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
Showing posts with label Education conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education conflict. Show all posts
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Monday, June 23, 2014
Power Struggle: Balearics' education conflict
A week ago the Balearics president, José Ramón Bauzá, made what was to turn out to be a telling observation. The unions, he said, had been overtaken by the Assemblea. The unions to which he was referring were the teaching unions. The Assemblea was the Assemblea de Docents. Bauzá ruled out negotiating with the Assemblea because it, unlike the unions, did not have "valid interlocutors"; those charged with talking to the employer - the regional government in this instance - and validated under industrial relations law to do so. The Assemblea is not a union.
What Bauzá meant by the unions having been overtaken was that the Assemblea had assumed the leading role in the education conflict. It has been doing the running - in a totally different direction to that in which the government has been running - and setting the propaganda agenda. The unions, though not left behind, might be perceived as having been struggling in the Assemblea's wake. The narrative had become one written by the Assemblea and not the unions.
Around the time that Bauzá was making his observation, Jaume Sastre called off his hunger strike. Barely had Sastre had time to sip his first soup for forty days than the education minister was preparing to do what she hadn't - meet with the unions to discuss the ongoing conflict over trilingual teaching. A victory for Sastre? No.
The Assemblea is a fairly recent creation. It is only about eighteen months old. Jaume Sastre was one of those who was involved in the founding of an organisation whose prime purpose is the defence of Catalan in Balearics education. Yet such has been the rapid rise of the Assemblea, such has been its onslaught against government policy, that it has assumed the status, if only in the public's perception, of being the principal interlocutor, when it is in fact nothing of the sort. Its propaganda has been hugely successful. Sastre's hunger strike was, if you like, the pièce de résistance of this language resistance movement.
Bauzá's observation was telling because not only was he recognising how significant the Assemblea had become, he was also acknowledging what is the other story of the whole education conflict, one which has been mainly buried but which is now coming out into the open. The conflict has not solely been one between the education ministry and the teachers. It has also been one between the teachers in the form of the Assemblea and the teachers in the form of the unions.
In an interview after he had finished his hunger strike, Sastre was asked how a "radical" proposition, such as the Assemblea, could have come into being. His response was as telling as Bauzá's observation. "Because the unions have distanced themselves from the staff rooms. They failed to recognise the way that the tide was going."
Prior to the hunger strike, and this was something which I and other commentators had mentioned, it appeared that the conflict had, if not gone away, at least died down, as the unions seemed willing to accept some movement by the government. Indeed, throughout the hunger strike, references to the scale of the conflict seemed disproportionate. What actually was the conflict any longer? Was it in fact one between the Assemblea and the unions?
The meeting that the education minister, Joana Camps, had with unions last week was pretty cordial. One union representative might have suggested that it was all for show, but nevertheless there was apparently a certain level of harmony. In light of Bauzá's observation, was this really surprising? He might not be the biggest admirer of unions, but better the devil he and Joana Camps know. The meeting, coming so soon after the end of the hunger strike, was a reminder to Sastre and the Assemblea who calls the shots for one side in negotiations. It is the unions. The meeting was a case of divide and conquer, one that had been set up by Bauzá's remarks, and the unions were only too happy to participate.
When the teachers' strike was called in September last year, the unions and the Assemblea were all singing from the same hymn sheet. The Assemblea couldn't have called a strike, but its membership was firmly aligned with the unions who could. Something has happened since then. Has it been some form of power struggle between the unions and the Assemblea, the former alarmed at being "overtaken" or usurped by the latter?
On its blog entry for 18 June, the Assemblea refers to statements by the government designed to create friction between the unions and the Assemblea. Perhaps the government has, but 18 June was the day when Camps met with the unions and when cordiality appeared to exist. Since then, Sastre has made his remarks about the unions. Has the government created friction or did it already exist?
What Bauzá meant by the unions having been overtaken was that the Assemblea had assumed the leading role in the education conflict. It has been doing the running - in a totally different direction to that in which the government has been running - and setting the propaganda agenda. The unions, though not left behind, might be perceived as having been struggling in the Assemblea's wake. The narrative had become one written by the Assemblea and not the unions.
Around the time that Bauzá was making his observation, Jaume Sastre called off his hunger strike. Barely had Sastre had time to sip his first soup for forty days than the education minister was preparing to do what she hadn't - meet with the unions to discuss the ongoing conflict over trilingual teaching. A victory for Sastre? No.
