O Valencia

There has been yet another demonstration. On Sunday. Not in Mallorca, but in Valencia. It was a demonstration against corruption.

As with the pro-Catalan march in Palma earlier this year, so there were again wild fluctuations in the numbers said to have been on the march. Something over 2,000, according to the police; 70,000, according to the organisers. How numbers can differ to that extent, heaven only knows.

The demonstration centred on the so-called Gürtel corruption case that has been rumbling on for several months. The background to the case was considered to be sub judice, so there was little factual reporting. But it has now all come into the open. It concerns a businessman called Francisco Correa who is alleged to have paid the Partido Popular party for favours. This was in Madrid, but the case has spread to Valencia where the regional president, Francisco Camps (also Partido Popular), is said to have accepted gifts of shoes and suits. There is quite a bit more to this, but it's not for here to go into it all.

While this may be viewed as just another case of alleged corruption, the fact that people have taken to the streets does make it rather different. It can be argued that the march was politically motivated, whipped up by the left-wing in Valencia, and there may well be some truth in this. However, the fact of there being a demonstration against corruption adds weight to a growing discontent directed towards the political class and also some elements of business. One might also place this in the context of the 19.3% unemployment rate that exists in Spain - the highest in the Eurozone.

In Mallorca, various prominent politicians have been implicated in cases currently under investigation. These include the former regional president (Jaume Matas, Partido Popular) and the former leader of the Unió Mallorquina, Maria Antònia Munar, now the president of the Balearic parliament.

With all this in mind, it was put to me on Sunday that the anti-Camps demo in Valencia is representative of a move which signals that people have simply had enough. The person who made this point then also went on to decry various practices by employers that fall into the category of fraud, about which employees can do little or nothing.

It is hard not to conclude that corruption, at different levels of society, is endemic. Many people would believe that all politicians are in it in order to line their pockets in some way. With such a mistrust of the political class, and of business, it is hard not to also conclude that the practice of democracy is partly illusory. There is more than an echo of the corrupt system of the "cacique" which emerged in the nineteenth century when Spanish sham democracy, with the collusion of a generally apathetic populace, was driven by the local political boss who delivered the results required and operated by a system of favours.

But the populace is no longer apathetic. It is educated and informed. It may have had enough, but there was a possibly instructive comment attached to a piece elsewhere about the Valencia march, which said, in effect, that while the demonstrators may have been voicing their repugnance at corruption, many of them would have gone back and looked at ways of fiddling their VAT. That, though, says it all. When political leaders, businesspeople and also occasionally some in the police get up to wrongdoing, it sets the tone. And so society at all levels is riven with something rotten at its heart.


Catalonian football team
Valencia is a Catalan-speaking region. It is not in Catalonia, but it shares a common language even if there is, as ever, a regional dialect - Valencian. But were you aware that Catalonia has a football team? Johann Cruyff, once a player and coach at Barcelona, has become its new coach. The team plays only friendlies as it is not recognised by FIFA or UEFA. Its most recent match was a 2-1 defeat of Colombia. Perhaps the most intriguing point about this team is that, unlike most things Catalan being banned during the Franco era, it was allowed to play, even competing against a Spanish national side and beating it (as well as being thrashed 6-0).

It would seem that all the regions of Spain can field teams, so long as they play only friendlies. The Balearics, from what I can see, has only played once, losing to Malta. Catalonia has tried, in vain, to be admitted to UEFA, arguing that if Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland can field sides in competitions, then so should it. God, if all the Spanish regions suddenly popped up with teams, qualifying rounds would take years. And the chances of Wales and the rest ever qualifying again would be even more remote than they are now.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Style Council, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElhC1jFz7-c. Today's title - one of this blog's favourites, one of the Oregon set.

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