Rafael Nadal Airport

It wasn't in fact a news story, but it looked like it. The "Diario de Mallorca" journalist Matias Valles had made some predictions for 2015. One of them was that Mallorca's hoteliers would like Palma's Son Sant Joan airport renamed. Their preference was for Aeropuerto Rafael Nadal.

With the story out, the newspaper asked its readers what they thought of this potential renaming. They gave three other options that could be chosen instead. The result? Well, Nadal didn't win. He came second but he didn't come close. The winner was that old mediaevalist swot and show-off, Ramon Llull. The winning margin over Nadal was by almost sixty percentage points. Llull polled 76%, Nadal 17%. As for the other two, well they were barely at the races. Antoni Maura, the Mallorcan who was several times president of Spain in the early twentieth century and who was generally held responsible for the massacre of "Tragic Week" in Barcelona in 1909, got 4%, one more point than Joan March, founder of the Banca March, associate of Franco's to the extent of having helped him with finance, smuggler, and all-round rotten egg, as history has come to revile him. 

Assuming that there is actually any virtue in naming an airport after someone prominent, what does the overwhelming support for Llull say? Anything? Perhaps the readers were having a bit of a laugh at what was in any event a jokey item, but one doubts this. The reverence shown to Llull is all but absolute. He and Nadal, centuries apart, are the most famous people that Mallorca has produced, even if Nadal's fame (internationally) is of a level that Llull didn't ever and will never attain.

Culturally and historically important he was, Llull, for all his religion and mysticism, was not an insular man in as much as he didn't confine himself to Mallorca in times when most might have done. He had a wider vision, especially that of spreading Christianity and converting Muslims. It was a contentious vision, one made even more so today, but Llull was a man of the world; the part of the world that was understood then.

But now he is a symbol for insularity and for a parochial Catalanism of which I very much doubt he would have approved. Nadal is a global figure, one with much respect in his home island, but a sportsperson removed from the navelgazing nature of Mallorcan society. In a way, and despite his renown and potentially ambassadorial role for Mallorca, he doesn't fit with the earnest, zealous even Mallorcanism. He is simply too famous for his own good.

Of the other two in the poll, neither stood a chance. Maura begat Maurism, the street violence-led movement that wasn't his idea but which was formed in his name nonetheless and which can be seen as a precursor of what was to happen in the 1930s. March? Well, enough has been said and written about him to know that he wouldn't ever be the bookies' choice for an airport naming.

If one considers that there is some validity in and benefit from naming an airport, the foursome reveal that Mallorca has a very limited choice. In truth, only Nadal has any real or true international recognition or reputation. March has been written about often, as of course have Llull and Maura, but they are still names of comparative insignificance outside Mallorca and Spain. The island doesn't deal in the globally recognised, or hadn't until Nadal came along. Its recognition has been more that of what the island is - a holidaying destination - and that, where the world is concerned, is all it is. Renaming the airport? Why not? Call it Mallorca Airport. Everyone would know that.