What drives a young man of 21 to want to plant bombs at a university? Answers to this question will be sought during the process of trying to comprehend what is in the mind of Juan Manuel Morales Sierra.
Juan Manuel will come to occupy a very minor place in history of those who sought to wreak carnage but failed. Repeatedly described as "sad" (in the sympathetic sense of the word) by the Spanish press, Juan Manuel's greatest sadness, one would have to suppose, is that he was caught before he could carry out his plan. Now that the plan has been thwarted, explanations will be required, Juan Manuel's personality dissected and society subjected to its own inquisition - what is it about Mallorca or Spain that could have given rise to Juan Manuel?
This latter question should probably be answered swiftly as there seems nothing to suggest that Juan Manuel's motives were related to anything specific to do with local society. Nevertheless, the questions will still be asked, and one might be about how society has changed to the extent that there can be a youth as disaffected as Juan Manuel. The soul-searching would be unnecessary though; Juan Manuel is a product of twenty-first century, alienated youth, regardless of where he is from.
The picture that emerges of Juan Manuel is of a young man with no friends (and probably little wish to have friends) and with a difficult family background. In February he and his parents went before a judge, the parents declaring that he had insulted them for not being of perfect Aryan stock (in itself weird) and he accusing his father of physical abuse. The relationship with his parents had deteriorated over time as they confronted him over his appearance and his lack of a job. His father claimed before the judge that he had to protect his wife from aggression by Juan Manuel. (The case was archived and no action was taken.)
In ramblings on his blog, Juan Manuel was resentful towards his parents for not having money. This resentment was turned against those who did and those who also had more opportunity. He was a student at the polytechnic institute, taking a course at FPII level, Formación Profesional, which is vocational education and gives a qualification that is not highly regarded. The targets for his bomb plot were degree students. On his blog he referred to "sluts ... screaming in a library" and to "spoilt" kids getting 50 euros a week from their parents who laugh at you (him) and call you (him) a sucker.
It was this resentment, against his parents and against his peers, that appears to have been his main motivation; university students had the opportunities and money denied to him. But this resentment has to have causes that go further back. How did he become so disconnected? Why was he such a loner with an almighty chip on his shoulder? The analysts will be having a field day.
One thing the analysts will pore over is the way that Juan Manuel found reinforcement for his resentment or the inspiration to become resentful. His world was shaped by various obsessions: with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who carried out the Columbine massacre, which he wished to emulate, and who were outcasts like Juan Manuel; with Nazism and Hitler; with certain music, for example Nirvana and Kurt Cobain (who, like Harris, Klebold and Hitler, committed suicide).
It is said that Juan Manuel was planning to carry out his attack on the university on 20 April next year, the date of the Columbine massacre and of Hitler's birth. But there is a conflict in this as a telephone call he made to suppliers of chemicals he wanted to use to make explosives was listened into by police. It suggested that he needed the chemicals urgently and that they hadn't been delivered as soon as he had expected. Perhaps Juan Manuel's resentment had grown so much he couldn't wait until April.
The urgency that this telephone call stressed indicates that he probably was serious about his plan. Whether it would have been anything other than a spectacular failure however we will not now know, but the deaths at Columbine were not from bombs - they mostly failed to detonate - but from gun shots. Juan Manuel had been denied a shotgun licence a month or so ago. Unlike Harris and Klebold who were friends and who had two friends who supplied them with guns, Juan Manuel appears to have had no one. Unless he had worked out a different way of obtaining firearms, he wouldn't have been able to emulate Columbine and he wouldn't have been able to shoot himself dead, as Harris and Klebold did.
