Doesn't time fly when you're having fun? I suppose it depends on how you define fun. Some of mine has involved corruption. Not that fun is really the word, I guess. Interest perhaps? Curiosity? Fascination?
Time has flown by since November 2006. I was reminded of this during a brief social media exchange the other day. It was the month when it all started. You can put an exact date on it: 27 November 2006. Or was the date two years earlier? In 2004 something very important occurred. The first regional anti-corruption prosecutor in the Balearics was appointed. The one-time attorney-general, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, had set about creating positions of these prosecutors in Spain's regions. There were some regions that needed prosecutors more than others. It may be that 2004 was when the domino effect started. Or at least when the dominoes stood up. Knock one and eventually they all tumble. One by one.
The prosecutor was Juan Carrau. In November 2006 it was he who knocked over the first domino. The name was Eugenio Hidalgo. He was the mayor of Andratx. He's still serving time.
Whenever one considers developments over the past ten years or so, one always goes back to Andratx. But there was something else which happened not long afterwards which drew comparatively little notice but was also significant: there were coordinated raids on lawyers and notaries offices. These, together with Andratx, marked the beginning. A change was in process. The dominoes started to quake and shiver.
Andratx wasn't the first time that the legal system had taken action against corruption. The Soller Tunnel affair of the 1990s brought down the Partido Popular president, Gabriel Cañellas, but the whole thing ended up with acquittals because of the statute of limitations. Andratx was to prove that the judiciary possessed sharper teeth, and when Jaume Matas came under suspicion, soon after losing the election in the spring of 2007, the dominoes were trembling even more.
Not everything that has transpired since Andratx can be traced back to it. But some can be. There was a trail to Matas, and once the prosecution and the investigating judge, José Castro, had sniffed it, they were dogs unprepared to let go of the bone. Palma Arena loomed massively, and by way of various branches from that investigation, the former Duke of Palma (Iñaki Urdangarin) caught the attention of Castro and Pedro Horrach.
The investigation into Palma police corruption was a separate matter, but overlaps were to emerge. José Maria Rodríguez, the now former head of the PP in Palma, was implicated with Andratx. Another strand of the Matas investigations - one still outstanding - was Son Espases. Among various names to have cropped up in respect of the hospital contract investigation is Tolo Cursach.
A great deal has been said and written since Cursach was arrested. There is a great deal to say. One only has to consider the charges. The book is being thrown at him, closely followed by the bookcase. In a spate of soul-searching, questions are being asked. Is Cursach somehow the culmination of all that has preceded him in terms of investigations? How could Cursach have happened? What does Cursach say about Mallorca?
It is miles away from dodgy land deals in Andratx, but there is a sense that it is a culmination, and that is because of the scale. The allegations are of systematic and systemic corruption that goes back decades, which has touched and affected many: systematic because of the organisation, systemic because of entire systems implicated. Cursach starts to become easy to explain when this distinction is drawn.
Alejandro Salas of Transparency International once said that corruption in Spain is "impregnated into different sectors of society". Gabriel Garcias, a law professor at the University of the Balearic Islands, has said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing".
This isn't to say that every person in Mallorca is culpable or anything of the sort. The point about society is the existence of a societal mores. Politicians, police, businesspeople are society. In order for corruption to exist and to be perpetuated on a wide scale and for a length of time, there has to be a societal collusion. If there isn't, then the system is incomplete.
In corruption cases such as Palma Arena or Nóos, the effects on society in general have been largely abstract. There hasn't been actual harm in a physical way. Nóos, for instance, didn't involve allegations of homicide or threats. Nóos was not systemic. That these allegations are present in the Cursach and police corruption investigations reveal the magnitude of what is being played out.
The judge and prosecutor are holding society to account. That society which enables abuse of a systemic nature. The final dominoes may just be falling.
Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Society. Show all posts
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Thursday, September 22, 2016
What's In A Community?
"Comunidad" or "comunitat", if this is your co-official language preference, has the same meaning as the English "community". The words have each followed the same linguistic path from Latin "communitas" with divergences such as the Old French "comuneté". In terms of human society, it is one of the most powerful words and concepts to have come from Latin. It is the sharing of something in common - a place, a belief, a value, an identity, a government.
When Spain moved into its democratic, post-Franco era, it placed community at the centre of this democratic renewal. Regions, such as the Balearics, officially became communities. In English, because it aids better understanding, it is convenient to refer to the Balearics as a region. A community, in wider social terms, is more understandable in being applied, say, to the British or German communities in Mallorca or to all sorts of other communities. They are on the internet, there is a farming or banking community, a gay community.
All of them are defined by having something in common, as is a political community. But English can stumble somewhat in acknowledging community as an actual political entity. Hence, why region is a convenience. Not, however, that it is inaccurate. The Balearics is still a region, just as Catalonia or Andalusia are. But they are more than this. They are communities. Their official political denomination is "comunidad autónoma" - autonomous community - and their constitutions are enshrined in their statutes of autonomy.
The Balearic parliament has been engaged in a debate into the "state of the community". Linguistically, a trick might be said to be being played here. State has its dual meanings of condition and "nation". A debate into the state of the nation that is the community, that of the Balearics.
To what extent is there a Balearic community? Is the term a form of artifice, a kind of deception to portray the sharing of things in common? A political expedient, therefore, to engineer a sense of common identity? There is undoubtedly greater power in conveying cohesion through community, a greater sense of purpose than merely being an anonymous, if autonomous, "region". But how real is it?
Historically, if one goes back far enough, there was no community. Primitive societies would not necessarily have allowed it anyway, but in the Balearic archipelago there was separate development and evolution. Ibiza entered the Classical World far earlier than either Mallorca or Menorca. Its Carthage association saw to that. Much later, Ibiza was to express its separateness through the identity of architecture, transported to Mallorca only by degree, such as to Cala d'Or.
At the time of the Catalan conquest, Ibiza and Formentera submitted to the Catalan aristocracy in the form of the Bishop of Tarragona six years after the assault on Mallorca by Jaume I. Menorca and its Muslim community accepted the sovereignty of Aragonese nobles two years after the Mallorca takeover. The island wasn't to definitively be "Catalanised" for a further fifty or more years. The events that created a Catalan society in the Balearics are revered mostly in Mallorca. 1229 and all that do not carry the same weight elsewhere.
In far more contemporary times, Menorca held out as a Republican stronghold during the Civil War. In the years immediately before the war, Ibiza and Menorca had great reservations about tentative moves to establish autonomous government for the Balearics during the time of the Second Republic. Both feared that it was a move to give Mallorca dominance.
When mass tourism arrived, the mass mostly descended on Mallorca. Balearisation, the development of the coasts, was predominantly a Mallorcan phenomenon. The magnet for tourism society was Mallorca. It became a global byword in ways that neither Ibiza nor Menorca did. Ibiza experienced its own curious evolution, that of hippy colonies.
While there are common linguistic connections, there are also differences. These are most evident in Menorca, the legacy of British and French influences. Likewise, these occupiers bequeathed architectural styles, at variance with those, say, of Ibiza.
The president of the Council of Mallorca, Miquel Ensenyat, speaking on the occasion of Mallorca Day, referred to the original institutions of autonomy - the islands' councils (with the exception of Formentera, which wasn't to get one until much later). These councils came before the formation of the autonomous community and so the founding of regional government. Ensenyat stressed the importance of the councils in responding to the idiosyncratic needs of the islands.
With that one word, idiosyncratic, Ensenyat spoke volumes. Something peculiar to the individual islands. Specific differences, be they cultural, economic or political.