The Assemblea is a fairly recent creation. It is only about eighteen months old. Jaume Sastre was one of those who was involved in the founding of an organisation whose prime purpose is the defence of Catalan in Balearics education. Yet such has been the rapid rise of the Assemblea, such has been its onslaught against government policy, that it has assumed the status, if only in the public's perception, of being the principal interlocutor, when it is in fact nothing of the sort. Its propaganda has been hugely successful. Sastre's hunger strike was, if you like, the pièce de résistance of this language resistance movement.
Bauzá's observation was telling because not only was he recognising how significant the Assemblea had become, he was also acknowledging what is the other story of the whole education conflict, one which has been mainly buried but which is now coming out into the open. The conflict has not solely been one between the education ministry and the teachers. It has also been one between the teachers in the form of the Assemblea and the teachers in the form of the unions.
In an interview after he had finished his hunger strike, Sastre was asked how a "radical" proposition, such as the Assemblea, could have come into being. His response was as telling as Bauzá's observation. "Because the unions have distanced themselves from the staff rooms. They failed to recognise the way that the tide was going."
Prior to the hunger strike, and this was something which I and other commentators had mentioned, it appeared that the conflict had, if not gone away, at least died down, as the unions seemed willing to accept some movement by the government. Indeed, throughout the hunger strike, references to the scale of the conflict seemed disproportionate. What actually was the conflict any longer? Was it in fact one between the Assemblea and the unions?
The meeting that the education minister, Joana Camps, had with unions last week was pretty cordial. One union representative might have suggested that it was all for show, but nevertheless there was apparently a certain level of harmony. In light of Bauzá's observation, was this really surprising? He might not be the biggest admirer of unions, but better the devil he and Joana Camps know. The meeting, coming so soon after the end of the hunger strike, was a reminder to Sastre and the Assemblea who calls the shots for one side in negotiations. It is the unions. The meeting was a case of divide and conquer, one that had been set up by Bauzá's remarks, and the unions were only too happy to participate.
When the teachers' strike was called in September last year, the unions and the Assemblea were all singing from the same hymn sheet. The Assemblea couldn't have called a strike, but its membership was firmly aligned with the unions who could. Something has happened since then. Has it been some form of power struggle between the unions and the Assemblea, the former alarmed at being "overtaken" or usurped by the latter?
On its blog entry for 18 June, the Assemblea refers to statements by the government designed to create friction between the unions and the Assemblea. Perhaps the government has, but 18 June was the day when Camps met with the unions and when cordiality appeared to exist. Since then, Sastre has made his remarks about the unions. Has the government created friction or did it already exist?
Saturday, June 21, 2014
One Remarkable Week In Spain
Not that the unions were overly impressed. It was all just a photo opportunity for the education minister, they reckoned. But what an opportunity. One for Joana to display THAT hairstyle. All she needs are some bushy sideburns to complete her retro Noddy Holder circa 1974 look. "Ma-Mama weer all crazee now," she probably didn't inform the unions, but had she, for once her linguistic cock-up would have been justified and indeed accurate.
The meeting with the unions was, naturally enough, seen as something of a victory for the hunger-striking teacher, who finally succumbed to the temptation of someone wafting vegetable soup under his nose. And thus, the Great Conflict edged towards becoming the Less Than Great Conflict. Or, because the school holidays are now upon us and no one will be paying any attention to the Conflict for the next three months, they may as well sit down and do what they should have been doing. Talking. In whichever language they prefer. And just as an aside, I have a question. The hunger-striking teacher. Was he being paid? Or how does that all work exactly?
Less earth-shattering have been events in Brazil, where Spain's world domination was brought rudely and suddenly to an end. A nation was plunged into mourning and despair. It must have been like this when Cuba was lost in 1898. And there was also the highly un-Spanish lack of leaving everything to a mañana of many weeks or months in the form of the rapidity with which a new king was ushered in. The big question on the nation's lips was - where would Felipe, Letizia and the nippers be living now? "Zeleb", the celebrity website, had the answer. They'll be staying put at at their modest, five-bedroomed, four-million-euros-worth Pabellón del Principe, so there would be no need for Letizia to get herself down the local IKEA and order new curtains for the Zarzuela.
Speculation was rife as to what Felipe's sudden promotion would all mean. One consequence could be an end to the Catalonian conflict. Spain's kings might traditionally not have spoken Catalan (for fairly obvious reasons), but the new man does. His Joana Camps trilingualism (he's fluent in English) was taken as the chance for him to somehow broker a deal between Mariano Rajoy and Catalonia's Artur Mas, though quite why the fact that he can speak Catalan should mean a resolution of the independence issue was lost on some - me, at any rate. But were it to mean a resolution, then this would truly and eventually cap what has indeed been a very remarkable week in Spain.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Presidential Stubbornness: The hunger strike
Whatever one makes of Jaume Sastre's hunger strike over the Balearic Government's education and language policy, there can be no doubting his strength of conviction. People don't go without food for a month for nothing and so put their well-being and lives at risk.
