Members of the Balearic parliament last week became political prisoners, if only because they had attached small posters to the lids of their laptops in order to disguise which of them have got the latest and most expensive Mac PowerBook. These members were declaring their support for the Jordis, brothers in quasi-revolutionary arms who are currently banged up somewhere in Catalonia. Liberty for the Jordis read the posters displayed on the laptops.
Staring earnestly at the laptop screens were, quite naturally, the brother and sisterhood of Més and Podemos. PSOE, ostensibly partners in government, eschewed the opportunity to join in and become political prisoners. In fact, PSOE members of parliament don't tend to bother looking at laptops at all. Maybe they have more important things to do, like being parliamentarians. I mean, what do the likes of Més wild man David Abril find of such interest on a laptop? The Euromillions numbers?
If you've never taken the time to peer into a local estate agents, I recommend that you do. You will then appreciate how similar estate agents are to members of Més and Podemos. There they all are, eagerly ogling a computer screen. Well, I suppose if you're hunting for the commission on the sale of a five million euro gaff in Puerto Andratx, then you would do. That's the estate agents, by the way; not members of Més or Podemos (or maybe that's what they're doing in parliament as well).
Given that we learned once more last week that seven-figure properties are flying off the shelves (or rather the computer screens) but that local authorities can't find it within their generosity to make land available for affordable housing, perhaps the laptop-obsessed parliamentarians should display solidarity with those closer to home: Jordis plus families in Mallorca living in semi-penury and unable to find somewhere decent to live because all the property which isn't being flogged for seven figures had been snapped up and thrown up on Airbnb (before the government came along and put a stop to that - and rightly so).
Not, it has to be said, that this would go down at all well with the estate agents. A two hundred grand hovel in Inca? Not worth my while getting out of bed, mate.
But no, the parliamentarians - some of them - insist on campaigning for the Jordis and raising motions demanding that the Supreme Court immediately orders their release. Personally, I don't disagree - the Jordis and the others shouldn't be in prison - it's just that one feels these dear elected officials should be spending their time and taxpayer money in pursuit of more meaningful matters.
Someone asked me the other day if we are all led to believe that island politicians make themselves out to be a lot more important than they really are. The answer to which was unquestionably yes. Some are undoubtedly worthy and do worthy things, but how many are basically just nits who consider it worthwhile to waste parliament time on motions for which the parliament does not in any event have any say? (Separation of powers and all that; a regional parliament has no authority whatsoever to tell the Supreme Court what it should or shouldn't do.)
And how many of these nits have been thrust into a political spotlight courtesy of a small percentage share of the vote and now wish to foist Catalonia Mark II onto a populace that would rather slit its collective wrist than ever be under the control of Barcelona and find itself part of the mythical Catalan Lands?
Excluded, it must be stressed, from the ranks of the nit is our favourite president (aka speaker) of the Balearic parliament. Balti celebrated his first year as president last week, and he said that people may feel as though they can identify more with him than with someone who wears a suit and a tie.
If one looks like a one-time bass guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band, favours a pair of Converse and drives a clapped-out Renault Twingo, then one probably does identify with Balti. But this is a disparagement. Balti's image may be somewhat unconventional, but he believes - and he's probably right to believe - that he's doing a decent enough job. And why shouldn't he?
He spoke last week about his first year, suggesting that people have got used to him now. More important was how sincere he sounded. Unlike some who are on-message with all the consensus and citizens guff, when he said that his motivation is to help the citizens, you were left under no illusion that he really meant it. There's a humility with the bloke that is endearing. And it's not as though he's actually coining it in. He earns 3,400 euros a month, and 800 of that is handed over to Podemos.
"I know why I took this step (to become speaker). I know we must be very clear in not falling into any temptation." Amen. Balti? Why not Balti? Think who has occupied the speaker's chair in the past. One of them will be looking at the inside of a prison cell for at least seven more years. And no, she is not a political prisoner.
Showing posts with label Political prisoners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political prisoners. Show all posts
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Sunday, November 05, 2017
The Rubicon Crossed
It was January 49BC. Julius Caesar, who had been governor of the province of Spain, was now the the governor of a region that encompassed southern Gaul and Illyricum. With the period of his governorship ending, he was ordered back to Rome and to disband his army. He didn't. Instead he took the 13th legion across the Rubicon, an act that was considered to be insurrection and treason. As the army marched across the shallow river, he supposedly uttered the words "alea iacta est" - the die is cast.
When was the Rubicon crossed? Was it on 1 October when the referendum was held? Was it when independence was declared? Was it when they started sending people to prison? The story of the Rubicon has come to mean the point of no return. The die is cast. There is no going back. Carles Puigdemont spends his time in Brussels coffee houses and on foreign television. He will eventually come back, but is there any going back for him, for Catalonia, for Spain? Puigdemont, the Catalan Caesar, sought for insurrection and treason.
At the time when it looked as the chief of the Mossos, Josep Lluís Trapero, might be sent to prison, I remarked to someone that it would represent a crossing of the Rubicon. You don't start sending people to prison. Regardless of all that has happened and is happening, once that step is taken, moral authority begins to crumble. Legal authority may apply, but this is not the same as moral authority. Especially not in supposed western democratic societies.
And under whose authority? Do we praise the independence of the Spanish judiciary in pursuing prosecutions of a type unheard of since the failed coup of 1981? Can we compare the insurrection of Antonio Tejero Molina with that of Carles Puigdemont? Or has this independence been compromised, as has been suggested on previous occasions? Is there some justification in the characterisation of those incarcerated as political prisoners? Western democratic societies don't do or shouldn't do political prisoners.