When surveys are undertaken of identity, they reveal overwhelming identity with the specific islands rather than with the Balearics: this sense of belonging is greater away from Mallorca. So is there genuinely a "community"? Maybe Nel Marti (Més per Menorca) summed it up during parliament's debate: the complete absence of mention of "his" island.
When Spain moved into its democratic, post-Franco era, it placed community at the centre of this democratic renewal. Regions, such as the Balearics, officially became communities. In English, because it aids better understanding, it is convenient to refer to the Balearics as a region. A community, in wider social terms, is more understandable in being applied, say, to the British or German communities in Mallorca or to all sorts of other communities. They are on the internet, there is a farming or banking community, a gay community.
All of them are defined by having something in common, as is a political community. But English can stumble somewhat in acknowledging community as an actual political entity. Hence, why region is a convenience. Not, however, that it is inaccurate. The Balearics is still a region, just as Catalonia or Andalusia are. But they are more than this. They are communities. Their official political denomination is "comunidad autónoma" - autonomous community - and their constitutions are enshrined in their statutes of autonomy.
The Balearic parliament has been engaged in a debate into the "state of the community". Linguistically, a trick might be said to be being played here. State has its dual meanings of condition and "nation". A debate into the state of the nation that is the community, that of the Balearics.
To what extent is there a Balearic community? Is the term a form of artifice, a kind of deception to portray the sharing of things in common? A political expedient, therefore, to engineer a sense of common identity? There is undoubtedly greater power in conveying cohesion through community, a greater sense of purpose than merely being an anonymous, if autonomous, "region". But how real is it?
Historically, if one goes back far enough, there was no community. Primitive societies would not necessarily have allowed it anyway, but in the Balearic archipelago there was separate development and evolution. Ibiza entered the Classical World far earlier than either Mallorca or Menorca. Its Carthage association saw to that. Much later, Ibiza was to express its separateness through the identity of architecture, transported to Mallorca only by degree, such as to Cala d'Or.
At the time of the Catalan conquest, Ibiza and Formentera submitted to the Catalan aristocracy in the form of the Bishop of Tarragona six years after the assault on Mallorca by Jaume I. Menorca and its Muslim community accepted the sovereignty of Aragonese nobles two years after the Mallorca takeover. The island wasn't to definitively be "Catalanised" for a further fifty or more years. The events that created a Catalan society in the Balearics are revered mostly in Mallorca. 1229 and all that do not carry the same weight elsewhere.
In far more contemporary times, Menorca held out as a Republican stronghold during the Civil War. In the years immediately before the war, Ibiza and Menorca had great reservations about tentative moves to establish autonomous government for the Balearics during the time of the Second Republic. Both feared that it was a move to give Mallorca dominance.
When mass tourism arrived, the mass mostly descended on Mallorca. Balearisation, the development of the coasts, was predominantly a Mallorcan phenomenon. The magnet for tourism society was Mallorca. It became a global byword in ways that neither Ibiza nor Menorca did. Ibiza experienced its own curious evolution, that of hippy colonies.
While there are common linguistic connections, there are also differences. These are most evident in Menorca, the legacy of British and French influences. Likewise, these occupiers bequeathed architectural styles, at variance with those, say, of Ibiza.
The president of the Council of Mallorca, Miquel Ensenyat, speaking on the occasion of Mallorca Day, referred to the original institutions of autonomy - the islands' councils (with the exception of Formentera, which wasn't to get one until much later). These councils came before the formation of the autonomous community and so the founding of regional government. Ensenyat stressed the importance of the councils in responding to the idiosyncratic needs of the islands.
With that one word, idiosyncratic, Ensenyat spoke volumes. Something peculiar to the individual islands. Specific differences, be they cultural, economic or political.
When surveys are undertaken of identity, they reveal overwhelming identity with the specific islands rather than with the Balearics: this sense of belonging is greater away from Mallorca. So is there genuinely a "community"? Maybe Nel Marti (Més per Menorca) summed it up during parliament's debate: the complete absence of mention of "his" island.
Friday, July 29, 2016
On Individualism: Mallorcan Society
There is a hotel chain which, unless you have been to certain luxury establishments in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, you will probably never have heard of. Its name is the Excellence Group Luxury Hotels & Resorts. Excellence, from a look at its website, is most certainly what one could expect. There again, there are any number of hotel operators aspiring to provide excellence and indeed achieving it. So what makes this chain of interest?
The fact that it is the product of a joint venture involving two Mallorcan hotel groups - Prinsotel and Viva - does make it of interest. But it isn't what it offers that generates the greatest interest; it's the very nature of cooperation that does.
In "Preferente" magazine there is an opinion piece by I'm assuming Javier Mato. He refers to Excellence, using it as a rare example of cooperation, and in the opening sentence of this article he makes a startling observation. I quote: "Mallorcan society in general and tourism society in particular, highly individualist and only rarely united - such as when the water reaches its neck in the form of impositions and adverse political measures - should draw from the example of ... Excellence."
Where to begin with such a statement? It is loaded with implications of the Mallorcan psyche as well as with how business operates and, by extension, how the political culture operates. It is the "highly individualist" that really made me sit up and pay particular attention. Such a characteristic, by definition, runs counter to notions of collectivism, which I don't specifically mean in the political (communist) sense but in a broader one of collective attitudes, behaviours and objectives.
Another recent article - by Bernat Joan i Marí on the "dBalears" website - is simply entitled "Individualism". He decries its advance, though it might more appropriately be styled as selfishness, and makes an allusion to a time past when he would join with others in excursions to gather almonds and carobs. Such a romantic image is contrasted with what he calls "ultra-individualism", a movement of the present day causing "suffering to our islands".
He goes on in considering how there can be "bizarre" alliances of individual and collective interests. Like Mato, if it is indeed Mato, he refers to the tourism industry and the coalescing of business (hotel) interests in seeking to deny rights to others to make "democratic gains" from tourism by renting out their property. Adverse political measures, it might be noted, have yet to make the water rise to the neck of the hotel collective. They might yet do so, if the regional government regulates private accommodation against the wishes of the collective.
But is this any different to other societies? Or might it be that it is more keenly felt and observed in small island societies? The island mentality of Mallorca has been chewed over by many, though is it fair to conclude, as Mato appears to, that this is a mentality dominated by individualism? One can always dredge up the accusation that Mallorcans are only out to satisfy their own individual ends, a generality I don't subscribe to. But if true, is it so surprising?
Rooted in this society is the nature of Mediterranean insularity, an existence down the centuries that variously prompted grand levels of entrepreneurialism, the avaricious and generally negligent attentions of absentee noble landlords and grinding poverty: a survival of the fittest and the rest can go hang, and often were. Yet this doesn't give a complete picture, not if, for instance, one takes into account the collective uprisings, such as the Germanies of the sixteenth century. Yes it was a long time ago but much of what shaped Mallorca, its society and collective memory is from long ago.
The past haunts Mallorca, there's no getting away from the fact. At times it can appear to be overstated, but to underestimate its power would be to perform an injustice. In this context the thoughts of the Sa Pobla author Miquel López Crespí present a very different take to the individualist one. He writes, there's no question, from a socialist perspective and one also imbued with his own romanticism, such as recollections of nights of summer from the early 1950s when the people of his town would sing on what was once Sa Pobla's beach (now Muro's).
But he is scathing of the impact of mass tourism, of the "false modernity" of the middle class, of the "tyranny" of Palma and the assumptions of welfare to be derived from individualism that leads to the alienation of others. Alienation from an alternative version of Mallorcan society, one predicated on collective aims and wishes.
