Cry Wolf: Hay Mucha Crisis

Permission if I may. The next time someone says "hay mucha crisis", may I be allowed to punch them out?

I have come to the conclusion that many a Mallorcan rather likes there being mucha crisis. It has become a comforting state of being over the past three to four years; comforting in that it allows any form of enquiry that might require the handing over of money or the taking of action to be met with a shrug and a smug look of superiority. Hay mucha crisis but my crisis is better than your crisis, or is it that it is not as bad as your crisis? There's mucha and then there's mucha. Or even muchísima.

The chanting of the c-word is so predictable that it has caused a disruption to normal, everyday, banal intercourse. What's the point of asking how things are going when you know beforehand that they are not going and that they are accompanied by mucha crisis. You can't ever be sure that there really is mucha crisis, but you can be sure that it is being used an excuse even if it is merely poca or ninguna.

Maybe there's a business to be made out of making t-shirts emblazoned with the legend "don't tell me there's a crisis", so that whenever you encounter a Mallorcan in whatever situation it might be he or she might be deterred from parroting the "HMC" line. Except no one would buy the t-shirt because there is of course mucha crisis. Or they might buy one so long as they are given a hefty discount or can pay in instalments, and also so long as you can go along and collect the instalments, only to find that they have no dinero because there is ... you guessed it.

If and when there is no longer mucha crisis, how are people going to cope? Crisis dependency has taken hold. It will require treatment at crisis addiction clinics to restore the crisis dependent to normality. But there's little chance of post-crisis Balearics having a health service that is sufficiently restored to good health to be able to cater for the needs of the crisis addicts. So deep is the health service in crisis that it will take years to pay off its debts, if they ever are to be paid off. 550 million euros in the red at the end of 2011. A mere bagatelle to pay off.

Want crisis? I mean, really want crisis? Then look no further than IB-Salut. Oh, it functions well enough, despite the debt, but it is an example of how mucha crisis can border on the inhumane, as is the case with immigrants from some African, Asian and South American countries who have little or no resources or who can't prove that they have and who are being denied a health card that would enable them to get health assistance.

All sorts of questions arise from this, such as having paid into the social security system or not, but don't let's think this is something confined to people from some part of deepest Africa. What if you're British but unable to prove that you have work? There seems some confusion among IB-Salut health centres. In fact, some don't really know, though one or two do. Off you go. Hay mucha crisis, and that's the end of the matter.

A correspondent asked the question of his local health centre (not that it affected him but he wanted to find out). If you are not working, then would you get a new health card? It would depend, came the answer. On what wasn't clear. Hay mucha crisis explained it all, or rather didn't explain anything.

Proving entitlement or having entitlement is reasonable, but what isn't is the confusion that is allowed to creep in with the mucha crisis shrug and justification. It is heartless, callous and confirms that it is the case that your crisis, if you are not Mallorcan/Spanish, is worse. As the same correspondent puts it, even if you have lived in Mallorca for years, you are still a foreigner and you can get lost.

Mucha crisis changes everything. The debt-ridden health service is only a part of it. Let me cite the correspondent once again, one who is anything but a newcomer to the island. The fear is that everything is going to implode. I don't know that it will. Apart from the indignados' protests and some strikes, mucha crisis has not taken on a worrying dimension. What lies ahead in the next few months, one can't really say, but perhaps there is hope that there is some comfort in there being mucha crisis. It is one of resignation more than agitation.

There is mucha crisis, of course there is, and it is being experienced by all sorts of people. 25% unemployment in the Balearics. Record number of households with everyone out of work. One in four people at risk of poverty or social exclusion. These people know about mucha crisis. It's the mucha crisis of the wolf-criers that makes so many despair. There's no sympathy when "hay mucha crisis", and they are down to their last finca or two.

* Just for those not up to speed with the native, "hay mucha crisis" (there is much crisis) is pronounced like "eye, moochah cree-sis".


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for January 2012

Alcúdia's Roman ports - 21 January 2012
All-inclusives, increased potential of - 25 January 2012
Antoni Maria Alcover and language - 30 January 2012
Baltasar Garzón, Manos Limpias and - 17 January 2012
Catholic Church and Partido Popular - 3 January 2012
Christian names and surnames, Mallorcan - 23 January 2012
Economic crisis, health service and foreigners - 31 January 2012
Gay tourism, Cala Rajada and - 22 January 2012
Jaume Matas trial - 14 January 2012
José Manuel Soria, tourism minister - 12 January 2012
Language in the public sector - 18 January 2012
Local newspapers in Mallorca - 9 January 2012
North-south divide in Mallorca - 24 January 2012
Olympic Games, expat perspective on - 2 January 2012
Opening hours, shop - 10 January 2012
Partido Popular, splits in the - 7 January 2012, 15 January 2012, 20 January 2012
President Bauzá in discussion with the opposition - 26 January 2012
PSOE, leadership of - 13 January 2012
R&D, Spanish - 5 January 2012
Renewable energy in the Balearics - 19 January 2012
Retailers, leading Spanish - 27 January 2012
Spanair collapse - 29 January 2012
Spanish Government budget - 1 January 2012
Table football - 28 January 2012
Three Kings, racism and - 6 January 2012
Tourism law, opposition to - 4 January 2012, 8 January 2012
Tourist office privatisation - 11 January 2012
Water resources plan and land classification - 16 January 2012