of remembrance, which for the more direct victims it surely is. But the politicians chose otherwise. At ceremonies held at various points along the route the trains took that fateful day, politicians laid flowers, made speeches and appeared in photos that will make the front pages. The trouble is that the PSOE chose not to appear at the official ones in protest against a decision by the PP (in government in Madrid) to conclude an investigation into spying on itself. What the hell has one thing to do with the other?

Today, March 11, at a time when unity in remembrance and as tribute to the victims should be the objective, politicians showed yet again that their only aim is self-interest. Even the various Victims of Terrorism groups in Spain, with their members going back into history but also including the more recent, are divided along political lines, choosing to attend separate ceremonies.

Shame on them.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

How rustic is your property?

The recent arrest of the Mayor of Alcaucín, Málaga, on corruption charges that include allowing building on terreno rústico, points the spotlight at a problem that is and has been recurrent certainly on the coasts if not all over Spain for a number of greedy years. Most of the buyers of holiday or retirement homes in these places are expats looking for a place in the sun. By expats I mean of any nationality, though in the most recent case in Alcaucín, they were mostly British.

The Spanish media is full of headlines on the subject. In Sunday’s edition of El País, an in depth analysis of this case had a separate item titled: Los residentes extranjeros, principales compradores (Foreign residents, the main buyers) in which the first paragraph reads: “They came to Spain for the sunshine and a garden they couldn’t afford in their home country. Their ignorance of the law and a lack of scruples on the part of builders, intermediaries and public officials did the rest.”

The article quotes a British buyer, “To us, rústico means rustic, of the countryside, not a synonym for land that can’t be built on.” And therein lies the crux.

The Junta de Andalucía and eight municipalities in the Almanzora area of Málaga, which contains Alcaucín, have counted over 3,000 homes built on terreno rústico an official designation that means You Can’t Build on It / Green Belt / No, No, No – or any other such approximation. But then, if your builder or developer knows his way around your local Town Hall, he may well have built on what is ‘about to become’ urbanizable land. How does he know that?

Many if not most of the smaller municipalities in Andalucía and other ’sunny’ places, are operating under a Plan General de Ordenación Urbana (PGOU in it Spanish acronym, roughly translatable to General Urban Ordination Plan – or Town Planning Regulations) that dates back to 1987 or thereabouts. Things have changed since then, of course, particularly during the Aznar years in government -but not always- when developers appeared to be able to do whatever they liked with few consequences that couldn’t be settled with a little finesse. The result is plain to anyone who has ever seen those vast developments on what would otherwise be open countryside. The photo that illustrates this article is a prime example in Seseña, Toledo, where there isn’t even a coastline and the massive development has naturally run into all kinds of trouble in the present economic climate. We don’t know how many expats might have bought there, but that, too, was built on a PGOU that is ‘in the process of change’, a change that has been conveniently a-changing since the 1980s but that allows for hefty ‘commissions’ to be had from those same developers and builders, many of whom are now in jail, or should be.

One question arises about these purchases, one that has arisen all too often over the years: When was the last time you bought a property in Britain (or anywhere else in the northern part of the EU, for that matter) without a proper survey being done beforehand? It is true, though, that a survey in Spain can be extremely dicey: Is the surveyor being paid by the developer? Are the proper documents easily available from the Town Hall? Can you trust the surveyor, and if you do, can you understand what he says? And if you’re working through an estate agent, how much do you know about him or her?

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

Crisis? What crisis? A bit of perspective, please

Here are a couple of interesting calculations. The US is debating whether to hand over another $700 billion (let’s get those zeros right, we’re talking about $700,000,000,000, the US billion, not $700,000,000,000,000, the UK kind) to the banks. Forget the $500 billion they’ve already handed over. The world is inhabited by 6,700,000,000 people, give or take a few million born while I’m writing this. Divide the US banks’ $700 billion by the number of inhabitants and you get about $104 million per inhabitant. That’s perspective.

So let’s do the same for Spain (you can do your own maths for whatever 'developed' country you like if you have the figures). The population of Spain at the end of 2008 was 46,063,511. The amount of money Zapatero is handing over to the banks so far is €30,000,000,000. Divide the money among the inhabitants (we wish!) and you get €652,000,000 per inhabitant. That’s perspective, and enough to pay a mortgage or two. It would be handy to all those thrown out of their jobs by greedy companies taking advantage of the Crisis (yes, it has to be in caps).

Better not even try doing any of these figures for the banking executives’ bonuses, it would be too depressing…

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

As drunk as a judge

The story is out in Britain about Deputy District Judge Esther Cunningham (photo), who had to be escorted from court after kissing a solicitor, swearing at an usher and insulting a prosecutor while 'fortified' with brandy. This from a disciplinary tribunal that 'found it difficult to determine the correct sanction' according to The Telegraph.

Apparently, Cunningham caused uproar at a hearing in November, at which she was appearing as a solicitor, swaying and clutching a table to steady herself while interrupting proceedings. She also appeared drunk during a legal training course which she was conducting and spoke openly about wanting to punch the chairman of her legal governing body. Cunningham, 54, was banned from practising law for six months after admitting a series of charges including bringing the profession into disrepute. Six months in 'purgatory' might make this judge consider the fact that she needs help.