The cooperation of Excellence would be the antithesis of López Crespí's world view. Curious though it might be, however, there is a degree of similarity, but only a degree. Let's not get carried away. Behind joint ventures there are individual interests.
The fact that it is the product of a joint venture involving two Mallorcan hotel groups - Prinsotel and Viva - does make it of interest. But it isn't what it offers that generates the greatest interest; it's the very nature of cooperation that does.
In "Preferente" magazine there is an opinion piece by I'm assuming Javier Mato. He refers to Excellence, using it as a rare example of cooperation, and in the opening sentence of this article he makes a startling observation. I quote: "Mallorcan society in general and tourism society in particular, highly individualist and only rarely united - such as when the water reaches its neck in the form of impositions and adverse political measures - should draw from the example of ... Excellence."
Where to begin with such a statement? It is loaded with implications of the Mallorcan psyche as well as with how business operates and, by extension, how the political culture operates. It is the "highly individualist" that really made me sit up and pay particular attention. Such a characteristic, by definition, runs counter to notions of collectivism, which I don't specifically mean in the political (communist) sense but in a broader one of collective attitudes, behaviours and objectives.
Another recent article - by Bernat Joan i Marí on the "dBalears" website - is simply entitled "Individualism". He decries its advance, though it might more appropriately be styled as selfishness, and makes an allusion to a time past when he would join with others in excursions to gather almonds and carobs. Such a romantic image is contrasted with what he calls "ultra-individualism", a movement of the present day causing "suffering to our islands".
He goes on in considering how there can be "bizarre" alliances of individual and collective interests. Like Mato, if it is indeed Mato, he refers to the tourism industry and the coalescing of business (hotel) interests in seeking to deny rights to others to make "democratic gains" from tourism by renting out their property. Adverse political measures, it might be noted, have yet to make the water rise to the neck of the hotel collective. They might yet do so, if the regional government regulates private accommodation against the wishes of the collective.
But is this any different to other societies? Or might it be that it is more keenly felt and observed in small island societies? The island mentality of Mallorca has been chewed over by many, though is it fair to conclude, as Mato appears to, that this is a mentality dominated by individualism? One can always dredge up the accusation that Mallorcans are only out to satisfy their own individual ends, a generality I don't subscribe to. But if true, is it so surprising?
Rooted in this society is the nature of Mediterranean insularity, an existence down the centuries that variously prompted grand levels of entrepreneurialism, the avaricious and generally negligent attentions of absentee noble landlords and grinding poverty: a survival of the fittest and the rest can go hang, and often were. Yet this doesn't give a complete picture, not if, for instance, one takes into account the collective uprisings, such as the Germanies of the sixteenth century. Yes it was a long time ago but much of what shaped Mallorca, its society and collective memory is from long ago.
The past haunts Mallorca, there's no getting away from the fact. At times it can appear to be overstated, but to underestimate its power would be to perform an injustice. In this context the thoughts of the Sa Pobla author Miquel López Crespí present a very different take to the individualist one. He writes, there's no question, from a socialist perspective and one also imbued with his own romanticism, such as recollections of nights of summer from the early 1950s when the people of his town would sing on what was once Sa Pobla's beach (now Muro's).
But he is scathing of the impact of mass tourism, of the "false modernity" of the middle class, of the "tyranny" of Palma and the assumptions of welfare to be derived from individualism that leads to the alienation of others. Alienation from an alternative version of Mallorcan society, one predicated on collective aims and wishes.
The cooperation of Excellence would be the antithesis of López Crespí's world view. Curious though it might be, however, there is a degree of similarity, but only a degree. Let's not get carried away. Behind joint ventures there are individual interests.
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
The Nation As Victim
Next Monday is Spain's National Day. It is a day that will be celebrated with some joy by travel agents and hoteliers. The Monday is pleasantly convenient for the sale of the "puente" weekend breaks, and in Mallorca there is no tourist tax to worry about. Yet.
It will be a day when there will be powerful affirmations of the Spanish nation: all of Spain, Catalonia included. One nation. But while the oratory will be fine and while it will plead for unity, where, amidst all this rhetoric, will be the sentiments of Spanish people? Pride in the nation quite possibly or even probably, but what sort of nation?
The Catalonia question and the ancillary local one of Mallorca's varying shades of regionalism and nationalism are but two examples of a nation not entirely whole. There are further ones, the Basque Country most obviously, and lesser notions of self-determination in, for instance, Galicia or the Canaries. What these all have in common is history, with the histories of Catalonia and Mallorca inextricably linked in ways that others are not. History, the past are invoked. But to what degree is history claimed by Spaniards, those of the nation for whom demands for secession by parts of the nation appear baffling?
We all of us carry our history with us. I am variously English or British. But in neither guise, despite all the history, do I pay attention to it. I don't think about being English or British, I just am. William the Conqueror, Wars of the Roses, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Cromwell, Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Churchill, the world wars. They all feature but I spend no time in considering any of this in contemplating Englishness or Britishness. And nor, I suspect, do most English people. Scots, Welsh, Irish, I concede, will be different.
Spain's National Day celebrates the moment when land was first discovered in the Americas. In one way it is odd, as the discoverer wasn't Spanish, albeit there are those who would argue that Columbus was - Gabriel Verd, for instance, who is convinced that Columbus came from Porto Colom. Regardless of where he was from, the discovery was what put Spain on the map. Literally. Spanishness invaded the Americas, its central and southerly parts. 1492 was a momentous year. The New World was found and the final Muslim enclave in Granada fell. It ushered in the rivers of gold and the period of imperial and national power that wasn't to endure.
Despite the obvious significance of 1492, for Spaniards, if they consider themselves in historical terms at all, the dates are much more contemporary. 1936 and 1975 define Spain more than do 1492 or 1715. For the Catalonians and for Mallorcans, however, this latter date is defining.
Catalonia's National Day is quite different in its commemoration to that of Spain. It remembers defeat - in September 1714 - at the hands of Castile and the Bourbons. The consequences of this defeat - the removal of powers, the Nueva Planta decrees, the ending of the wider crown of Aragon, the repression of Catalan - go to the heart of independence. Money also plays a vital role as well, but in terms of sentiment, the events of three hundred years ago influence the secessionist narrative. Just as they also play a part in the sentiments of those in Mallorca who feel a common bond with Catalonia and so also the notion of a nationalism within a grouping of the Catalan Lands.
A prime advocate of this bond is Miquel Ensenyat, the president of the Council of Mallorca. He has been accused, however, of playing the victim card, of styling Mallorca in terms of the persecutory nature of the Nueva Planta. It is this, the notion of the victim, which explains much when it comes to how individuals define themselves. The English were never victims. The Spanish were victims up to a point, but for almost all the period after the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century until Franco sought to put an end to it, Spain was a nation at war with itself and so brought about its own downfall from power.
Though not all Mallorcans will define themselves in the way that Ensenyat does and though likewise not all Catalonians will dwell on matters three hundred years ago, those events do go a long way to explaining how things now are and, as importantly, to explaining how collective mindsets differ. Catalonia is the nation as victim. By extension, so is Mallorca. For the English (British) and the Spanish, there isn't the same collective impulse. Indeed, it is the reverse, because of their times of domination.
It may seem baffling that, in a contemporary society, there is a drive to independence or to expressions of greater nationalism, but if the collective psyche is not one of the victim, then it will be baffling, as there is not the same baggage of the past.