Juan Manuel is a sad boy. Sad and pathetic. He had developed a bizarrely incoherent world view in which even his admiration for Nazism and extreme right-wing philosophy seemed to have no context (unlike Anders Breivik) other than nihilism. He idolised Harris and Klebold because he had discovered soul mates, boys who were also outcasts, and he wanted to be like them because to be like them would mean being someone. But Juan Manuel isn't someone. This is the real sadness.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Showing posts with label Personality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personality. Show all posts
Sunday, October 07, 2012
Friday, December 02, 2011
The Quiet Man And The Serious Man
Amidst all the euphoria (?) of Mariano's march to victory, the local leadership, i.e. that of President Bauzá, could find itself a sideshow to the main event in Madrid. It could do, but it won't. The inevitable scrutiny that a president is subject to and some personality cultivation for Bauzá make sure that it won't.
Rajoy is the Quiet Man, the brothers Iain and Duncan Smith (to lift an old Paul Merton gag) of Spanish politics. Actually, "quiet" doesn't do him justice. Mute is a bit more like it. Whether he ever gets round to acquiring a personality is questionable, but Bauzá, in the meantime, has been.
The spin médicos have it that Bauzá is "serio", a proper politician, as opposed to one who isn't (and there are plenty of candidates, to be fair). "Serio", but he has also undergone something of a metamorphosis, not just in acquiring the facial-hair trappings of Partido Popular politics but also in being portrayed as being vaguely human, though there are those who would disagree.
Before Bauzá was elevated to party leadership n March 2010, his stock, publicity-wise, wasn't that high. Indeed, it was his relative anonymity and unremarkableness, save for a resemblance to Richard E. Grant and/or Count Dracula (or perhaps because of in the case of the latter), that made him the perfect choice for the PP, determined to appoint anyone but Carlos Delgado, who was said not to be shy in promoting himself.
"Serio", and confronting the serious challenges threatening the Balearics with Armageddon, Bauzá set to work after the elections in May. Since then, the new improved Bauzá has emerged with his designer-stubble beard sprouting from the chin of political ambition.
Bauzá is close to Rajoy, so close in fact that it has been implied that Rajoy has, in spirit if not in body, taken up residence in the regional presidential palace in using the Balearics as a test site for national policy to come.
The closeness has caused the electoral commission to describe Bauzá's call for votes for Rajoy at the national election "inappropriate". It also fuels opposition from within his own party as well as from rival parties. Similarly, it does nothing to hold at bay sections of the media, alert to any opportunity of gaffe akin to that which Bauzá made when he had what he admitted later was a "mental lapse" regarding language policy during a radio interview.
The media has, for example, jumped on a more recent admission, that of having a mortgage of some 800 thousand euros for a property said to be valued at well over a million. There is nothing wrong about the mortgage, but it does send out a confused message to all those who had pressurised the poor banks into handing over fat mortgages for which they haven't got a cat in hell's chance of paying off this side of hell freezing over and who, in the process, precipitated the potential for financial Armageddon.
There has also been the issue of Bauzá on the golf course. Opponents have argued that photos of the president in full fairway-swing mode sent out another confused message. There are more "serio" things he should be doing (like cutting even more public-sector jobs, presumably).
The jibe should have been ignored. But no. It was the right message. Golfers spend 400 euros a day, came the reply, and not the average 97 euros a day of regular tourists. Absolutely. The message, one takes it, is that Mallorca doesn't need damned, cheapskate tourists filling the place up and not running to a daily hundred sobs.
Rajoy has met with the different PP regional presidents, emphasising the need for them to comply with the need to reduce regional deficits. In the Balearics, compliance hasn't needed to be sought. Bauzá can be relied upon; "serio" can, after all, mean reliable.
But this compliance is what threatens Bauzá. His image and personality making since the regional elections has been partly for internal party consumption, because there is someone whose greater "presence" was apparent long before the elections: not Delgado, but Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor.
The PP should be riding the wave of success, but it has been holding back the tide of internal division that was evident last year and which now may break over the party's flimsy beachhead. An "ants nest" is how the local party has been described, with Pastor on one ant hill, that of the malcontents whose murmurings of perceived influence of the party nationally and of the party losing its humanity are starting to become louder.
Euphoria can swiftly turn into dysphoria, and for Bauzá, it could be "serio".
