Kings don't abdicate every week. For once, therefore, the seismic event merited the Richter scale font sizes that occupied special second-edition front pages. The King is not quite dead. Long live the King. It also unleashed a journalistic earthquake of historical and futurist analysis, doubtless one that had been written in advance. Seismic, yes, but unexpected, no. The tremors of abdication had been felt for a good while. But though the shocks of hunting in darkest Africa and of one of the in-laws being hauled before the beak might have been deemed reasons for the royal resignation, an explanation that it was all about the handing of the Bourbon baton to the younger 46-year-old generation seemed genuine enough. Juan Carlos deserves credit for his foresight in succession planning. Some monarchs go on and on and on. One Spanish wag, and there are such beings as Spanish wags, tweeted that Isabel II (aka Elizabeth II) had announced that she too would be abdicating. In 2064.
Stability. The abdication was also about ensuring stability. But no sooner had the announcement been made than an impression of anything but stability was given. Uncertainty certainly. They were gathering here and there, calling for a new republic. The last thirty-nine years had only been temporary. A provisional monarchy. Time to move on, everyone, and the moving on should mean that the British media can stop referring to the likes of Mariano Rajoy as a prime minister, as even for the British he would genuinely be what he already is in Spain - a president. Head of state of a republic.
Rajoy, in a rare act of comradeship, thanked Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba for not subscribing to the republican fervour. Socialists can be royalists too, you know, and PSOE are, generally speaking, good Spaniards. They don't want Catalonia going it alone and they also don't want to have to worry about what to do with the various royal palaces if there are no royals to occupy them any longer. One of these palaces is the Marivent in Palma. What was to become of it, future monarch or no future monarch? Francina Armengol, head of PSOE in the Balearics, appeared to suggest that she preferred its return to Balearics ownership. Going against national PSOE sentiment, she insisted that there should be a referendum to decide between monarchy and republic. President Bauzá attacked her "ever more extremist discourse" that is "more left than the left and more nationalist than the nationalists". A correspondent to "The Bulletin", in a superb letter, described her as "an opportunist of the worst kind", styling this opportunism as a means of trying to regain the loss of the left vote to other parties. Precisely.
It has been interesting to note reactions of the non-Spaniard and especially the Brit expat to the abdication. Opinion appeared pretty much evenly divided into the royalist and republican camps. Support for republicanism was the reason, I would guess, for a further observation in "The Bulletin" to the effect that because Juan Carlos is not a Briton's King, he or she should be excluded from expressing an opinion. How would the same Briton like it if a Spaniard was making a judgement on the future of the British monarchy?
This was something with which I couldn't disagree more. If an expat has lived in Spain for any length of time, he or she surely has every right to express an opinion on the monarchy, just as he or she has every right to express an opinion on any subject. Expats are sometimes styled as being indifferent to matters in Spain. They should be encouraged, not told to pipe down.
Showing posts with label Abdication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abdication. Show all posts
Saturday, June 07, 2014
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Abdication And Uncertainty
Over the course of almost forty years, Spain has been defined by three acts. They have each involved the one person. Juan Carlos I de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicillias. Three dates - 22 November 1975, 24 February 1981, 2 June 2014 - mark the timeline of an extraordinary man: his proclamation following the death of Franco; his televised order that stopped the coup attempt; his abdication.
"The Crown, the symbol of the country's permanence and unity, cannot tolerate in any way the actions or attitudes of people who forcibly seek to disrupt the democratic process."
With these words, and others, King Juan Carlos stopped the coup dead in its tracks. Democracy, the monarchical democracy, was assured. Juan Carlos received the gratitude of a nation. He was its hero.
Juan Carlos has been, for many years since 1981, the glue that has bound Spain together. He has done so because of the enduring gratitude of the people and because of his own popularity. His abdication, attributed to his declining health, is a sorry end. His health cannot hide the reasons for that popularity having declined. The elephant-hunting trip to Botswana might have been overlooked. The wretched Urdangarin could not be and cannot be overlooked. Corruption had crept as far as the gates of the Palacio de la Zarzuela. Whatever the King's knowledge of the Urdangarin affair, he was damaged. Princess Cristina's court appearance, lauded as indicating an openness to democratic legal processes, nonetheless caused further damage.
The dynamics that have conspired to bring about the abdication are, however, less important than what follows. Crown Prince Felipe will become monarch. Only the second of the democratic era. His is an onerous task. The King's abdication marks a potential watershed. The glue that bound the nation together may have been losing its strength, but now there will be questions as to whether it will be so weakened that things fall apart.
Spain cannot rid itself of its past. The nation will know about the monarchy before Franco, about the frequent instability, about the exile of Alfonso XIII in April 1931. He never formally abdicated, but he had in all but the deed, and he was then accused of high treason. Alfonso's fate was sealed by the establishment of the Republic. Just one of the questions that will now be asked is whether Spain wishes to head back in the direction of Republicanism.
These are very different times to the 1930s, but there can be little escaping the fact that the monarchy is (more was now) popular purely because of Juan Carlos. As his popularity has waned, so the relevance of the monarchy has been placed more in the spotlight. There are other factors.