It will be a day when there will be powerful affirmations of the Spanish nation: all of Spain, Catalonia included. One nation. But while the oratory will be fine and while it will plead for unity, where, amidst all this rhetoric, will be the sentiments of Spanish people? Pride in the nation quite possibly or even probably, but what sort of nation?
The Catalonia question and the ancillary local one of Mallorca's varying shades of regionalism and nationalism are but two examples of a nation not entirely whole. There are further ones, the Basque Country most obviously, and lesser notions of self-determination in, for instance, Galicia or the Canaries. What these all have in common is history, with the histories of Catalonia and Mallorca inextricably linked in ways that others are not. History, the past are invoked. But to what degree is history claimed by Spaniards, those of the nation for whom demands for secession by parts of the nation appear baffling?
We all of us carry our history with us. I am variously English or British. But in neither guise, despite all the history, do I pay attention to it. I don't think about being English or British, I just am. William the Conqueror, Wars of the Roses, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Cromwell, Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Churchill, the world wars. They all feature but I spend no time in considering any of this in contemplating Englishness or Britishness. And nor, I suspect, do most English people. Scots, Welsh, Irish, I concede, will be different.
Spain's National Day celebrates the moment when land was first discovered in the Americas. In one way it is odd, as the discoverer wasn't Spanish, albeit there are those who would argue that Columbus was - Gabriel Verd, for instance, who is convinced that Columbus came from Porto Colom. Regardless of where he was from, the discovery was what put Spain on the map. Literally. Spanishness invaded the Americas, its central and southerly parts. 1492 was a momentous year. The New World was found and the final Muslim enclave in Granada fell. It ushered in the rivers of gold and the period of imperial and national power that wasn't to endure.
Despite the obvious significance of 1492, for Spaniards, if they consider themselves in historical terms at all, the dates are much more contemporary. 1936 and 1975 define Spain more than do 1492 or 1715. For the Catalonians and for Mallorcans, however, this latter date is defining.
Catalonia's National Day is quite different in its commemoration to that of Spain. It remembers defeat - in September 1714 - at the hands of Castile and the Bourbons. The consequences of this defeat - the removal of powers, the Nueva Planta decrees, the ending of the wider crown of Aragon, the repression of Catalan - go to the heart of independence. Money also plays a vital role as well, but in terms of sentiment, the events of three hundred years ago influence the secessionist narrative. Just as they also play a part in the sentiments of those in Mallorca who feel a common bond with Catalonia and so also the notion of a nationalism within a grouping of the Catalan Lands.
A prime advocate of this bond is Miquel Ensenyat, the president of the Council of Mallorca. He has been accused, however, of playing the victim card, of styling Mallorca in terms of the persecutory nature of the Nueva Planta. It is this, the notion of the victim, which explains much when it comes to how individuals define themselves. The English were never victims. The Spanish were victims up to a point, but for almost all the period after the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century until Franco sought to put an end to it, Spain was a nation at war with itself and so brought about its own downfall from power.
Though not all Mallorcans will define themselves in the way that Ensenyat does and though likewise not all Catalonians will dwell on matters three hundred years ago, those events do go a long way to explaining how things now are and, as importantly, to explaining how collective mindsets differ. Catalonia is the nation as victim. By extension, so is Mallorca. For the English (British) and the Spanish, there isn't the same collective impulse. Indeed, it is the reverse, because of their times of domination.
It may seem baffling that, in a contemporary society, there is a drive to independence or to expressions of greater nationalism, but if the collective psyche is not one of the victim, then it will be baffling, as there is not the same baggage of the past.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
You Are Not Mallorcan
I am making an assumption that you are not Mallorcan. You may live in Mallorca, you may visit Mallorca, but no, you are not Mallorcan. But not being Mallorcan does not prevent you from having opinions about Mallorca. These are opinions which, predominantly though not necessarily exclusively, will be formed from your own perceptions, from your own backgrounds. Are they Mallorcan?
There is a Facebook social network site called "Mallorquins en perill d'extinció". Translation is not needed. Even a non-Mallorcan can figure out what it means. Its title is exaggerated. Mallorcans are not about to go the way of the dodo. But does peril exist? And if so, when did the threat of extinction start and why?
Twentieth-century history offers some evidence. Francoism contained a threat but it was principally one to undermine Catalanism rather than island cultures. Even in the early years after the Civil War, local languages were receiving official permission. For example, the glosador verse-makers were performing in theatres of the first half of the 1940s. Later, and as a further example, the fiesta of Sant Antoni in Sa Pobla was declared to be in the national touristic interest in 1966. The cult of Sant Antoni was one that had been imported by the Catalan forces of the thirteenth century.
The greater threat was that of tourism. Its social impact was enormous, and non-Mallorcans arrived in droves, not just tourists but workers and also purchasers of property. You are the descendants of the 1960s. Indigenous culture was banished from the resorts and replaced with a Spanish standard, but even then there was acceptance of this culture, as with the Sant Antoni declaration.
The threat was, therefore, never total, and in the 1970s the combination of the oil crisis, Franco's death and the emergence of democracy brought about a revision and a revival. Local cultural associations such as Sarau Alcudienc in Alcúdia, the environmentalist group GOB, the activists Terra i Llibertat and the 1977 occupation of the island of Dragonera; these were all products of this revival, as was local politics.
The renaissance was facilitated by the politicians, not hindered. Differences there were, but from both right and left there was an appreciation of local culture and heritage and a strengthening determination to protect it and the environment. Old towns were given heritage orders; natural parks, such as Albufera, were established. But all the while there was the never-ceasing expansion of tourism, the constant construction of more tourism infrastructure and housing, the immigration of workers and residents and its greater enablement thanks to the Maastricht Treaty.
These competing forces didn't, however, bring about noticeable tensions; there were benefits to be accrued from the developments of the 1990s that followed the recession of the early part of that decade and which continued for a time into the new millennium. Concomitant with this was an inevitable consequence of a further explosion in tourism accommodation and indeed tourism itself. The hoteliers, always powerful, acquired ever more power. Even so, an unwritten accord between the competing forces remained. But then something happened, and it wasn't just economic crisis.
Arguably, you can pinpoint the time as that moment in 2008 when the last regional government pushed the cultural pendulum so far towards Catalanism that it was the competing force of Spanishness (and Castellano) that was threatened with extinction. Cultural tension, up till then mostly contained, surfaced. In seeking a correction, the current government has swung the pendulum back in the opposite direction. Latent division within society was no more. Division is no longer hidden or below the surface. Its fight is with extinction.
This cultural dimension is not the only justification for a poster produced by "Mallorquins en perill d'extinció" which is entitled, ironically, "you are Mallorcan if". It is there, nonetheless. You are Mallorcan if you want "our language" eliminated, a reference, one has to presume, to Catalan. Continuing in this ironic vein, you are Mallorcan if you accept the slavery of the hoteliers, the lack of protection of green areas, Europe's waste on the island, the Palacio de Congresos, the cost of water, the cost of travel from the island.
It is clearly a political statement, but not all of it can be disputed. You are Mallorcan if you pay for the most expensive petrol in Spain. This is a fact. You are Mallorcan if you pay more than anyone to the state without something in return. This is also a fact, one to do with the nature of state financing. It is a statement aimed squarely at the Partido Popular nationally and regionally (though not totally, as PSOE is not let off the hook), but in combination it is a declaration of discontent that would have been hard to have imagined even some ten years ago.
You are not Mallorcan, but maybe you are. Only you can decide this.
There is a Facebook social network site called "Mallorquins en perill d'extinció". Translation is not needed. Even a non-Mallorcan can figure out what it means. Its title is exaggerated. Mallorcans are not about to go the way of the dodo. But does peril exist? And if so, when did the threat of extinction start and why?
