The Reluctant Fiesta: Balearics Day

Today is Balearics Day. It isn't a public holiday as such but only because today is Sunday. Normally it would be a day off and it has been since 1999. Prior to this, Balearics Day had been declared in 1984 as an official "fiesta" of the autonomous community of the Balearics but not a public holiday. This official fiesta took over a year and a half to be enshrined in law, as 1 March 1983 was the day that the Balearics were granted regional autonomy and so were able to form a regional government. (In actual fact, the law was approved on 25 February; 1 March was the day it was published in the Official Bulletin.)

The hiatus between the arrival of autonomy and the creation of a "national" day might explain a great deal. While a form of self-government for the islands was welcomed, a sense of regional identity - that of the Balearics - was generally absent, and it still is. Other parts of Spain have their "national" days and, as is the case with Catalonia for instance, some are celebrated enthusiastically. Which isn't to say that there isn't enthusiasm for the Balearics day or to say that little is done to celebrate it; just that an act of granting regional autonomy doesn't have quite the same cachet or stir up similar feelings of nationalism as, for example, a defeat that finally brought a close to the War of the Spanish Succession which led to repression has for the Catalonians.

Balearics' autonomy finally arrived some fifty years after it had first been mooted. During the Second Republic and so just before the Civil War, there was a move to establish regional government. It wasn't a proposal which drew universal support. Many town halls didn't bother sending representatives to a meeting at which it was being proposed, while the other islands considered it to be a means through which Mallorca could make itself more powerful than it already was. There was a further drawback with the proposal. The Balearics were considered to lack people with decent political abilities, as there hadn't been a tradition of political education or intellectualism on the islands. The political elite was then mostly confined to Madrid, Castile, the Basque Country and Catalonia, and it might be argued that this is still the case.

Anyway, nothing came of the proposal and so the Balearics had to wait until 1983 when it was one of the last regions to be granted autonomy in what was a flurry of decentralisation established under the democratic constitution. Gabriel Cañellas became the first president and remained so until, almost inevitably you might think, a corruption case (the Soller Tunnel affair) brought about his resignation. His eventual successor was Jaume Matas, about whom enough has been said.

But coming to the present day and so to this year's Balearics Day, what is there on offer? As with any fiesta, events are not confined to today, so some of you will be aware that they have been going since Thursday, but if you have been aware that is because you live in Palma. The regional government vice-president, Antonio Gómez, who appears to be in charge of the fiesta, has spoken about the collaboration of town halls and the "maximum decentralisation" of activities to the "part forana" of Mallorca, i.e. anywhere that isn't Palma. The problem is, and a simple glance at the programme of events will tell you so, this collaboration is minimal. Today, there will be precious few things occurring away from Palma - a battle between glossador monologuists in Sóller, some folk dance in Pollensa, and very little else. Even the open days at museums don't stretch to today out in the sticks; these days have been and gone.

Of course, as Balearics Day is a celebration of regional autonomy, it is appropriate for events to be centred on the city that has the seat of government, i.e. Palma, but if it is to be a fiesta that genuinely reflects its name, very much more needs to be done to take it out to the towns, villages and other islands. In Formentera today, they are having a massive popular paella event, but that's about your lot.

Somehow though, you doubt that this will ever be the case. It comes back to the identity issue, and as far as the villages and towns of Mallorca are concerned, the people identify with their villages and not some expression of grander institution and government - even Mallorca Day (in September) fails to attract much interest away from Palma - while nationalist sentiment, where it exists, is that for the individual islands, not for the archipelago.