In A Big Country Dreams Stay With You

With no British teams qualifying for Euro 2008, what option of support is there for the expat? Spain is the simple answer, but for the great majority I doubt that it would be an option. Why not? People live here; why not support its national team? It’s a bit of a variant on the Tebbit cricket test, and most would fail it. No matter what the degree of the expat’s assimilation into Mallorcan (Spanish) life, the home-country bond and sense of nationhood endure. This is no condemnatory forever-Englander or “we’re British” stereotyping; it is human nature, something that crosses national divides and is therefore common to those originally from other nations.

The degree to which expatriates throw off the baggage of “home” intrigues me. To an extent it can be determined by social circumstances, e.g. by marriage, but even then it is tempered. I have a friend who has lived in Spain for almost 30 years, has a daughter in Spain, speaks the language fluently and yet is still very much English, reads English newspapers, supports his old football team from England and wouldn’t dream of lending his support to a Spanish side.

One encounters a certain holier-than-thouness among expats when it comes to their assimilation; it is marked by factors such as assertions of numbers of Spanish acquaintances and as to the frequenting of non-British establishments. Yet some of these can barely speak the language after several years of residing here. And even when patronising a “local” bar for a coffee or a beer, there is still usually a British newspaper in front of them.

True assimilation only occurs with a full understanding of language and an embrace of a different culture. If it happens at all, it is rare. Learning the language is not easy for many, while for many working expats their lives often revolve around English-speaking environments: the British bar-owner has mainly English-speaking clientele; he has little time to attend lessons and then little time or opportunity to practise the language. What language that is learned is piecemeal, fragmented and without a grammatical framework or an appreciation of linguistic nuance. Without language there is no culture.

Convenience is another huge influence. It is convenience of communication and association. Mallorca is “convenient” as the expat is never far from another one. There is the convenience of the “printed-in-Spain” newspaper available every morning, the convenience of satellite and of British news, sport, soaps and reality TV in the living-room or bar, the convenience of the internet and of web radio, the convenience of conducting a common and shared experience with a peer group that is the stuff of social intercourse - be it a chat over a coffee or supporting the England football team.

This is no criticism. I go to British bars. I speak English probably the majority of the time. I read English papers on the internet. That I also read Spanish papers is part of what I do. I suspect, like many expats, I cherry-pick what I want to from local life and culture. I live in a different and big country but I still have dreams of England winning something. That said, I do want Spain to win Euro 2008 - if only because, like England, the national side is a bunch of serial losers and because it would be one heck of a party; sorry, make that fiesta.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Cream, “Politician”. Today’s title? Another Scottish outfit.

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