Twentieth-century history offers some evidence. Francoism contained a threat but it was principally one to undermine Catalanism rather than island cultures. Even in the early years after the Civil War, local languages were receiving official permission. For example, the glosador verse-makers were performing in theatres of the first half of the 1940s. Later, and as a further example, the fiesta of Sant Antoni in Sa Pobla was declared to be in the national touristic interest in 1966. The cult of Sant Antoni was one that had been imported by the Catalan forces of the thirteenth century.
The greater threat was that of tourism. Its social impact was enormous, and non-Mallorcans arrived in droves, not just tourists but workers and also purchasers of property. You are the descendants of the 1960s. Indigenous culture was banished from the resorts and replaced with a Spanish standard, but even then there was acceptance of this culture, as with the Sant Antoni declaration.
The threat was, therefore, never total, and in the 1970s the combination of the oil crisis, Franco's death and the emergence of democracy brought about a revision and a revival. Local cultural associations such as Sarau Alcudienc in Alcúdia, the environmentalist group GOB, the activists Terra i Llibertat and the 1977 occupation of the island of Dragonera; these were all products of this revival, as was local politics.
The renaissance was facilitated by the politicians, not hindered. Differences there were, but from both right and left there was an appreciation of local culture and heritage and a strengthening determination to protect it and the environment. Old towns were given heritage orders; natural parks, such as Albufera, were established. But all the while there was the never-ceasing expansion of tourism, the constant construction of more tourism infrastructure and housing, the immigration of workers and residents and its greater enablement thanks to the Maastricht Treaty.
These competing forces didn't, however, bring about noticeable tensions; there were benefits to be accrued from the developments of the 1990s that followed the recession of the early part of that decade and which continued for a time into the new millennium. Concomitant with this was an inevitable consequence of a further explosion in tourism accommodation and indeed tourism itself. The hoteliers, always powerful, acquired ever more power. Even so, an unwritten accord between the competing forces remained. But then something happened, and it wasn't just economic crisis.
Arguably, you can pinpoint the time as that moment in 2008 when the last regional government pushed the cultural pendulum so far towards Catalanism that it was the competing force of Spanishness (and Castellano) that was threatened with extinction. Cultural tension, up till then mostly contained, surfaced. In seeking a correction, the current government has swung the pendulum back in the opposite direction. Latent division within society was no more. Division is no longer hidden or below the surface. Its fight is with extinction.
This cultural dimension is not the only justification for a poster produced by "Mallorquins en perill d'extinció" which is entitled, ironically, "you are Mallorcan if". It is there, nonetheless. You are Mallorcan if you want "our language" eliminated, a reference, one has to presume, to Catalan. Continuing in this ironic vein, you are Mallorcan if you accept the slavery of the hoteliers, the lack of protection of green areas, Europe's waste on the island, the Palacio de Congresos, the cost of water, the cost of travel from the island.
It is clearly a political statement, but not all of it can be disputed. You are Mallorcan if you pay for the most expensive petrol in Spain. This is a fact. You are Mallorcan if you pay more than anyone to the state without something in return. This is also a fact, one to do with the nature of state financing. It is a statement aimed squarely at the Partido Popular nationally and regionally (though not totally, as PSOE is not let off the hook), but in combination it is a declaration of discontent that would have been hard to have imagined even some ten years ago.
You are not Mallorcan, but maybe you are. Only you can decide this.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
Society Is Sick: Corruption in Spain
There was a time when I paid comparatively little attention to politics in Mallorca or indeed to politics in Spain. What made me take far greater notice was what happened on 27 November 2006. The mayor of Andratx, Eugenio Hidalgo, was arrested, as was the director-general of land planning at the regional government. The trail from the corruption case which exposed Hidalgo was to lead to Jaume Matas, then the president of the Balearics. More or less all the corruption investigations since had their origins in Andratx. Investigators and judges began to make links; Urdangarin, Munar, Matas, you can trace them all back to that day eight years ago.
It is conceivable that fewer cases might have cropped up had it not been for the former attorney-general, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, seeking and appointing regional prosecutors to root out corruption and later creating the anti-corruption and organised crime prosecution service. In 2004 the Balearics got the first regional prosecutor, Juan Carrau, who instigated the case against Hidalgo, by which time he had been joined by the second prosecutor, the more celebrated Pedro Horrach. There are now four prosecutors in all.
As we are all too well aware, new corruption cases still arise with regrettable frequency. The prosecutors have greater powers, but they can't prevent corruption, only investigate it. Nevertheless, maybe these greater powers have had some deterrent effect or at least helped to improve the perception of corruption in Spain. The latest survey of corruption in 175 countries by Transparency International (TI) shows that Spain has improved three places since last year; it is ranked 37.
A director at TI, Alejandro Salas, has suggested that when economic times were good, corruption was hidden. Economic difficulties have brought about greater awareness and willingness to pursue the corrupt and a more open public and political debate about corruption. Hence why, one might suggest, Mariano Rajoy has been talking about the subject, but then Rajoy's pronouncements have tended to be reactive, as was the case with the now infamous "Spain is not corrupted".
Rajoy didn't actually say that "Spain is not corrupt". It was "is not corrupted". The semantic distinction is important, as it implies a corruption of recent times. But this is a view with which Alejandro Salas disagrees. "Corruption is not new in Spain. It is an historical phenomenon." "What strikes me is that corruption in Spain is very structural, very systematic. It is not just one party, not one government, not one province. It is impregnated into different sectors of society." Rajoy might be advised to take note of what Salas says, just as he might like to consider words that were spoken in 1993. "It is not politicians who are corrupt, but it is society that is sick." Who spoke them? Jaume Matas, who, in addition to having twice been Balearics president, was a colleague of Rajoy's in Aznar's national government. Matas was quoting a Spanish philosopher, José Luis Aranguren.
Gabriel Garcias is a professor of law at the university in Palma. He has said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I used this same quote in an article from 2010. The prosecutors have been prosecuting since then, but have they really had a deterrent effect? Maybe, but at the time I was quoting Garcias I was also quoting the Balearics spokesperson for the UPyD party, Juan Luis Calbarro: "The Balearics have the highest number of people who are corrupt or allegedly corrupt per square metre in Spain." Calbarro explained the link between politics and society thus: "businesspeople who are friends of certain politicians, businesspeople who assemble companies in order to receive adjudications decided by their political friends, as well as the wives, husbands, cousins and nephews of politicians".
Since the emergence of the Hidalgo affair in 2006, I have written some 70 articles with corruption as a central theme. The society-politics nexus has been a not uncommon aspect of these articles. Some might aver that politics are divorced from society at large. In terms of general society's distance from the political machinery and from decision-making, this is probably so, but society and politics are most definitely not separated in other ways. They are one and the same when it comes to corruption. Garcias and Calbarro said so in 2010. Salas now says so, and even Matas implied this twenty-one years ago.
The historical phenomenon of corruption to which Alejandro Salas refers can be found over the centuries. For example, the Inquisition was inherently corrupt on account of the need to fund and perpetuate itself, while the sham democracy from the later nineteenth century run by the local political bosses, the "caciques", was so corrupt that no one even sought to hide the fact. "Spain is not corrupted." It's a semantic error.
It is conceivable that fewer cases might have cropped up had it not been for the former attorney-general, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, seeking and appointing regional prosecutors to root out corruption and later creating the anti-corruption and organised crime prosecution service. In 2004 the Balearics got the first regional prosecutor, Juan Carrau, who instigated the case against Hidalgo, by which time he had been joined by the second prosecutor, the more celebrated Pedro Horrach. There are now four prosecutors in all.