Look again at the words Juan Carlos spoke in 1981. "The symbol of the country's permanence and unity." Catalonia knows otherwise. Is it coincidence that Mariano Rajoy had, just prior to the abdication announcement, indicated that he might be open to a Constitutional change that would in effect grant Catalonia greater autonomy? Such a shift in attitude might raise again the spectre of a threat from the military of the type Zapatero confronted when he was being amenable to Catalonian demands.
Times are different, but memories are awfully long, those of both the Republican left and the far right. The Francoists have never forgiven Juan Carlos for his apparent betrayal of the Franco legacy. This is just one attitude that Felipe will now face. His really is an onerous task. He has to convince a sceptical public while manoeuevring through the minefields and traps of Spain's politics - its left, right, Republicanism, independence and nationalism.
That Felipe has cut an increasingly impressive figure, not least on the international stage, typified by his assured presentation on behalf of Madrid's Olympic bid, is to his credit. He has stepped out of the enormous shadow cast by his father. He has the appearance of modernity and the companionship of the commoner divorcee Letizia. But their marriage is prone to rumours, and Letizia has not always enjoyed a supportive press.
Despite this, is there reason to believe that the monarchy is threatened? It is most unlikely, certainly while the two main political parties have anything to say on the matter. But the politics are less certain than they were, as was witnessed at the European elections. Podemos, in responding to the news of the abdication, said on its Facebook page yesterday: "We said that the results of 25 May would open a cycle of historical political change in our country. We did not imagine that it would start so quickly."
Believing that the results influenced the abdication decision seem pretty far-fetched, but such a belief is indicative of the uncertainty that the abdication creates. Will 2 June go down as a truly momentous day in Spain's history or just the final act of a great man?
"The Crown, the symbol of the country's permanence and unity, cannot tolerate in any way the actions or attitudes of people who forcibly seek to disrupt the democratic process."
With these words, and others, King Juan Carlos stopped the coup dead in its tracks. Democracy, the monarchical democracy, was assured. Juan Carlos received the gratitude of a nation. He was its hero.
Juan Carlos has been, for many years since 1981, the glue that has bound Spain together. He has done so because of the enduring gratitude of the people and because of his own popularity. His abdication, attributed to his declining health, is a sorry end. His health cannot hide the reasons for that popularity having declined. The elephant-hunting trip to Botswana might have been overlooked. The wretched Urdangarin could not be and cannot be overlooked. Corruption had crept as far as the gates of the Palacio de la Zarzuela. Whatever the King's knowledge of the Urdangarin affair, he was damaged. Princess Cristina's court appearance, lauded as indicating an openness to democratic legal processes, nonetheless caused further damage.
The dynamics that have conspired to bring about the abdication are, however, less important than what follows. Crown Prince Felipe will become monarch. Only the second of the democratic era. His is an onerous task. The King's abdication marks a potential watershed. The glue that bound the nation together may have been losing its strength, but now there will be questions as to whether it will be so weakened that things fall apart.
Spain cannot rid itself of its past. The nation will know about the monarchy before Franco, about the frequent instability, about the exile of Alfonso XIII in April 1931. He never formally abdicated, but he had in all but the deed, and he was then accused of high treason. Alfonso's fate was sealed by the establishment of the Republic. Just one of the questions that will now be asked is whether Spain wishes to head back in the direction of Republicanism.
These are very different times to the 1930s, but there can be little escaping the fact that the monarchy is (more was now) popular purely because of Juan Carlos. As his popularity has waned, so the relevance of the monarchy has been placed more in the spotlight. There are other factors.
Look again at the words Juan Carlos spoke in 1981. "The symbol of the country's permanence and unity." Catalonia knows otherwise. Is it coincidence that Mariano Rajoy had, just prior to the abdication announcement, indicated that he might be open to a Constitutional change that would in effect grant Catalonia greater autonomy? Such a shift in attitude might raise again the spectre of a threat from the military of the type Zapatero confronted when he was being amenable to Catalonian demands.
Times are different, but memories are awfully long, those of both the Republican left and the far right. The Francoists have never forgiven Juan Carlos for his apparent betrayal of the Franco legacy. This is just one attitude that Felipe will now face. His really is an onerous task. He has to convince a sceptical public while manoeuevring through the minefields and traps of Spain's politics - its left, right, Republicanism, independence and nationalism.
That Felipe has cut an increasingly impressive figure, not least on the international stage, typified by his assured presentation on behalf of Madrid's Olympic bid, is to his credit. He has stepped out of the enormous shadow cast by his father. He has the appearance of modernity and the companionship of the commoner divorcee Letizia. But their marriage is prone to rumours, and Letizia has not always enjoyed a supportive press.
Despite this, is there reason to believe that the monarchy is threatened? It is most unlikely, certainly while the two main political parties have anything to say on the matter. But the politics are less certain than they were, as was witnessed at the European elections. Podemos, in responding to the news of the abdication, said on its Facebook page yesterday: "We said that the results of 25 May would open a cycle of historical political change in our country. We did not imagine that it would start so quickly."
Believing that the results influenced the abdication decision seem pretty far-fetched, but such a belief is indicative of the uncertainty that the abdication creates. Will 2 June go down as a truly momentous day in Spain's history or just the final act of a great man?
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