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Rajoy is the Quiet Man, the brothers Iain and Duncan Smith (to lift an old Paul Merton gag) of Spanish politics. Actually, "quiet" doesn't do him justice. Mute is a bit more like it. Whether he ever gets round to acquiring a personality is questionable, but Bauzá, in the meantime, has been.
The spin médicos have it that Bauzá is "serio", a proper politician, as opposed to one who isn't (and there are plenty of candidates, to be fair). "Serio", but he has also undergone something of a metamorphosis, not just in acquiring the facial-hair trappings of Partido Popular politics but also in being portrayed as being vaguely human, though there are those who would disagree.
Before Bauzá was elevated to party leadership n March 2010, his stock, publicity-wise, wasn't that high. Indeed, it was his relative anonymity and unremarkableness, save for a resemblance to Richard E. Grant and/or Count Dracula (or perhaps because of in the case of the latter), that made him the perfect choice for the PP, determined to appoint anyone but Carlos Delgado, who was said not to be shy in promoting himself.
"Serio", and confronting the serious challenges threatening the Balearics with Armageddon, Bauzá set to work after the elections in May. Since then, the new improved Bauzá has emerged with his designer-stubble beard sprouting from the chin of political ambition.
Bauzá is close to Rajoy, so close in fact that it has been implied that Rajoy has, in spirit if not in body, taken up residence in the regional presidential palace in using the Balearics as a test site for national policy to come.
The closeness has caused the electoral commission to describe Bauzá's call for votes for Rajoy at the national election "inappropriate". It also fuels opposition from within his own party as well as from rival parties. Similarly, it does nothing to hold at bay sections of the media, alert to any opportunity of gaffe akin to that which Bauzá made when he had what he admitted later was a "mental lapse" regarding language policy during a radio interview.
The media has, for example, jumped on a more recent admission, that of having a mortgage of some 800 thousand euros for a property said to be valued at well over a million. There is nothing wrong about the mortgage, but it does send out a confused message to all those who had pressurised the poor banks into handing over fat mortgages for which they haven't got a cat in hell's chance of paying off this side of hell freezing over and who, in the process, precipitated the potential for financial Armageddon.
There has also been the issue of Bauzá on the golf course. Opponents have argued that photos of the president in full fairway-swing mode sent out another confused message. There are more "serio" things he should be doing (like cutting even more public-sector jobs, presumably).
The jibe should have been ignored. But no. It was the right message. Golfers spend 400 euros a day, came the reply, and not the average 97 euros a day of regular tourists. Absolutely. The message, one takes it, is that Mallorca doesn't need damned, cheapskate tourists filling the place up and not running to a daily hundred sobs.
Rajoy has met with the different PP regional presidents, emphasising the need for them to comply with the need to reduce regional deficits. In the Balearics, compliance hasn't needed to be sought. Bauzá can be relied upon; "serio" can, after all, mean reliable.
But this compliance is what threatens Bauzá. His image and personality making since the regional elections has been partly for internal party consumption, because there is someone whose greater "presence" was apparent long before the elections: not Delgado, but Antoni Pastor, the mayor of Manacor.
The PP should be riding the wave of success, but it has been holding back the tide of internal division that was evident last year and which now may break over the party's flimsy beachhead. An "ants nest" is how the local party has been described, with Pastor on one ant hill, that of the malcontents whose murmurings of perceived influence of the party nationally and of the party losing its humanity are starting to become louder.
Euphoria can swiftly turn into dysphoria, and for Bauzá, it could be "serio".
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Nothing Compares
There is of course the other side to what I was saying on the 24th ("Gissa Job"), and that relates to the unreliable employer. The one who one minute has employed someone and the next has the whim to take on someone else instead or to decide that no job actually exists. It does work both ways. And there is also what one might call a fitness-for-purpose test for bar owners, both potential and extant. I remember once speaking about this, but I was reminded of it when someone said to me that, especially amidst the current economic downturn and a general view that there is likely to be a shake-out in terms of the number of bars, it might not be a bad thing if some bar owners/workers were a bit more friendly. A smile does actually go a long way. The fitness-for-purpose goes beyond just this. It is a whole personality and attitudinal issue. A bar may not amount to a great deal, but friendliness, personal presentation and interest in the customer can compensate hugely.