As we are all too well aware, new corruption cases still arise with regrettable frequency. The prosecutors have greater powers, but they can't prevent corruption, only investigate it. Nevertheless, maybe these greater powers have had some deterrent effect or at least helped to improve the perception of corruption in Spain. The latest survey of corruption in 175 countries by Transparency International (TI) shows that Spain has improved three places since last year; it is ranked 37.
A director at TI, Alejandro Salas, has suggested that when economic times were good, corruption was hidden. Economic difficulties have brought about greater awareness and willingness to pursue the corrupt and a more open public and political debate about corruption. Hence why, one might suggest, Mariano Rajoy has been talking about the subject, but then Rajoy's pronouncements have tended to be reactive, as was the case with the now infamous "Spain is not corrupted".
Rajoy didn't actually say that "Spain is not corrupt". It was "is not corrupted". The semantic distinction is important, as it implies a corruption of recent times. But this is a view with which Alejandro Salas disagrees. "Corruption is not new in Spain. It is an historical phenomenon." "What strikes me is that corruption in Spain is very structural, very systematic. It is not just one party, not one government, not one province. It is impregnated into different sectors of society." Rajoy might be advised to take note of what Salas says, just as he might like to consider words that were spoken in 1993. "It is not politicians who are corrupt, but it is society that is sick." Who spoke them? Jaume Matas, who, in addition to having twice been Balearics president, was a colleague of Rajoy's in Aznar's national government. Matas was quoting a Spanish philosopher, José Luis Aranguren.
Gabriel Garcias is a professor of law at the university in Palma. He has said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I used this same quote in an article from 2010. The prosecutors have been prosecuting since then, but have they really had a deterrent effect? Maybe, but at the time I was quoting Garcias I was also quoting the Balearics spokesperson for the UPyD party, Juan Luis Calbarro: "The Balearics have the highest number of people who are corrupt or allegedly corrupt per square metre in Spain." Calbarro explained the link between politics and society thus: "businesspeople who are friends of certain politicians, businesspeople who assemble companies in order to receive adjudications decided by their political friends, as well as the wives, husbands, cousins and nephews of politicians".
Since the emergence of the Hidalgo affair in 2006, I have written some 70 articles with corruption as a central theme. The society-politics nexus has been a not uncommon aspect of these articles. Some might aver that politics are divorced from society at large. In terms of general society's distance from the political machinery and from decision-making, this is probably so, but society and politics are most definitely not separated in other ways. They are one and the same when it comes to corruption. Garcias and Calbarro said so in 2010. Salas now says so, and even Matas implied this twenty-one years ago.
The historical phenomenon of corruption to which Alejandro Salas refers can be found over the centuries. For example, the Inquisition was inherently corrupt on account of the need to fund and perpetuate itself, while the sham democracy from the later nineteenth century run by the local political bosses, the "caciques", was so corrupt that no one even sought to hide the fact. "Spain is not corrupted." It's a semantic error.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Losing The Heartland: President Bauzá
If you read the programmes for fiestas, you will always find an entry in the schedule for the "arrival of the authorities (aka the dignitaries)". Normally, this just refers to a mayor and a few of his or her town-hall acolytes. Occasionally, however, it refers to dignitaries of a higher order, such as the president of the Balearics. It all depends on the importance and standing of the fiesta in question.
Two of the most important fiestas in Mallorca - in fact, the two most important - are those of Sant Antoni in Sa Pobla and La Beata in Santa Margalida. At the second of these, staged in early September, the dignitaries have already arrived and have been perched on temporary seating before officially arriving (so to speak) and following the procession of La Beata as she faces temptations by devils and the smashing of terracotta jars.
La Beata is the self-proclaimed "most typical" fiesta in Mallorca and for this reason it attracts the dignitaries that it does; it is a must-be-seen-at event for the grand order of Mallorcan politicians. Sa Pobla's Sant Antoni is similar to La Beata insofar as it is an occasion of island-wide significance, so therefore an occasion for the great and good (sic) to attend, and is staged in a town which lays claim to being the sort of spiritual home to Mallorca's Catalanism. Santa Margalida, a town once removed from Sa Pobla (Muro's between them), might also put a bid in for this title were it not for it having a different claim - its status as a "vila", an old categorisation and one that is unique to Santa Margalida. It may not really mean much nowadays, but the people of Santa Margalida maintain its importance by referring to themselves as "vilers".
Whatever the different claims of the two towns, they share in common the fact that they are both extremely Mallorcan. The same, one could say, applies to any town in Mallorca which isn't Palma or Calvia, but nowhere else has quite the Mallorcan kudos as Sa Pobla or Santa Margalida; they are the repositories of centuries-old ruralism, tradition, culture and language, augmented by heavy doses of the religion thing in the shape of Sant Antoni and Santa Catalina.
The two fiestas have, however, posed something of a conundrum over the past couple of years for politicians-in-attendance: one in particular, i.e. President Bauzá. In both 2012 and 2013, his appearance at La Beata was confirmed only at the last minute. In 2012, he had initially been banned (or not invited at any rate) by former mayor, the battling, veteran hard man of the left, Miguel Cifre. In the end, he was invited, as he was last year. But these were invites without any great enthusiasm.
What had led Cifre to not issue an invite was what happened when Bauzá performed his Cook's Tour of Partido Popular HQs in various towns. In Santa Margalida the town's centre became a virtual no-go area because of security and after the visit there were insinuations (from a PP source) of the townspeople being violent. Cifre was mightily displeased. In Sa Pobla, during the same tour of the party faithful out in the sticks, there were jeers and disturbances when the president appeared.
Perhaps because La Beata is a rather more solemn affair than Sant Antoni, Bauzá has been able to get away with going to Santa Margalida without there being too much of a fuss. In Sa Pobla, however, and despite it having a PP mayor, he has stayed away from Sant Antoni for the past two years. Having been greeted by abuse and booing in 2012, he has headed off to the quiet of Menorca instead.
It might be thought fair enough that he prefers not to be subjected to abuse or to cause a security issue, but his non-appearance at Sant Antoni, taken together with the uncertainties that have surrounded his attendance at La Beata, amount to rather more than anxieties over what sort of a reception he will get. These are fiestas in heartland Mallorca; heartland not just in a geographical sense. If Bauzá cannot attend or if there are question marks over his attendance, then he has lost this heartland, and in the process an empathy with the heart of Mallorca has also been lost.
Mallorca seems like two places. One place is Palma and its suburbs of Calvia and Marratxí (Bauzá's old stomping ground). The other place is the rest. The now broken Bauzá-Delgado axis was representative of this separation; a cosmopolitan Spanishness at variance with and out of step with the insular instincts of the "part forana". It is a division which could be styled as the new versus the old, but this is not so. It is a division in terms of an island's psyche.
Bauzá has faced an enormous challenge because of the economic circumstances which he inherited. He was always bound to therefore come up against opposition, but handling of the islands' economy is really the least of it. Had he stuck to this, then he would not have lost the heartland. But he hasn't. And in instituting policies that he has, he has created a polarity of two Mallorcas pulling in opposite directions.
Two of the most important fiestas in Mallorca - in fact, the two most important - are those of Sant Antoni in Sa Pobla and La Beata in Santa Margalida. At the second of these, staged in early September, the dignitaries have already arrived and have been perched on temporary seating before officially arriving (so to speak) and following the procession of La Beata as she faces temptations by devils and the smashing of terracotta jars.
