Taking To The Streets

The Mallorcans don't really do demos. Not properly anyway. They do lots of them - sheets found in dusty corners of wardrobes brought out for a black daubing, loudhailers and chanting, obligatory photos of the "leaders" - but they don't exactly amount to much. So common are they that no one pays much attention.

Occasionally, however, they do amount to something. Two years ago, there were two separate protests in Palma. Three weeks apart, they were both to do with language. The first was pro-Catalan, the second was pro-Castilian. Neither was that large, and the numbers involved fluctuated greatly according to who issued them. But around 10,000 people for both might have been right.

Despite the second protest arousing taunts of "no to fascism and yes to Catalan", they were peaceful and uneventful. Less peaceful and more eventful have been the end-of-year parades in Palma in celebration of Jaume I's conquest of Mallorca in 1229. Deeply symbolic, the parade on the night of 30 December last year turned nastier than on previous occasions.

The violence that broke out at the Jaume I parade and the protests two years ago were evidence of language differences and of cultural and political differences. They hinted at a society split down the middle, which isn't the case, as the majority is not as bothered as protesters might think. But then majorities rarely are; it is minority voices which shout loudest and cause the most problems.

One of the reasons for the trouble on 30 December was the presence in the parade of the Círculo Balear, a right-wing, pro-Castilian organisation which, in its own words, "defends the liberty and identity of the Balearics in a Spain for all". The Círculo is a counterpoint to the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), a left-wing, pro-Catalan association. Neither is a political organisation as such, but both have political agendas and both make these agendas clear enough.

The Círculo is back in the news thanks to another outbreak of confrontation, this time, of all places, in Sineu. The setting for this was the inauguration of a statue to another Jaume, number two, the second king of Mallorca. Without going into detail, suffice it to say that the OCB was on hand to dish out the fascist mantra in the Círculo's direction.

Is this no more than just a bunch of activists playing silly buggers? Up to a point yes, but the minority voices are getting louder and you sense that the number of voices are growing; the division in society is beginning to become more apparent.

While the OCB is the mouthpiece for the pro-Catalan left, with the Maulets, a more revolutionary group, on the extreme left, on the right there are all manner of weird and wonderful groups, such as Hazte Oir ("make yourself heard") and the institute of family policy. To these pressure groups, you can add the neo-fascist Movimiento Social Republicano political party and, lurking in the background, the Falange and Opus Dei.

What the groups on the right all have in common (to a greater or lesser extent) is a highly reactionary agenda of Catholicism, anti-liberalism, pro-Castilian and the state of Spain over all else. The spats between the OCB and the Círculo, and indeed the language protests of 2009, are just the tip of a not very pleasant iceberg which lies under the surface ready to sink the Titanic of normally sedate and pacific society.

Within this context, you cannot and should not ignore the Partido Popular. It was voted in because of discontent with the handling of the local economy and in the hope that it will reduce unemployment. All other issues played only a minor part in its victories. But these other issues are far from unimportant. The PP, or some of it at any rate, is not far removed from the same reactionary agenda.

An impression given is that there is greater sympathy for the likes of the OCB than for the Círculo. This may be an impression formed by the Spanish media, but a question is to what extent it is held within Mallorcan society. And the OCB, though it would deny it, appears to have been instrumental in a certain radicalisation of pro-Catalan youth; the annual "Acampallengua" is more than just a gathering of young people in fields to pitch tents and sing some songs in Catalan.

The worry is that a PP-led administration will bring the competing views of an emboldened right and an increasingly radicalised left more to the surface and that, unlike the 2009 protests, things won't be so peaceful. They will be more like the Jaume I violence, and there will be more of it. Then you'll realise that Mallorcans can actually do demos.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.