The Madness Of King James

The town hall in Sineu has been given the green light by the Council of Mallorca's heritage commission to locate a statue of King Jaume II (James II) in a place in the town in which it wasn't previously located. In May 2011 the statue was put up in the church square. Soon after, it was removed. The new location, according to a town hall technical report, "permits a view ... of the image of the king ... which does not impair views of any specific buildings and their historical and aesthetic values or interfere with special environmental values". Which is a longwinded way of explaining and admitting that the previous siting had impaired such views and interfered with such values.

The day after the statue was inaugurated, the Council let it be known that it considered the decision of the town hall to locate it where it was to be "very serious". The town hall had not been given permission by the Council for the siting of the statue, which violated regulations regarding the town's status as being in the "cultural interest" and in particular the church of Santa Maria. The town hall went ahead anyway, in full cognisance of the fact that it did not have permission.

The story of the statue might appear to have only been an example of how competing bureaucracies in Mallorca (the Council and the town hall in this instance) can go mad, pull in opposite directions and do things which contravene some arcane regulation or other. There was, however, very much more to it.

Jaume II plays a significant part in Sineu's history, as it was during his reign that the conversion of what had been the palace of the Emir Mobaxir into the Palace of the Kings of Mallorca was undertaken. On this count, plus the fact that it was Jaume II who had granted Sineu the status of a "royal village" in 1300, there should be little debate as to the merit of there being a statue to him. There was debate, however. And it was more than just debate. It had nothing to do with where the statue was sited or with whether there was permission or not; it had everything to do with conflicting attitudes towards Jaume II, and on 29 May 2011 these attitudes spilled over into a physical conflict.

At the ceremony, members of the anti-Catalanist Círculo Balear, who hadn't been invited but went anyway, unveiled a flag with three red bars. This was, if you like, a red-bar-too-few rag to the bull of Mallorcan nationalist sentiment; the official Mallorcan flag has four red bars in accordance with the original flag of Aragon and so King Jaume I. Insults flew, there was some jostling, and the police had to intervene. The Partido Popular, which had won five seats at the previous week's municipal election and was on the point of resuming its leadership of the town hall, initially attached blame for the incidents to "radical Catalanists" but then backtracked somewhat by also criticising the members of the Círculo Balear.

So, what had all this been about? Jaume II, for certain Mallorcan nationalists, is not revered in the way that Jaume I is. Despite having been crowned the first true king of Mallorca, Jaume II does not compare with the old man because it wasn't he who conquered the island and who introduced Catalan culture. Moreover, Jaume II was none too fastidious when it came to flags. He had different versions, one with three red bars (as flown by the Círculo Balear) and even one with only two bars. As such, therefore, he was betraying the legacy of the original flag, the "senyera". The left-wing nationalist Sineu Independent party was indignant about there being a statue at all: Jaume II did not represent Sineu, it said.

Nevertheless, there is the peculiarity that it was a nationalist party, the Unió Mallorquina when it was in charge of the Council of Mallorca, which established Mallorca Day on the anniversary of Jaume II's coronation in 1276. The conflict in Sineu in 2011 was styled as one between "nationalistas" and "españolistas", the latter personified by the anti-Catalanist Círculo Balear. Yet, the very fact that a nationalist party might have felt it appropriate for Jaume II to be the pretext for a Mallorca Day confuses an argument about the very origins of this nationalism.

Much as history is important and much as events of the thirteenth century moulded Mallorcan culture and heritage, the conflict in Sineu revealed just how mired current-day society can be in this antiquity. Should it really matter that much? To some it obviously does, but to others it seems crazy to constantly relive a long-ago past. And so what will happen when the statue is placed in its new location? More of the same probably. Madness.

Summer's Over, Time To Strike

Summer is coming to an end and so the time draws near for parents in Mallorca to pack away the kids' lilos, to fork out for new textbooks (various languages) and to arrange for the pre-school visit to the hairdresser. Back to school. Vuelta al cole, as they say. And back to the same old playground posturing. The "Great Conflict" has never been quite forgotten during the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. It has been smouldering like a discarded fag end of discredited policies and attitudes in the tangled undergrowth of TIL and pro- and anti-Catalanism ready to burst into the flames of a September on educational fire. Canadairs of common sense are needed to douse the conflagration, but common sense has been de-commissioned. Where is the ice bucket of negotiation and dialogue to challenge and cool the tempers? Being shoved into the attic along with the lilo.

President Bauzá wasn't actually wrong when he said the other day that if you were concerned about children, there wouldn't be a strike. Ah yes, the children. The forgotten stakeholders in the "Great Conflict". Curious that. But then maybe not. Just as tourists are the lowest priority for tourism policy, so the raw human material of education, the kids, are bottom of the education-argument class. Bauzá's "you" were the Assemblea de Docents, the self-styled teachers' assembly that aspires to be a teaching union (by the name of Alternativa) and seemingly sweep all before it in declaring some sort of Catalanist caliphate of pedagogic fundamentalism. I don't believe for one moment that all its members would prefer Mallorca to rise up and form part of an independent Catalan Lands, but some of its members most certainly do. Never ever let it be said that the "Great Conflict" has not been about politics.

