The Politics Of Dancing

"Right leg in, right leg out, right leg in, shake it all about." No, hang on, there's something wrong here. Let me see. Ah yes. "Left leg in, left leg out, left leg in, shake it all about." That's much better. Not that it was really what you would call the hokey cokey. It was more a vain - very vain - attempt at reviving the Tiller Girls, which required some doing on behalf of the likes of environment, agriculture and fisheries minister, Vicenç Vidal. Heavyweight Vince was all for giving it a go, and he certainly entered into the spirit, a leg (a left one) raised barely to the horizontal, clad in the political pantaloons de mode of the present day: ill-fitting jeans.

Of particular surprise was that they all appeared to have agreed on what dance it was they were attempting (the conga, allegedly). Under normal procedures of agreements for change, a commission would be called and dialogue undertaken in order to arrive at consensus. But no, for once they just got on with it. They being what I shall now refer to as the PM(P) - PSOE, Més, (Podemos), the brackets indicating that We Can aren't sure whether they're in or out (leg or otherwise).

The Tiller Girls routine was all the more surprising given the presence of contrarians of the Laura Camargo ilk, the Podemos boot girl who you would think would have opted for some punkish pogoing, replete with the odd head butt and a right hook. This dancing in the street, dancing to a brand new beat certainly didn't entail any Jaggeresque moving like Jagger. Quite what its movement was, was difficult to ascertain, but as it was a dance (sic) of victory and celebration, surely the choice was wrong. The glorious victory was the entirely expected repeal of the reviled Law of Symbols. Catalan flags can now hang proudly over the doors to every infant school in the Balearics. But didn't this triumph against symbols demand something more symbolic in a dance style? Why weren't they doing a jota or some such traditional folk dance? It's not as if Francina's not up for a spot of folkloric prancing, muscling in on cossier performances and what have you.

But no. It was the Tiller Girls. Or the hokey cokey. Or the conga. Or whatever it was meant to be. Something of a metaphor for the government therefore.

Those of you of a certain vintage may recall the hit (the only one) by the group Re-Flex. "The politics of dancing," the lyric went, "the politics of ooo feeling good". Suddenly, and most disturbingly, politicians are discovering dance. It wasn't only the PM(P). María Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Antón, all of whom constitute the iron lady deputy premier (otherwise and more accurately known as the vice-president) of Spain, was ooo feeling good when she took to the dance floor of national television. And a right little mover she was too, gyrating in the company of six hulks (actually not-so hulks) along to Mark Ronson. "Uptown funk you up." Yes, that was funk you up, and she ended by kissing the head of a baldy bloke. One trusts that she doesn't do this with Rajoy. The head-kissing that is, and indeed the dancing, though she was to reveal that Mariano is a "bailongo". A bi what? It is a dance aficionado, one for example down the local disco.

So maybe we can expect Mariano to join Soraya. Together they'll be ooo feeling good, demonstrating that they are just normal human beings after all, dancing their way to electoral victory. Or possibly committing political murder on the dance floor: their own.

The Symbol Of Moderation: Catalan flag

The controversial law of symbols comes into operation on 20 January. If you need reminding, the principal reason for this law being implemented in the Balearics is to put an end to the display of the Catalan flag (the "senyera") on public buildings, typically town halls and schools. It is a law, according to President Bauzá, that is "common sense" and one which stops public buildings being used for ideological purposes. There are of course people who believe that it isn't common sense, that it is a form of censorship and is "typical of a repressive state".

This last bit, the repression, is the view of Silvia Cano, the general secretary of PSOE in the Balearics. PSOE, which nationally takes a pretty equivocal view of matters Catalan, is not normally to the fore in leading the defence forces of Catalan. It would, for example, prefer Catalonia to remain part of Spain. And indeed the Catalonian version of PSOE has said that there should be negotiations rather than the move towards independence and that the constant raking over the past does no one much good. A common-sense view perhaps, but of course not everyone agrees.

In the Balearics, things are seen rather differently. The law of symbols may well be a sledgehammer to crack a nut of alleged Catalan nationalism in the Balearics, but then the need for a sledgehammer has arisen because the nut has grown over the past year or so, fertiliser regularly having been supplied both by the dogmatic stance of the Bauzá government and by political groupings which have been only too happy to shovel ever more mucky stuff onto the nut of nationalism, seeing, as they do, the chance to oppose Bauzá and to grab at the populist opportunism that opposition to the law offers.

PSOE in the Balearics has never, in all truth, been that important a party when it comes to Catalan matters. It may have presided over administrations which have pushed for more Catalan dominance, but it has been coalitions partners which have done the pushing - the old Unió Mallorquina or the nationalist left of the PSM - while it shouldn't be forgotten that it was the Partido Popular (and its forerunner, the Alianza) which laid most of the groundwork for Catalan having become as dominant as it has: the old-school PP, that is, and not the current-day Bauzá version.

Thanks to the law of symbols, PSOE now finds itself with a golden opportunity to stake its claim as defender of Catalan and it is grabbing the opportunity with both hands, leading an opposition rebellion by calling on town hall mayors across the islands to defend freedom of expression and local symbols, i.e. the Catalan flag.

This rebellion has already started. Not surprisingly, Manacor was to the fore. PSOE representatives there only lent their support, as the motion to declare the Catalan flag an official symbol of the town had been driven by the PSM nationalists and Bauzá's one-time friend but now best enemy, mayor Antoni Pastor. Two other municipalities have done likewise - Costitx and Inca, the former with a mayor from what was the Unió Mallorquina and the latter with a PP mayor. PSOE, one gets the distinct impression, has been caught a bit on the hop by the centre-right having taken the initiative. Hence, it now seems to want to be seen to be leading the initiative, and four town halls it runs have indeed adopted the senyera.