La Beata is the self-proclaimed "most typical" fiesta in Mallorca and for this reason it attracts the dignitaries that it does; it is a must-be-seen-at event for the grand order of Mallorcan politicians. Sa Pobla's Sant Antoni is similar to La Beata insofar as it is an occasion of island-wide significance, so therefore an occasion for the great and good (sic) to attend, and is staged in a town which lays claim to being the sort of spiritual home to Mallorca's Catalanism. Santa Margalida, a town once removed from Sa Pobla (Muro's between them), might also put a bid in for this title were it not for it having a different claim - its status as a "vila", an old categorisation and one that is unique to Santa Margalida. It may not really mean much nowadays, but the people of Santa Margalida maintain its importance by referring to themselves as "vilers".
Whatever the different claims of the two towns, they share in common the fact that they are both extremely Mallorcan. The same, one could say, applies to any town in Mallorca which isn't Palma or Calvia, but nowhere else has quite the Mallorcan kudos as Sa Pobla or Santa Margalida; they are the repositories of centuries-old ruralism, tradition, culture and language, augmented by heavy doses of the religion thing in the shape of Sant Antoni and Santa Catalina.
The two fiestas have, however, posed something of a conundrum over the past couple of years for politicians-in-attendance: one in particular, i.e. President Bauzá. In both 2012 and 2013, his appearance at La Beata was confirmed only at the last minute. In 2012, he had initially been banned (or not invited at any rate) by former mayor, the battling, veteran hard man of the left, Miguel Cifre. In the end, he was invited, as he was last year. But these were invites without any great enthusiasm.
What had led Cifre to not issue an invite was what happened when Bauzá performed his Cook's Tour of Partido Popular HQs in various towns. In Santa Margalida the town's centre became a virtual no-go area because of security and after the visit there were insinuations (from a PP source) of the townspeople being violent. Cifre was mightily displeased. In Sa Pobla, during the same tour of the party faithful out in the sticks, there were jeers and disturbances when the president appeared.
Perhaps because La Beata is a rather more solemn affair than Sant Antoni, Bauzá has been able to get away with going to Santa Margalida without there being too much of a fuss. In Sa Pobla, however, and despite it having a PP mayor, he has stayed away from Sant Antoni for the past two years. Having been greeted by abuse and booing in 2012, he has headed off to the quiet of Menorca instead.
It might be thought fair enough that he prefers not to be subjected to abuse or to cause a security issue, but his non-appearance at Sant Antoni, taken together with the uncertainties that have surrounded his attendance at La Beata, amount to rather more than anxieties over what sort of a reception he will get. These are fiestas in heartland Mallorca; heartland not just in a geographical sense. If Bauzá cannot attend or if there are question marks over his attendance, then he has lost this heartland, and in the process an empathy with the heart of Mallorca has also been lost.
Mallorca seems like two places. One place is Palma and its suburbs of Calvia and Marratxí (Bauzá's old stomping ground). The other place is the rest. The now broken Bauzá-Delgado axis was representative of this separation; a cosmopolitan Spanishness at variance with and out of step with the insular instincts of the "part forana". It is a division which could be styled as the new versus the old, but this is not so. It is a division in terms of an island's psyche.
Bauzá has faced an enormous challenge because of the economic circumstances which he inherited. He was always bound to therefore come up against opposition, but handling of the islands' economy is really the least of it. Had he stuck to this, then he would not have lost the heartland. But he hasn't. And in instituting policies that he has, he has created a polarity of two Mallorcas pulling in opposite directions.
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Just The Way We Are: Balearics identity
I have previously reported on the Gadeso surveys of what the people of the Balearics identify with - the islands, an island or Spain. Previously though, the results might have provoked a resounding so-what. The latest survey is rather more significant. It has been undertaken against a political background which raises issues regarding this identity far more keenly than in the past. This background, that of regional government's apparent indifference to regionalism (and so the political identity of the Balearics) and antagonism towards Catalonia and to Catalan, might well have been expected to have produced results which reflect a backlash against government policies and attitudes. And to some extent, they have.
While the percentage of people (900 interviews were conducted) who feel Spanish and Balearic in equal measure remains unaltered, there has been a rise in the number who say they feel more Balearic than Spanish and a fall in the number who say they feel more Spanish than Balearic; the former group beats the latter by eight percentage points.
The interpretation placed on this shift is precisely for reasons I have outlined above. Government attitudes towards Balearic regionalism have not won the government a great deal of support; the opposite is the case.
But what can one really say about a Balearic identity? The fact is that when asked whether they identify with their island or with the Balearics, a majority (well over a half) in each of the four islands says that it identifies more with the island (62% plays 37% in the case of Mallorca; the identification with Menorca and Formentera is quite a bit stronger). So, how does one interpret these results? One way is by suggesting that an island identity is inevitably going to be stronger than a broader and more nebulous one. But one could argue that they point once more to an essential paradox which exists within Mallorcan/Balearic society. It is for the region in a political sense but it is for the island in a non-political sense; the narrower the scope for identity in terms of an abstract sense of belonging, the stronger that identity will be.
This paradox carries over into language. President Bauzá may have it wrong where regional sentiments are concerned but he isn't wrong when it comes to dialects. The great paradox is the support for Catalan at a political level, as evidenced by the teachers' strike and opposition to the elimination of Catalan as a requirement for public-sector employment, but also the support for the Catalan dialects at a street level; the dialects with which the people of the islands identify with far more than they identify with Catalan or want to identify themselves with Catalonia.
Bauzá, and I've made the point before, appears to be indifferent towards regionalism because he is wedded to an ideology that places Spanish nationalism before regionalism, and this nationalism is the product of the rejection of separatism and especially Catalonian ambitions. He has, therefore, adopted policies which have lost him support for reasons that are essentially unwarranted. Over half the people of the islands are solidly middle of the road, both Spanish and Balearic, while an identity with the notion of the "Catalan Lands" is all but non-existent. It is this identity which Bauzá appears to fear, but it is a fear based on nothing. What percentage of people identify with the Catalan Lands more than the Balearics or their own island? One per cent in Mallorca, one per cent in Menorca and zero per cent in Ibiza and Formentera. And of those who do identify with the Catalan Lands, their profile is as it might be expected. They vote for the left-wing/green parties and they are young. People who vote for the mainstream Partido Popular and PSOE have no interest in the Catalan Lands; the overwhelming majority therefore.
Of other findings in the survey, there isn't much support for a move towards a federal arrangement for the regions of Spain; a mere 8% back such a system. Only 1% wants independence, which confirms the lack of radicalism that exists in the Balearics. The people may not like Bauzá's anti-regionalism but they have no interest in pursuing a line similar to the Catalonians.
Then there is what people think about how government is organised. This shows the greatest divergence of opinion between Mallorca and the other islands. 8% of Mallorcans would like the island councils to have greater responsibilities. 54% of Menorcans would like to see this. 10% of Mallorcans, admittedly not many, would like to see the island councils done away with. Only 1% of Menorcans would.
All in all, a survey which proves that the people of the Balearics are not radical and mostly like things the way they are. There's a message for Bauzá, assuming he takes any notice.
While the percentage of people (900 interviews were conducted) who feel Spanish and Balearic in equal measure remains unaltered, there has been a rise in the number who say they feel more Balearic than Spanish and a fall in the number who say they feel more Spanish than Balearic; the former group beats the latter by eight percentage points.
The interpretation placed on this shift is precisely for reasons I have outlined above. Government attitudes towards Balearic regionalism have not won the government a great deal of support; the opposite is the case.