There is an irony in the Sastre cause, and it comes in the form of some of those who support him. An activist for Catalan Lands independence, Sastre's political philosophy is, in this regard, the total opposite to that of some of them, such as those from the Partido Popular. But take this radical philosophy out of the equation and what one has, or so it would appear, is broad backing across the political spectrum for what he has gone on hunger strike to defend - Catalan and its role in education.
President Bauzá is being called upon to negotiate in order to put an end to the conflict that still engulfs education in the Balearics. Among those who have been doing the calling are Cristòfol Soler, who for a time in the 1990s was a PP president of the Balearics, and Jaume Cladera, the islands' first tourism minister under the PP's president Gabriel Cañellas, someone else who has been less than impressed with the current president's stance. Soler has made a point of supporting Sastre from the start of his hunger strike. The two men would differ completely on the issue of independence, but on language they are as one.
Though not vocal in being critical of Bauzá, Soler has clearly disagreed with him pretty much through the whole of his legislature. The differences lie not just with language but also with the philosophy of regionalism. Soler's PP of the 1980s and 1990s was firmly pro-regionalism and firmly pro-Catalan; Bauzá's PP appears indifferent to regionalism while having made little attempt to disguise its hostility towards Catalan.
Can one style this as a clash between the old and new guards in the PP? Up to a point perhaps, but there are plenty within the new guard of the current PP whose sympathies match those of Soler. Some have spoken out, though none has been as vocal as Antoni Pastor was. The mayor of Manacor, booted out of the party, may just possibly be the presidential candidate next year for the El Pi regionalist-nationalist party, having said that he will not carry on as mayor. That would provide a fascinating and hugely entertaining battle with Bauzá were the two of them to both be presidential candidates.
Increasingly, one has to ask whether Bauzá will indeed be a candidate. Is he in fact a liability? If he were to steer away from the controversies which he generates and focus the narrative on the core issues of the economy and employment, he might well be considered worthy of being given another go. But he doesn't allow there to be such a focus. His stubbornness might be applauded by some, but it can also be nuanced as the digging of an ever deeper hole. The public, generally speaking, don't back him over language or over education.
Having been let off the incompatibility hook by the Balearics High Court, Bauzá, rather than engage in some triumphalism at this victory, should take the opportunity to be magnanimous. He said after the PP's rotten performance in the European elections that the party had to be more "humble". He needs to take the lead, therefore. It was reasonable enough to criticise the opposition for having hounded him over a matter - the alleged incompatibility - that had been blown out of proportion, but it was not reasonable, in the context of newly discovered humility, to appear triumphalist. Magnanimity is called for, and it can include a willingness to embrace the concerns of Soler and others.
Bauzá has said he won't negotiate because there is someone who will, namely the education minister Joana Camps. Unfortunately, no one takes her seriously. It is not she who has sought the conflict or who drives it. Everyone knows who has and does. And this refusal to negotiate has now assumed a more serious dimension. It has been suggested that the conflict is now a humanitarian one, the consequence of Sastre's hunger strike.
It is a conflict which also has the power to go deeper, to be enduring and to create future problems. Lost in all of the arguments, lost in the hunger strike, lost in Bauzá's stubbornness is what the schoolchildren of the Balearics think. Try putting yourselves in their position and in conditions of their impressionability. They see a teacher willing to perhaps commit suicide over a point of linguistic principle. Tell me that this doesn't influence their future views and I'm afraid I wouldn't believe you.
There is an irony in the Sastre cause, and it comes in the form of some of those who support him. An activist for Catalan Lands independence, Sastre's political philosophy is, in this regard, the total opposite to that of some of them, such as those from the Partido Popular. But take this radical philosophy out of the equation and what one has, or so it would appear, is broad backing across the political spectrum for what he has gone on hunger strike to defend - Catalan and its role in education.
President Bauzá is being called upon to negotiate in order to put an end to the conflict that still engulfs education in the Balearics. Among those who have been doing the calling are Cristòfol Soler, who for a time in the 1990s was a PP president of the Balearics, and Jaume Cladera, the islands' first tourism minister under the PP's president Gabriel Cañellas, someone else who has been less than impressed with the current president's stance. Soler has made a point of supporting Sastre from the start of his hunger strike. The two men would differ completely on the issue of independence, but on language they are as one.