Assuming that other town halls do follow the lead, and they are bound to, where does this leave the symbols law? Bauzá is quite clear that the towns will have to follow the letter of the law, but if town halls insist on making the flag their own official symbol, how can he impose the law? As there will be other PP mayors who, either against their wishes or because they actually believe in the flag being an official symbol, make similar declarations to those in Inca and Manacor, Bauzá runs an enormous risk if he now stamps down harder. There are mayors from his own his own party who are already fed up with him, and so if he insists on the letter of the law, the rebellion will not just be against the law banning the flag, it will be a rebellion against him.

Increasingly, one does have to wonder as to how well Bauzá's political antennae function, though he, quite legitimately, might wonder how tuned in members of his party were when the PP was being voted in. An anti-Catalanist agenda had been flagged up, so why should there now be this opposition from within his own party? Well, there is one good reason why, and that is that the law of symbols is an improvisation, as was the decree which cemented trilingualism into law. Members of his party may have misread Bauzá, but he has misread them as well, and now has this sledgehammer of a law to banish a symbol which, rather than being the flag of a largely non-existent Catalan nationalism is that of the moderate right. And also of, because it can't afford to be left out, PSOE as well.

Highly Symbolic: Balearics Law of Symbols

How important is a flag? I guess the answer will vary according to one's sense of nationalism, but however much one honours the flag or doesn't and so however much one might feel nationalistic or not, there is little denying that it conveys nationalism. There is also undeniable potency in the flag. Combined with the anthem, it can reduce even the strongest Olympian to a gibbering wreck. Hung at half mast, it pays homage to the war dead and the notably dead. Paraded in streets, it shouts victory or opposition.

There has been research into the effects of exposure to a flag. Unsurprisingly, and even at subliminal levels of exposure, this leads to greater national identity or identity with some entity (politicial party perhaps) which utilises or exploits the flag. It is unsurprising simply because the more there is exposure, the greater the awareness of the flag and what it might represent.

The flag's origins were in battle as military standards. Or they were a means of identifying particular clans. These might have doubled as military standards but otherwise they were a device to extract fealty or loyalty and to exert supremacy, power, influence and ownership. The flag didn't really become a statement of nationalism until it was necessary for a nation to announce its dominance and even then, overt nationalism, as expressed by the flag, was something which didn't emerge until revolutionary upheaval in the late eighteenth century and nineteenth century. The Stars and Stripes and the Tricolore were arguably the first truly overt statements of nationalism via pieces of cloth with different colours.

Despite this relatively recent exploitation of the flag as nationalist symbol, historical revisionism enables the flag as potent national symbol to be placed much further back in time. One such flag is the senyera. Originally the flag of the old kings of Aragon, it has long been adopted either wholesale or in part by the component regions of what became the Crown of Aragon. Catalonia's flag is the senyera, while the flags for Mallorca and the Balearics (there being two different ones) both use the senyera. For the purposes of nationalist revisionism and so therefore for the potency of the senyera as national symbol, Catalonia is a case study all in its own right. Was it ever a nation? Some would argue that it was, while others would dismiss the suggestion.

There are also arguments regarding the generally held view that the flag was originally that of the kings of Aragon. Following the Catalonian line of historical revisionism (or even accuracy), it was in fact a flag of the Count of Barcelona towards the back end of the eleventh century and so at a time when there wasn't a Catalonia as such but a County of Barcelona.

Whatever the exact origin, there is no question that the senyera is a very old flag. It is one of the oldest of European flags that has survived to the present day. And however the arguments go, either pro- or anti-Catalonia, there is also no question that it was not a flag of Castile. It was a flag apart, albeit one that ended up being shared by a number of regions.

The flag, any flag that is, is a symbol, a symbol of nationalism. As far as the senyera is concerned, it has become a popular symbol in Mallorca. Indeed, its popularity has never been greater. Up until about two years ago, the senyera, while popular, was a latent symbol of centuries past, reflected in the modern-day island flags. Now, it is not latent. Quite the contrary.

It was the current regional government's attitudes and legislation which led to the senyera being rediscovered anew. It started to appear on public buildings, usually tied in a bow. These buildings included town halls and schools. It was a symbol of opposition, a symbol of rejection of the government's apparent indifference to regionalism and its antagonism towards Catalonia and all things Catalan, including the language.

The government has finally approved its Ley de Símbolos, the law of symbols. It is a law which doesn't only deal with the senyera, but it is how the senyera is being dealt with which is its main focus, because how the senyera was to be dealt with was the reason for the law ever having been proposed.

The law, therefore, bans the hanging of the senyera on public buildings. As such, opponents argue, it is a limit to freedom of expression and a return to the bad old days of Franco. One will wait and see if and how the law is flouted. And flouted, one imagines it will be.

Dredging up the Francoist past makes the law of symbols appear more than it really is. In truth, it is very petty. Stupid even. It is a law of symbols which is symbolic in revealing the difficulties which the government has in being able to accept criticism of its policies. The very acts of hanging out the senyera might also have been considered rather petty, but for those who have done so, these acts have not been.

But how far have these acts been representative of an expression of nationalism - Catalan nationalism? For some, they will have been, but for many others, they won't have been. They will have been merely acts of defiance and opposition. By banning the senyera, the government is achieving what it had hoped it could put an end to. The ban is stupid because it increases the potential for Catalan nationalism to take hold in Mallorca not reduce it. Exposure to the flag. Exposure to the symbol. Even if it cannot now appear on public buildings. Nationalist identity grows. It's a bad law.

Photo: From "Ultima Hora". A senyera bow at the secondary school in Marratxi.