José Miguel Monzón Navarro goes under the stage name of El Gran Wyoming. He fronts a show on La Sexta that looks at the day's news. He walked off set the other day, saying that he refused to continue with the programme. "I will not continue presenting it until Spain returns to sanity." Oriol Junqueras and others had been sent to jail. For El Gran Wyoming, the Rubicon had been crossed. He did, however, return a few minutes later.
His statement and action was nonetheless meaningful. Spain has been gripped by an insanity. It is the underlying madness which refuses to mature and to cast aside the past. It constantly hankers after its history. It is incapable of adjusting to democratic realities, even after forty and more years. I'm not defending Puigdemont, I'm not defending independence, but I am defending the cause of democratic maturity. Both sides are to blame for their juvenile behaviour.
But attaining this maturity, it seems increasingly clear, is inhibited by the very democratic fundamentals of the Spanish (and Catalan) political system. Puigdemont, the accidental president, a creation of his own belief in independence, might nevertheless chosen not to have crossed his own personal Rubicon. To what extent was he hounded towards a defiance of the Senate by the consequences of political alliance and the need for support from sources that veer in the direction of anarchy? To what degree was he pushed by the timeline from Artur Mas and his misjudged election that was held in an attempt to shore up declining popularity because of austerity policies and by his subsequent reach for the independence lifeline in order to save him?
We can all play the history game of centuries and decades past, but there were far more recent dynamics that unleashed the eventual insurrection. And these dynamics, reflected for example in the Balearics, have exposed proportional representation as a device for the tyranny of the minority. In the Balearics, Més in Menorca, with their all but fewer than 7,000 votes at the last election, recognised the independent republic of Catalonia. They are beyond contempt for their inflated sense of self-importance.
But this is how it is. And now that the Rubicon has been crossed, is the die cast for all time? Where is the going back? The metaphor with Caesar ends with the very act of crossing the river. Caesar marched on Rome. Puigdemont is marching nowhere other than to a likely prison cell, a further martyr to a process for which both he and Rajoy are ill-equipped. He got to the other side, only to stumble backwards, drowning in the shallowness of the springs of democracy.
When was the Rubicon crossed? Was it on 1 October when the referendum was held? Was it when independence was declared? Was it when they started sending people to prison? The story of the Rubicon has come to mean the point of no return. The die is cast. There is no going back. Carles Puigdemont spends his time in Brussels coffee houses and on foreign television. He will eventually come back, but is there any going back for him, for Catalonia, for Spain? Puigdemont, the Catalan Caesar, sought for insurrection and treason.
At the time when it looked as the chief of the Mossos, Josep Lluís Trapero, might be sent to prison, I remarked to someone that it would represent a crossing of the Rubicon. You don't start sending people to prison. Regardless of all that has happened and is happening, once that step is taken, moral authority begins to crumble. Legal authority may apply, but this is not the same as moral authority. Especially not in supposed western democratic societies.
And under whose authority? Do we praise the independence of the Spanish judiciary in pursuing prosecutions of a type unheard of since the failed coup of 1981? Can we compare the insurrection of Antonio Tejero Molina with that of Carles Puigdemont? Or has this independence been compromised, as has been suggested on previous occasions? Is there some justification in the characterisation of those incarcerated as political prisoners? Western democratic societies don't do or shouldn't do political prisoners.
José Miguel Monzón Navarro goes under the stage name of El Gran Wyoming. He fronts a show on La Sexta that looks at the day's news. He walked off set the other day, saying that he refused to continue with the programme. "I will not continue presenting it until Spain returns to sanity." Oriol Junqueras and others had been sent to jail. For El Gran Wyoming, the Rubicon had been crossed. He did, however, return a few minutes later.
His statement and action was nonetheless meaningful. Spain has been gripped by an insanity. It is the underlying madness which refuses to mature and to cast aside the past. It constantly hankers after its history. It is incapable of adjusting to democratic realities, even after forty and more years. I'm not defending Puigdemont, I'm not defending independence, but I am defending the cause of democratic maturity. Both sides are to blame for their juvenile behaviour.
But attaining this maturity, it seems increasingly clear, is inhibited by the very democratic fundamentals of the Spanish (and Catalan) political system. Puigdemont, the accidental president, a creation of his own belief in independence, might nevertheless chosen not to have crossed his own personal Rubicon. To what extent was he hounded towards a defiance of the Senate by the consequences of political alliance and the need for support from sources that veer in the direction of anarchy? To what degree was he pushed by the timeline from Artur Mas and his misjudged election that was held in an attempt to shore up declining popularity because of austerity policies and by his subsequent reach for the independence lifeline in order to save him?
We can all play the history game of centuries and decades past, but there were far more recent dynamics that unleashed the eventual insurrection. And these dynamics, reflected for example in the Balearics, have exposed proportional representation as a device for the tyranny of the minority. In the Balearics, Més in Menorca, with their all but fewer than 7,000 votes at the last election, recognised the independent republic of Catalonia. They are beyond contempt for their inflated sense of self-importance.
But this is how it is. And now that the Rubicon has been crossed, is the die cast for all time? Where is the going back? The metaphor with Caesar ends with the very act of crossing the river. Caesar marched on Rome. Puigdemont is marching nowhere other than to a likely prison cell, a further martyr to a process for which both he and Rajoy are ill-equipped. He got to the other side, only to stumble backwards, drowning in the shallowness of the springs of democracy.
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