North Wind Blew South

The north-south divide. Always the south, never the north. We make this a truism, because of English experience. It is not true elsewhere, Italy for example. In Spain, the north of Madrid and Barcelona may dominate, but it is not that simple. For instance, the south of Cadiz and Seville was a powerhouse in times gone by. In Mallorca though, it is the south, never the north. Despite historical claims by Alcúdia and Artà, it has always been the south - Palma; Palma and now its satellite municipalities, Calvia most obviously, the place of Magaluf, Santa Ponsa and Palmanova.

Population, commerce, power, each has been and is centred on the south. The north is another world, one that does not even have a motorway going all the way. The divide exists, whether for Mallorcans or others; always the south, never the north. And for the Brits, the divide is a vast chasm, one of neglect and sometimes hostility. But it is not difficult to understand why there might be such hostility. The northern zone comprises somewhat more than one-eighth (roughly) of Mallorca's British population, of which over a half lives in Palma or Calvia. Yet, away from the greater south region, this still makes it the second most populous British area on the island. Its problem lies not with the number of people but the 50-odd kilometres that separate it from Palma, the gateway to the south and its appendages of Calvia, Marratxi, Llucmajor and Andratx. And it is this separation that rankles, because it has caused and continues to cause a physical and perceptual disenfranchisement from the representation of the British as a whole.

In the artificial expatriate world, representation is largely not a question of politics or the other main "estates". It is predominantly that of informal networks and of the fourth estate, the press. Where an element of quasi-politics might intrude, it appears not to wish to. Does the British Consul ever visit the north? Maybe he does, but if so he keeps it quiet. Yet it is precisely the absence of established representation that makes a presence via the media that much more important. For without it, there is a lack of connection, a sense of avoidance and of neglect and the fomenting of petty hostility and prejudice.

It falls, or should, to the media to make the connection. But it fails utterly in doing so. It is not entirely its fault. Resources largely determine the breadth of representation, but it is not as though attempts have not been made to form a bridge that stretches for those 50 or so kilometres. They have failed. Why? Resources are one thing. Complacency, lack of interest might be others.

Apart from radio confined by transmission (now a thing of the past anyway), the only "voice", if you want to call it this, for representation is that provided by the press, namely "The Bulletin". Long have been the complaints of the paper's neglect of the north. I have argued in the past that these are not always accurate, that they are mainly a perceptual error, but I may well have been wrong. To take just one edition - yesterday's. It was replete with messages of goodwill, festive events, a fatuous "year-in" feature alongside news. What was there of the north? A couple of reader messages, a note about a market, and that was about it. There were not even any adverts from what I could see. Nothing. Worse still, is an impression of cliquism and vanity that holds no interest for anyone much north of Al Campo. It is unsurprising that there might be a sense of hostility, while bias of content acts to reinforce underlying prejudices. Take a recent letter to the paper. It referred to the elevation of Alcúdia's mayor to the post of tourism minister, dismissing his time as leader of a large tourist resort as grounds for such a promotion. The point was valid in that it may well indeed be insufficient qualification for the role, but the interpretation was that it was the very fact that he was from Alcúdia that might not qualify him. Might the same have been said about a mayor of Calvia?

Accusations of press and media bias along geographical lines are hardly unique to Mallorca. The BBC and the British press still suffer from them. But there is a difference, and this lies in my argument about representation in the absence of other forms of this. Within a specific community, that of the British in Mallorca, to exclude, or for the most part exclude, a not insignificant portion of the whole community is not far from being discriminatory.

One has to be realistic and also accept that relative population densities will inevitably skew balance of coverage. So they should; it would be unrepresentative were it to be otherwise. Nevertheless, in Mallorca, one is left feeling that there are two peoples divided not by a common language but by a 50-kilometre barrier.


Oh, and the north wind is blowing south. Cold, cold, like Britain freezing before Christmas. Six degrees during the day. Snow as low as 400 metres.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Beach Boys, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VeHmh2B5nY. Today's title - this was the blog's song of last year.

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