Though not vocal in being critical of Bauzá, Soler has clearly disagreed with him pretty much through the whole of his legislature. The differences lie not just with language but also with the philosophy of regionalism. Soler's PP of the 1980s and 1990s was firmly pro-regionalism and firmly pro-Catalan; Bauzá's PP appears indifferent to regionalism while having made little attempt to disguise its hostility towards Catalan.
Can one style this as a clash between the old and new guards in the PP? Up to a point perhaps, but there are plenty within the new guard of the current PP whose sympathies match those of Soler. Some have spoken out, though none has been as vocal as Antoni Pastor was. The mayor of Manacor, booted out of the party, may just possibly be the presidential candidate next year for the El Pi regionalist-nationalist party, having said that he will not carry on as mayor. That would provide a fascinating and hugely entertaining battle with Bauzá were the two of them to both be presidential candidates.
Increasingly, one has to ask whether Bauzá will indeed be a candidate. Is he in fact a liability? If he were to steer away from the controversies which he generates and focus the narrative on the core issues of the economy and employment, he might well be considered worthy of being given another go. But he doesn't allow there to be such a focus. His stubbornness might be applauded by some, but it can also be nuanced as the digging of an ever deeper hole. The public, generally speaking, don't back him over language or over education.
Having been let off the incompatibility hook by the Balearics High Court, Bauzá, rather than engage in some triumphalism at this victory, should take the opportunity to be magnanimous. He said after the PP's rotten performance in the European elections that the party had to be more "humble". He needs to take the lead, therefore. It was reasonable enough to criticise the opposition for having hounded him over a matter - the alleged incompatibility - that had been blown out of proportion, but it was not reasonable, in the context of newly discovered humility, to appear triumphalist. Magnanimity is called for, and it can include a willingness to embrace the concerns of Soler and others.
Bauzá has said he won't negotiate because there is someone who will, namely the education minister Joana Camps. Unfortunately, no one takes her seriously. It is not she who has sought the conflict or who drives it. Everyone knows who has and does. And this refusal to negotiate has now assumed a more serious dimension. It has been suggested that the conflict is now a humanitarian one, the consequence of Sastre's hunger strike.
It is a conflict which also has the power to go deeper, to be enduring and to create future problems. Lost in all of the arguments, lost in the hunger strike, lost in Bauzá's stubbornness is what the schoolchildren of the Balearics think. Try putting yourselves in their position and in conditions of their impressionability. They see a teacher willing to perhaps commit suicide over a point of linguistic principle. Tell me that this doesn't influence their future views and I'm afraid I wouldn't believe you.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
The Educational Week Of Madness
It was another week of total madness courtesy of the teachers and the education ministry. It did in fact start with sadness. The death last Sunday of Sebastià Serra, the leader of the STEI-i teachers' union, did not herald a period of respectful quietness, albeit that five hundred or so people stood in silence for half an hour on Monday in front of the government's Consulat de Mar HQ. They were being quiet by way of protest rather than by way of remembrance. Their silence, they hoped, would act as a means of finding a solution to the "Great Conflict", that of education.
One had started to think that all the carry-on over trilingual teaching and whatever other grievances the teachers could drag up was dying down. But no. He almost certainly won't die, or one hopes not, but Jaume Sastre, a teacher at Llucmajor's secondary school, has been on hunger strike since 8 May. It has been his way of seeking a solution to the "Great Conflict", whatever it is, because one fears we no longer really know. It certainly hasn't got anything to do with the teaching of English, or doesn't appear to have.
All manner of people and organisations got involved with the "Great Conflict" last week. They ranged from the United Nations to the Mallorcan hoteliers federation to the Balearics College of Lawyers to the Balearics Business Confederation. We haven't heard from Real Mallorca football club yet, but they have had other things to worry about, like getting relegated. Most of these organisations called for dialogue, but what is this dialogue meant to be about? Is it trilingual teaching, Catalan, the law of symbols, what exactly?
The letter to the UN, sent by supporters of Sastre at the Assemblea de Docentes (teachers' assembly), did at least shed some light. His hunger strike is "in defence of public education, of its quality and in Catalan". Ah yes, in Catalan. The regional government, the UN has been informed, has been acting in an "authoritarian and repressive" manner and has been doing so for the past nine months.
With the UN unwittingly dragged into the affair, the "Great Conflict" began to assume crisis proportions of a potentially global scale. Into the fray, therefore, stepped Inma de Benito, newly elevated to the vice-presidency of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation. It, the "Great Conflict", does not offer a good image of the islands to the outside world, she announced, but didn't add any words of advice as to how the conflict might be resolved. Quite why she came to be involved is a mystery, but she might just reflect that mugger-prostitutes on the streets of resorts and total hotelier antagonism to the rental of private holiday accommodation also don't offer the best of images to the outside world.