The Assemblea has sought dialogue, but not actually being a union - yet - the government does not consider it to be a body with which it should be having dialogue, even if it wanted to, though it does of course insist that the staff room door is always open for a chat. PSOE has told the government that it considers the Assemblea to be a "valid interlocutor", as it also considers the parents' associations, the university and various other associations to be valid interlocutors. Perhaps, therefore, they should all gather in a grand educational locutorio and talk to each other from the safety of the phone booths without ever daring to go face to face.

But then, what do they want dialogue about? Despite Bauzá having been attacked from all sides including his own for the government's educational policy, he remains stubbornly less than humble, having declared after the disastrous Euro elections that there would be PP humility. Not so, unless humility is a synonym for authoritarianism, of which he is accused; and no, it is not a synonym.

So, the Assemblea will have its day off at the start of the school year (15 September), and all the well-rehearsed arguments will spin once more on the roundabout in the playground, the newest of them to do with the insistence of the education ministry that all schools have to have a programme of TIL in place for the new school year. Ah well, never mind, come next June, Podemos, PSOE and others on the left will have managed to cobble together a coalition, and TIL and anti-Catalanism will be removed and placed in the school storeroom of educational obsolescence along with the abacus.


Index for August 2014

Balearics oil prospecting - 10 August 2014
Batucada - 2 August 2014
Bellevue, Marsans and Orizonia - 26 August 2014
Bullrings of Mallorca - 21 August 2014
Campaign against bad behaviour (Magalluf) - 17 August 2014
Can Picafort ducks - 9 August 2014
Cossiers folk dance - 25 August 2014
Education conflict - 31 August 2014
Emperor Augustus' bust - 13 August 2014
Festival of Lanterns, Alcúdia - 23 August 2014
First World War and Mallorca - 4 August 2014, 5 August 2014, 6 August 2014, 7 August 2014
Glamping - 20 August 2014
Guillem Bestard - 19 August 2014
Holiday lets - 8 August 2014, 12 August 2014
Joan Mascaró i Fornés - 30 August 2014
Magalluf mole - 22 August 2014
Matas in prison - 3 August 2014
Mini tourist trains - 14 August 2014
Rock 'n' Rostoll and fiesta raves - 28 August 2014
Son Espases corruption case - 24 August 2014
Statutes of autonomy and responsibilities - 18 August 2014
Tour guides - 11 August 2014
Tourism law - 15 August 2014
Tourism spend statistics - 29 August 2014
Tourist days and weeks - 27 August 2014
Tourist satisfaction decline - 1 August 2014
Trofeo Almirante Conde de Barcelona regatta - 16 August 2014

Flying The Flag

A brand new and large Spanish flag is flying near Can Picafort. It is bigger than a flag of the Balearics and bigger still than a European flag.

The Spanish flag now proudly flutters over the finca of Son Real in Santa Margalida. It probably should always have been there and had pride of place; law suggests that it should have, according to the director of the Balearics Foundation for Sustainable Development, Jorge Campos.

Who is Sr. Campos? He used to be director for climate in the Calvia town hall administration of the now tourism minister Carlos Delgado. As such, he can justifiably lay claim to environmental credentials. However, Campos was also, until recently, the president of the Círculo Balear, which he founded.

The Círculo, in terms of the great Castilian-Catalan argument, is firmly in the Castilian camp. Defender of the language, it is the opposite of the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), the great defender of Catalan and all things Catalan lands. It has had a number of run-ins with the forces of Catalanism. Its building has been vandalised with graffiti, its presence at new year celebrations in Palma last year sparked off violence, and Sr. Campos has been in court to see members of the Maulets, the Catalan independence radicals, get slapped with fines for having chanted "Nazi", "fascist" and "terrorist" at him.

Campos was appointed to the post of director at the end of July. His was and is a political appointment in that the choice is that of the regional government. But it was an appointment with far greater political baggage. It has been like a red rag to the Catalanist, leftist bull.

The foundation, of which he is now in charge, has not been without its own controversies. Established in 2004 by the former president Jaume Matas, its main function was to oversee the promotion of the "tarjeta verde", the green discount card, which came into being as a way of generating revenue for environmental purposes once the short-lived eco-tax was scrapped.

The green card has been a spectacular flop, not helped by the fact, as revealed by an audit for 2008, that the foundation managed to bring in a mere 13,500 euros from its sales, a shortfall of around 400 grand. Last year, when all hell broke loose regarding corruption cases stemming from the tourism ministry, the foundation was implicated. Questions were being asked as to how, when costs were added to the lack of revenue, losses of over a million euros a year could have mounted up.

