The Division Belles

It can't be much fun if you live in Lloret de Vistalegre. No one has heard of you, no one ever talks about you and no one ever visits you. Lloret is "middle" and is not so much in the middle of nowhere as simply nowhere. Middle in Mallorca, to all intents and purposes, doesn't exist. 

It's not dissimilar on the west and east. Though west and east grant some place in the scheme of things thanks to their being compass points, middle has no place. Middle is an explanation rather than a location, its sole purpose being to hold north and south together.

North and south dominate geography. They determine affiliations and structures. England is south, France is north. Only rarely, as on mainland Spain, does middle, i.e. Madrid, get a look in.

North has come to prevail over south or vice versa partly as a quirk of history. Not always, as geography and climate do play a part. Norway is south as no one in their right minds would have ever considered otherwise. But at some point in Mallorca's past, south assumed the upper hand, though in Roman times north and south were pretty much on a par.

The south's dominance in Mallorca is obvious, and it is obvious that it should dominate; concentration of population wouldn't have it any other way. And apropos of this, Frank Leavers' excellent piece ("The Bulletin", 30 March) should hopefully have stirred up some feelings, as it considered both the north-south thing and expat small-town mentality.

One thing I don't quite agree with Frank on is the existence of a Palma-Calvià-Port Andratx triangle; Andratx is stuck on the end of Mallorca and for most people just a solitary place name on the first and utterly confusing road sign on the motorway coming from the airport. Calvià is a different matter, but even Calvià doesn't register outside of Calvià itself and probably not with many in it. It is a collective noun, a "calvià" of tourist resorts.

A Palma-Calvià axis does exist though, and for some in the regions of Mallorca (note regions and not just north) it is one that generates a resentment simply because it does exist. But division is less one of geography, of population concentration or of commercial and media domination. Division is more personal than this.

Small-town mentality breeds a further type of smallness, the small pond in which big fish seek to swim. These are big fish primarily of a self-made variety, their bigness largely one of their own publicity-seeking and of their appearances at the end of a camera lens. Mallorca divides along social lines, one of them represented by a social club for self-proclaimed and self-important celebritism in which the inhabitants talk to each other about each other, and only ever to each other and about each other.

It is the fact that this social club manifests itself almost exclusively within the municipal boundaries of Palma and Calvià which creates the division. The social club may be surprised to know that the great majority of expatriate Brits have not the slightest interest in it, other than to be provoked into expletive expressions, an example of which was communicated to me not from someone in the sticks but from someone in Calvià. Regarding a recent event at which the social club was out in force along with its collective dental treatment, reference was made to his "bollocks" dustbin. Division is one of division belles and their beaus and it causes division regardless of where one lives.

Expats come in all types of guise. They are easy prey for the British press, such as with the story of the shallowness and vacuity of Portals life which the "Daily Mail" once ran and which seemed distinctly plausible, despite its truth being challenged.

There are expats who are charlatans and flimflammers. Others who are dreamers and Mittys. Those who do lunch and very little else. And then there are those who are none of these. They are normal and regular, confronted with normal and regular issues. A bar owner in Magalluf has the same concerns as one in Alcúdia. There is no division other than a seventy kilometre distance; the bar owners are one and the same, and the last thing they are concerned with is what a self-publicised prominent-oscenti is up to.

This normal and regular hoi polloi is united by the everyday. North, south, it doesn't really matter, and those in the north should be grateful for a geographical tradition in which the north is at least acknowledged. As for the middle, forget it.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

When Enough Luxury Is Enough

Are the Partido Popular environmental vandals? Judging by responses from eco groups and the usual suspects on the left to plans to "unblock" certain developments on Mallorca, then the answer is yes.

As sure as governmental night followed electoral day then no sooner had the PP returned to Balearics political leadership in May than the bulldozers' engines were being revved up. It was simply a question as to how long it would take for parts of the island to be flattened and to then be built on.

I am not, though, without some sympathy for the PP, if only because they are cocking a snook at the maddeningly zealous previous administration and its PSM (Mallorcan socialists) component in particular. The decision of the Bauzá government to revoke laws of 2007 and 2008 and so permit development of some ten sites in Mallorca and Ibiza stems partly from the fact that it was facing claims of nigh on one thousand million euros from developers whose bulldozers had been stopped in their tracks.

This financial justification is probably a convenience, however. A stronger one is that, by loosening the legal noose, some activity can be put into the local economy. Which is probably true, but only up to a point.

The projects that had been put on ice range from the development of an entertainment and commercial centre in Playa de Palma to apartments in Cala Carbó in Cala San Vicente. But the projects may not stop with these. Enviro group GOB reckons that a new law would open the way to building of a sort that had been expressly prohibited - that of residential accommodation on golf courses.

Why should this matter? In a way, it shouldn't, except that it would raise the prospect of plans, such as those for the Muro golf course, currently on hold, being expanded to include accommodation. It has always been maintained that this development would be for golf and for golf alone.

It matters in this regard: Opposition to the Muro course from ordinary people of the town, and not that drummed up by the normal agitators, has centred on what is seen as being a development for the rich. You could be reasonably sure that whatever accommodation was built on a golf course, wherever it is, would not be for the ordinary people. And so it would also be with some of the projects that would be unblocked: Cala Carbó, luxury houses; two in Andratx, luxury apartments and villas.

At a time when the PP government is cutting back, when it is unable to pay various suppliers and when it has shown not the slightest hint of having something approximating to a sensitive social policy, it enters dangerous territory if all that appears to be on offer is some employment, the consequence of putting up luxury homes; luxury homes, moreover, which are likely to find foreign and part-time occupants.

It is less that environmental objections should be of concern and more that the PP appears to be betting the house on the private sector exclusively and on exclusive developments, to boot. Short-term boosts to employment in the construction industry are fine, but longer-term economic gains by flogging property to what are often absentee landlords are minor. It is a policy that heightens social division and has the potential for heightening social tensions.

There is also a certain disingenuousness on behalf of the government when it comes to the environmental aspects of developments. The reform of the tourism law, while making it easier for hotels to renovate existing sites, will not involve new building, or so the tourism minister has said. However, the tourism law is not the same as land law. In addition to luxury hotel projects in Capdepera and Campos that have already been announced, there would be a further one in Andratx. Don't discount there being others.

Again, these should all generally be welcome, but they add to a growing perception of Mallorca reclaiming for itself its old cliché of a playground for the rich but also claiming for itself a society riven by division, a chasm made wider by the vociferous noises of the environmentally-appalled left and independence elements.

At some point, enough is going to become enough, and the phenomena of the "indignados" and Occupy will take on a specifically Mallorcan characteristic. The island has yet to experience what has occurred in Sardinia, where the wealthy have been pelted with wet sand, but trouble is being stored up. What might seem like practical changes to land use could cut an awful lot deeper than might be imagined.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.