There is a list of questions that the customer will almost invariably have. It comprises - do you live here, how long have you been here, what's it like, what's the weather going to do, where's the best place to change currency, how do I get to... ? The bar as unofficial tourist information office. But once through that checklist, having satisfied the quest for knowledge, who is then more important - the customer or the bar owner? There is but one answer. Yet one hears of instances where, for example, an owner will give a life history at some considerable length. No-one cares, other than that owner. And the reason is that the thing people like talking about most is themselves. This does not of course preclude the good tale to be told and one with which to amuse the punters, but the lesson from course 101 in how to do small talk is that the other person and what the other person has to say is always more important.
Where the language barrier exists, there is still no reason why a customer has to be treated with what at times can seem like suspicion. Some local Spanish bars can give off this impression. Not all, but some. And then there are the restaurants. The vogue is for restaurant chic, a movement towards a certain sterility, a place of eating to be admired rather than one in which to feel comfortable, one often with too much intrusive hovering as opposed to the art of the waiter making him or herself almost disappear but being constantly alert. There is much to be said for places that retain a sense of being lived-in. Would you rather live in a house that has that sense or one that has the everything-in-the-right-placeness vacuity and stiffness of a showroom? Well everything can be in the right place, and indeed should be, but can still give off what the locals like to refer to as "ambiente familiar" which can mean family or informal atmosphere - and is the latter that is usually meant. Now we also have the ubiquity of "chill", even if it is just the music. This is a de rigueur me-too, a suffusion of cool amid the fusion; a designer concept of dining alienation. From bar owners to restaurant atmospheres, nothing compares to personality, and personality above all.
The Eroski Hole
How long has it been? Eighteen months? Longer. The hole at the exit some say entrance to the car park at the Eroski by the Platja d'Or is an ex-hole. It is now a whole hole.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Suzanne Vega, "Tom's Diner" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQyjEXuvbqA). Today's title - all-time classic.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
There is a list of questions that the customer will almost invariably have. It comprises - do you live here, how long have you been here, what's it like, what's the weather going to do, where's the best place to change currency, how do I get to... ? The bar as unofficial tourist information office. But once through that checklist, having satisfied the quest for knowledge, who is then more important - the customer or the bar owner? There is but one answer. Yet one hears of instances where, for example, an owner will give a life history at some considerable length. No-one cares, other than that owner. And the reason is that the thing people like talking about most is themselves. This does not of course preclude the good tale to be told and one with which to amuse the punters, but the lesson from course 101 in how to do small talk is that the other person and what the other person has to say is always more important.
Where the language barrier exists, there is still no reason why a customer has to be treated with what at times can seem like suspicion. Some local Spanish bars can give off this impression. Not all, but some. And then there are the restaurants. The vogue is for restaurant chic, a movement towards a certain sterility, a place of eating to be admired rather than one in which to feel comfortable, one often with too much intrusive hovering as opposed to the art of the waiter making him or herself almost disappear but being constantly alert. There is much to be said for places that retain a sense of being lived-in. Would you rather live in a house that has that sense or one that has the everything-in-the-right-placeness vacuity and stiffness of a showroom? Well everything can be in the right place, and indeed should be, but can still give off what the locals like to refer to as "ambiente familiar" which can mean family or informal atmosphere - and is the latter that is usually meant. Now we also have the ubiquity of "chill", even if it is just the music. This is a de rigueur me-too, a suffusion of cool amid the fusion; a designer concept of dining alienation. From bar owners to restaurant atmospheres, nothing compares to personality, and personality above all.
The Eroski Hole
How long has it been? Eighteen months? Longer. The hole at the exit some say entrance to the car park at the Eroski by the Platja d'Or is an ex-hole. It is now a whole hole.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Suzanne Vega, "Tom's Diner" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQyjEXuvbqA). Today's title - all-time classic.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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