The foundation was meant to have been wrapped up, like the two agencies more at the centre of the tourism ministry corruption affair, and brought under the new Balearics Tourism Agency. However, it survives as a separate entity, linked to the new tourism ministry and therefore to Campos's old boss and anti-Catalanist soul mate, Carlos Delgado,

Other than the green card, what actually does the foundation do? It is charged with administering sites such as Son Real, the running of which it took over in July 2008, but the environmental group GOB has not had much that is positive to say for the foundation. It has argued that it should be scrapped and has criticised its operations in the Albufera nature park in Muro. It is likely that, with Campos as its head, GOB would be even more dismissive, as GOB is a fellow-traveller on the Catalanist left with the OCB. The Círculo Balear, for its part, has lumped both GOB and the OCB in with the Maulets, claiming that the Maulets have received the "adherence" of these two groups (and others) which have the "appearance of democracy".

And so we come back to the Spanish flag at Son Real. What might seem a relatively inconsequential issue is anything but. It was Campos who gave the instruction for the flag to be raised.

The environment is a political issue, but now it is being even more politicised within the context of the whole Castilian-Catalan argument. And just to reinforce this, between the time of his appointment and his stepping down from the Círculo three weeks later, Campos managed to cram in a meeting with President Bauzá to discuss language and cultural matters.

Why, though, has the foundation escaped the axe when others haven't and when it appears to have made a hash of things since it was formed? It is not solely reliant on government money, that's true, but might it be expedient for the government to maintain it, with Campos as its chief, as an additional counterpoint to the Catalan left? There are more to flags than simply running them up a flag-pole.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

We Can Be Together: The case of "L'Estel"

When it comes to insults, it doesn't get much worse than "hijo de puta". The literal translation is bad enough, but it also means something rather more unpleasant, a word I fancy I first became aware of when Grace Slick and Marty Balin were proudly proclaiming their anarchy in song at the end of the 1960s. "Up against the wall, motherfucker." It was astonishing that Jefferson Airplane could get away with such subversion (in that their record label did not censor the record, despite having censored other Airplane material), but they did, and the word has passed into subversion folklore, now revived - in a different language - in Mallorca.

Jefferson Airplane were reincarnated as Jefferson Starship (later, simply Starship). They acquired the stars and lost their subversiveness. There is a star in Mallorca that hasn't. "L'Estel" (the star) is a fortnightly magazine. It is the centre of a real old row, having called President Bauzá "hijo de puta". The government has instructed the legal authorities to take action against the magazine because of the insult.

Are the government and the president being over-sensitive? Yes. But the insult is only part of the story. The magazine also had a go at the Partido Popular in general and at "forasteros" (Spanish "foreigners") who don't speak Catalan. Furthermore, it suggested that the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB) should be the Balearics shadow government. You might, therefore, detect a bit of a theme here. Let's put it this way, had a magazine written in Castilian called Bauzá a "hijo de puta", chances are that it might have caused little more than a ripple.

To add fuel to the fury that is apparently steaming from the ears of the PP is the fact that the magazine has enjoyed government and Council of Mallorca funding; at least it did so during the four years of the previous administration. The magazine hasn't quite bitten off the hand that has fed it, given that it was most unlikely to still be on a government grant list, but the insult does show a bit of ingratitude to the taxpayer.

The row comes hard on the heels of the government's withdrawal of funding for union worker representatives. For the public, that part of it more inclined to be sympathetic to the PP, both the grants for the representatives and for the magazine have been indicative of a pandering to the left, to the unions and to Catalanism.

And the left and Catalanism are very much what you find in "L'Estel". One of its main contributors, for example, is a member of the Ibizan wing of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalonia Republican Left). Another, Miquel López Crespí, is one of the usual suspects to be found behind banners at gatherings in favour of independence and the "Catalan lands". Its publisher is Mateu Joan i Florit, one more to add to our growing list of spectacularly bearded lefties. He outdoes both the Solzhenitsyn of PSOE's Alfredo Rubalcaba and the prolific grey growth of the UGT union's Cándido Mendez. To get an impression, think Rowan Williams with a suntan or even Fidel Castro.

Despite the unpleasantness of the insult and despite the grant, this has all the feel of a political agenda. There is of course clearly an agenda on behalf of "L'Estel", certainly with its suggestion that the ostensibly independent but very much pro-Catalan and pro-the Catalan lands OCB should somehow be forming an opposition, but is the government right to go after a magazine in what might be construed as an attack on the freedom of speech? It runs the risk of creating a "cause célèbre" in seeking a prosecution - that could be made to be seen as a persecution - of a publication that claims to work "in favour of the independence of our nation" (by which one guesses that Florit, who uttered this, means the Catalan nation).

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the insult and of the government seeking recourse to the law, what we have here is a case of the tensions being ratcheted up. It was precisely this that concerned many, including myself, prior to the regional elections. It was a question of how long it would take for these tensions to start to surface. They now appear to be.

Jefferson Airplane's song was called "We Can Be Together", the "we" being those who opposed the American government. There is always another "we". And in Mallorca, we are all likely to become more and more aware of who the "we's" are. Because one thing is for sure; they aren't all together.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.