One Nation Under A Groove

This Spanishness thing of yesterday.

What is Spanishness? There is a curiosity in celebrating an abstract nationalism. It can be variously interpreted as a statement of a confident state, as a statement of a lack of confidence or as a statement of nostalgia. It is perhaps all these things, though currently one senses it is less a statement of confidence. There are frictions in the nation of Spain, as I have noted before: the ETA-Basque issue has flared up badly again; the monarchy is under attack; the Catalonians are constantly seeking greater autonomy.

In historical terms, Spanishness, represented by the unified entity that is Spain, is centuries old, a creation of the Catholic Kings in the fifteenth century. It was the various disruptions of the mid to late nineteenth century and then on into the Franco period that saw the erosion of Spanishness, or at least a unifying totem of Spain. The unravelling of the empire in the late nineteenth century also saw the if not elimination of Spanishness internationally then certainly its diminution.

The face of Spanishness that yesterday’s celebrations would have been designed to show would be a democratic, economically and politically stable state with a greater voice in the international arena. That would be the statement of confidence. But it is also the statement of lack of confidence. Spanishness, in a democratic guise, is still a child. The hundred years or so prior to the restoration of the monarchy (Juan-Carlos) and the establishment of democracy after Franco’s death were years of turmoil. Twice the monarchy was replaced by short-lived republics, the second of which was a response to the monarch of the time (Alfonso XIII) and his accommodation of the dictator Primo de Rivera and which ended with Franco. The voice in the international arena has been dumb for many, many years, or rather had been. The Spanishness of empire was replaced by isolationism - two world wars of non-participation - and economic basket-case-ness that was relieved by becoming a European player. The rare occasion that Spanishness spoke on the international arena was when Aznar held the coat-tails of George Bush and Tony Blair; a Spanishness that did not play well in Madrid, Barcelona or the Balearics, even less so after the bombings.

One senses an unease. The monarchy, and specifically King Juan-Carlos, is totemic in current-day Spanishness. Yet this also raises that idea of lack of confidence as well as the nostalgia. The lack of confidence stems from the possibility - remote perhaps - that there could be another collapse of this totem and another period of factionalism that might be described as the Spanishness of much of the hundred years before 1975. The nostalgia is that of the Golden Age and empire; a nostalgia and a struggle for confidence that is the burden shared with those who cannot yet define Britishness in anything other than pre-1939 terms.

Spanishness. One nation under a groove? Smoothly performing or spinning off? Basque-ness, Catalonian-ness. Separation? Whither Spanishness?


QUIZ
Yesterday - Madonna, “Holiday”. Today’s title ...?

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