She did, however, suggest that President Bauzá knows what he has to do. Of course he does. He once said so, as in: "We know what to do and what we do and why we do what we say we are going to do, and we will continue doing what we have to do even though some do not think that we will do what we said we would do." Yes, he really did say this. Donald Rumsfeld would be proud.
Bauzá's infamous we know what we're doing monologue was hauled out by the Assemblea in one of a series of videos it put out during the week under the general theme of "de-constructing Bauzá". They were intended to reveal his demagoguery, his lies, his "contradictions, dialectical traps and rare oratorical skills". And the president wasn't the only one to be accused of lying. There was, as always, also Joana Camps. She is constantly lying, said an Assemblea spokesperson, noting that the turnout for a strike on Thursday was 15% and not the 0.7% which Joana claimed. Oh yes, there was a strike, and then another one on Friday.
Joana, meantime, found that another battle front had opened up, one that involved her native Menorca. It was a "personal attack", she explained, in saying that a "denuncia" by the Assemblea had no chance of succeeding. The attack had to do with thirty-two trips she had made during eight months as education minister. Of the thirty-two, thirty had been to Menorca.
Sadly also for Joana, the leading member of the parliamentary awkward squad, Manacor's Antoni Pastor, also had a pop at her. The one who is responsible for the application of TIL is the president, he said. "You are a simple, necessary collaborator." The front, the fallguy (woman), the stooge. At least Pastor speaks some sense amidst the madness.
One had started to think that all the carry-on over trilingual teaching and whatever other grievances the teachers could drag up was dying down. But no. He almost certainly won't die, or one hopes not, but Jaume Sastre, a teacher at Llucmajor's secondary school, has been on hunger strike since 8 May. It has been his way of seeking a solution to the "Great Conflict", whatever it is, because one fears we no longer really know. It certainly hasn't got anything to do with the teaching of English, or doesn't appear to have.
All manner of people and organisations got involved with the "Great Conflict" last week. They ranged from the United Nations to the Mallorcan hoteliers federation to the Balearics College of Lawyers to the Balearics Business Confederation. We haven't heard from Real Mallorca football club yet, but they have had other things to worry about, like getting relegated. Most of these organisations called for dialogue, but what is this dialogue meant to be about? Is it trilingual teaching, Catalan, the law of symbols, what exactly?
The letter to the UN, sent by supporters of Sastre at the Assemblea de Docentes (teachers' assembly), did at least shed some light. His hunger strike is "in defence of public education, of its quality and in Catalan". Ah yes, in Catalan. The regional government, the UN has been informed, has been acting in an "authoritarian and repressive" manner and has been doing so for the past nine months.
With the UN unwittingly dragged into the affair, the "Great Conflict" began to assume crisis proportions of a potentially global scale. Into the fray, therefore, stepped Inma de Benito, newly elevated to the vice-presidency of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation. It, the "Great Conflict", does not offer a good image of the islands to the outside world, she announced, but didn't add any words of advice as to how the conflict might be resolved. Quite why she came to be involved is a mystery, but she might just reflect that mugger-prostitutes on the streets of resorts and total hotelier antagonism to the rental of private holiday accommodation also don't offer the best of images to the outside world.
She did, however, suggest that President Bauzá knows what he has to do. Of course he does. He once said so, as in: "We know what to do and what we do and why we do what we say we are going to do, and we will continue doing what we have to do even though some do not think that we will do what we said we would do." Yes, he really did say this. Donald Rumsfeld would be proud.
Bauzá's infamous we know what we're doing monologue was hauled out by the Assemblea in one of a series of videos it put out during the week under the general theme of "de-constructing Bauzá". They were intended to reveal his demagoguery, his lies, his "contradictions, dialectical traps and rare oratorical skills". And the president wasn't the only one to be accused of lying. There was, as always, also Joana Camps. She is constantly lying, said an Assemblea spokesperson, noting that the turnout for a strike on Thursday was 15% and not the 0.7% which Joana claimed. Oh yes, there was a strike, and then another one on Friday.
Joana, meantime, found that another battle front had opened up, one that involved her native Menorca. It was a "personal attack", she explained, in saying that a "denuncia" by the Assemblea had no chance of succeeding. The attack had to do with thirty-two trips she had made during eight months as education minister. Of the thirty-two, thirty had been to Menorca.
Sadly also for Joana, the leading member of the parliamentary awkward squad, Manacor's Antoni Pastor, also had a pop at her. The one who is responsible for the application of TIL is the president, he said. "You are a simple, necessary collaborator." The front, the fallguy (woman), the stooge. At least Pastor speaks some sense amidst the madness.
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