You don’t hear about drunk judges in Spain. Maybe there aren’t any.

On the other hand, you do hear about insulting disciplinary proceedings against judges who fail to serve arrest orders on convicted paedophiles. In one notorious case, Sevilla Judge Rafael Tirado was fined a mere €1500 (half the maximum fine, as set by his colleagues) -and never suspended from his courtroom- for failing to make sure that the alleged murderer of five-year-old Mariluz Cortés was sent to jail on prior charges of molesting his own daughter. Tirado has appealed the fine. His court secretary, however, was suspended 'without salary' for two years, even though the ultimate responsibility belongs to the judge, who is the secretary’s boss.

Meanwhile, the judges’ 'union' is threatening to strike all over Spain, rightly alleging that they are overwhelmed with work. Judging (forgive the pun) from the state of most of the country’s courtrooms, I’d have to agree with them. Amongst many other things, Spain’s judicial system, which has been notoriously inefficient for much too long, has never been fully ‘computerized’, leading to a mass of paperwork building up in every corner of court offices, desks, passageways and, in some cases, even the toilets – and, of course, leading to one of the slowest of such 'systems' in Europe.

Is there any comparison between these two items? You tell me.

(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):

I came across a past copy of the Daily Express, not a paper I read often even online. Above the main headline you will see: “EXCLUSIVE: Secret squad preparing us to join euro.” I know what the political inclination of the Express is, so its alarmist tone doesn’t surprise me in the least. On Page 2 is a long article headlined, “X43m is spent on unit plotting to join euro.” (The X should be a pound sign but I haven’t got one readily available on my keyboard. Sorry.) There is even a box for a poll that asks, “Is joining the euro a disaster for Britain?” and phone numbers marked Yes or No – costing at least 25p (or €0.31) per call. The article is full of words and phrases like 'secretive', 'lavished on the project,' 'will fuel fears', 'propaganda', and so on. Subsequent articles and comments in that paper are much the same (see one here: “Spectre of rule by Europe, etc.”), and that isn’t the only such rag perpetrating the myth.

As anyone living in Spain on a fixed income in pounds will tell you, the exchange rate right now is crap and although I might not be an economist, I can predict that things are unlikely to get any better. Indeed, I figure we’re headed for a 1 to 1 exchange rate and an opportunity for Britain to at last join the euro zone. (Alarums from Express readers.)

What’s wrong with that? As almost any related Express article will tell you, rule by Brussels is anathema. Yet the UK is ruled by the EU already – or why are there constant complaints about it? A favourable exchange rate would surely mean that more British goods would be sold around the world, specially in Europe. And millions of travellers to the continent, that far off place just across the Channel, wouldn’t have to deal with the ‘complicated’ business of changing currencies everywhere. And let’s not even mention pensions for expat residents this side of the water, many of whom can no longer afford to live here in the style to which they’d become accustomed and most certainly couldn’t afford to live the same way in the UK either.

The first glass of wine I ever had in Spain a million years ago cost 2 pesetas (or €0.01) and it came with a tapa of delicious olives. My first wage packet in London, about a year before I took wine and tapas in Spain, was not quite X20 (or about €25 at today’s exchange rate) and wine in the pubs around Fleet Street where I worked was prohibitive, Rioja even more so and the cheap Cyprus variety undrinkable. Things have changed, of course, but in Spain we work in order to live, while in Britain it appears they live in order to work – if they’re not scamming the overloaded benefit system, that is. Not even Brussels can change those attitudes.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008

Only a few weeks have gone by since Barack Obama was elected the next President of the United States of America, and he is still surprising us. Not least for his choice of Bush’s Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, to remain in his post for the simple reason that Obama believes him to be the right man for the job. He has reportedly settled on Hillary Clinton, formerly his bitter Democrat rival for the presidential candidacy, as his Secretary of State. Can you imagine such a thing in Spain?

If the dividing line between ‘left’ and ‘right’ in the US is fuzzy, this country is still bitterly divided, almost 50-50, between whom are often called Reds and Fascists, depending which side you’re on. Can you see Zapatero holding on to a minister or two of Aznar’s? – there were some good ones, by the way. Can you imagine your local Council keeping on a couple of the opposition’s people on after an election? They’d be called mad! Crazy idea!

No, for the most part, with very few exceptions at local level, whatever the previous lot have done flies out of the Town Hall window as soon as the new lot take their seats. Sometimes it’s even the seats themselves that fly out, too.

Yet these are troublesome times, when talent and experience should be more highly valued than loyalty to a political party – and when the humility of those who have to make these choices should be to the fore when making them.

The problem lies in a confusion among politicians, not necessarily of Spain alone, that distorts the meaning of loyalty to public service with that of a party. It is a shame, for we can hardly afford the luxury of dispensing with the past, if only because we should be learning from it.

And it’s the right thing to do, Mr. President.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008

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