But what can one really say about a Balearic identity? The fact is that when asked whether they identify with their island or with the Balearics, a majority (well over a half) in each of the four islands says that it identifies more with the island (62% plays 37% in the case of Mallorca; the identification with Menorca and Formentera is quite a bit stronger). So, how does one interpret these results? One way is by suggesting that an island identity is inevitably going to be stronger than a broader and more nebulous one. But one could argue that they point once more to an essential paradox which exists within Mallorcan/Balearic society. It is for the region in a political sense but it is for the island in a non-political sense; the narrower the scope for identity in terms of an abstract sense of belonging, the stronger that identity will be.
This paradox carries over into language. President Bauzá may have it wrong where regional sentiments are concerned but he isn't wrong when it comes to dialects. The great paradox is the support for Catalan at a political level, as evidenced by the teachers' strike and opposition to the elimination of Catalan as a requirement for public-sector employment, but also the support for the Catalan dialects at a street level; the dialects with which the people of the islands identify with far more than they identify with Catalan or want to identify themselves with Catalonia.
Bauzá, and I've made the point before, appears to be indifferent towards regionalism because he is wedded to an ideology that places Spanish nationalism before regionalism, and this nationalism is the product of the rejection of separatism and especially Catalonian ambitions. He has, therefore, adopted policies which have lost him support for reasons that are essentially unwarranted. Over half the people of the islands are solidly middle of the road, both Spanish and Balearic, while an identity with the notion of the "Catalan Lands" is all but non-existent. It is this identity which Bauzá appears to fear, but it is a fear based on nothing. What percentage of people identify with the Catalan Lands more than the Balearics or their own island? One per cent in Mallorca, one per cent in Menorca and zero per cent in Ibiza and Formentera. And of those who do identify with the Catalan Lands, their profile is as it might be expected. They vote for the left-wing/green parties and they are young. People who vote for the mainstream Partido Popular and PSOE have no interest in the Catalan Lands; the overwhelming majority therefore.
Of other findings in the survey, there isn't much support for a move towards a federal arrangement for the regions of Spain; a mere 8% back such a system. Only 1% wants independence, which confirms the lack of radicalism that exists in the Balearics. The people may not like Bauzá's anti-regionalism but they have no interest in pursuing a line similar to the Catalonians.
Then there is what people think about how government is organised. This shows the greatest divergence of opinion between Mallorca and the other islands. 8% of Mallorcans would like the island councils to have greater responsibilities. 54% of Menorcans would like to see this. 10% of Mallorcans, admittedly not many, would like to see the island councils done away with. Only 1% of Menorcans would.
All in all, a survey which proves that the people of the Balearics are not radical and mostly like things the way they are. There's a message for Bauzá, assuming he takes any notice.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Communicative: The new bishop of Mallorca
Xavier Salinas is the new Bishop of Mallorca. His appointment will be one that will be of little or no consequence to the overwhelming majority of expatriates on the island, but his is an appointment that is not without importance.
Salinas replaces Jesús Murgui, a bishop who lacked communicative skills to the extent that he never gave a single interview during the eight years of his tenure. He was excused on the grounds of shyness, but communication, be it with churchgoers or the media, comes with the territory. Or it should do. As a consequence of his reticence, Monseñor Murgui was unpopular with the media, and as a further consequence, the media was only too happy to portray him as having been unpopular with his own priests. He was also portrayed, with perhaps greater justification, as one couldn't be entirely sure what his priests really thought of him, as having been firmly on the conservative and reactionary wing of the Catholic Church.
Monseñor Salinas is a breath of fresh air. He is communicative. He has already given interviews and has said that it is important for there to be a dialogue with society. He has spoken about the difficulties that confront society at the present time and, though he has said that it is not his or the Church's intention to be involved in politics, he has given a clear enough signal that he supports Catalan; it is his native tongue, in that he is from Valencia and so speaks the Valencian brand of Catalan.
While Salinas may suggest that the Church doesn't wish to involve itself in politics, the fact is that the Church does just that. Bishop Murgui, without naming names, did so prior to the last national election with his letter regarding the danger of voting for politicians who supported gay marriage, which could easily have been interpreted as having given the thumbs-up to the Partido Popular. Which is of course exactly how it was interpreted.
Declining church attendance has not necessarily been an indication that society is losing its religion, but it can be seen as a turning away from the institution of the Church. Whenever I have spoken to Mallorcans or Spaniards about the Church, the reaction has often been the same. It is one either of contempt or of a shrug of resignation. The Church is lumped in with politicians in being viewed with suspicion or a lack of trust.
There is a difference between having the faith and having faith in the institution which dispenses it, and the fall in attendance in recent times may well be the result of society finally accepting that it doesn't have to be seen to be attending something to which there has been ambivalence for far longer. It may also be the result of the Church being out of step with changes in society's attitudes. While senior figures in the Church might hope for a return to more reactionary attitudes, their wish is unlikely to be granted. The politicians are nibbling at the edges of these attitudes, as with backtracking on advances made under Zapatero with regard to abortion for instance, but the Partido Popular is in danger of being cast in the same light as the Church - out of step.
Rather like the PP is, perhaps deliberately, focusing on issues that might be better left alone, so the Church's hierarchy would be advised to do likewise. It has a role, a very positive role to play during the times of crisis, a role no better demonstrated than through the sterling efforts of its Caritas charitable arm - so badly needed in a country that cannot and shows little desire to look after its people adequately - and its pastoral function is one that it should concentrate on. Instead, it has found itself embroiled in political matters and in controversies over its finances, one of the more spectacular being its stubborn refusal to pay property tax, an arguably scandalous betrayal of society when society is being hit so hard by all sorts of taxes.
Against this background, the more sympathetic figure of Monseñor Salinas is to be welcomed. If he proves to be, as he has already hinted that he will be, a far more accessible voice in local society, and one of sensitivity to the various difficulties Mallorca faces, then he is likely to turn out to be a popular appointment. But popular or not, just how relevant he is to the majority of Mallorcans, let alone foreigners, is another matter.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Salinas replaces Jesús Murgui, a bishop who lacked communicative skills to the extent that he never gave a single interview during the eight years of his tenure. He was excused on the grounds of shyness, but communication, be it with churchgoers or the media, comes with the territory. Or it should do. As a consequence of his reticence, Monseñor Murgui was unpopular with the media, and as a further consequence, the media was only too happy to portray him as having been unpopular with his own priests. He was also portrayed, with perhaps greater justification, as one couldn't be entirely sure what his priests really thought of him, as having been firmly on the conservative and reactionary wing of the Catholic Church.
Monseñor Salinas is a breath of fresh air. He is communicative. He has already given interviews and has said that it is important for there to be a dialogue with society. He has spoken about the difficulties that confront society at the present time and, though he has said that it is not his or the Church's intention to be involved in politics, he has given a clear enough signal that he supports Catalan; it is his native tongue, in that he is from Valencia and so speaks the Valencian brand of Catalan.
While Salinas may suggest that the Church doesn't wish to involve itself in politics, the fact is that the Church does just that. Bishop Murgui, without naming names, did so prior to the last national election with his letter regarding the danger of voting for politicians who supported gay marriage, which could easily have been interpreted as having given the thumbs-up to the Partido Popular. Which is of course exactly how it was interpreted.
Declining church attendance has not necessarily been an indication that society is losing its religion, but it can be seen as a turning away from the institution of the Church. Whenever I have spoken to Mallorcans or Spaniards about the Church, the reaction has often been the same. It is one either of contempt or of a shrug of resignation. The Church is lumped in with politicians in being viewed with suspicion or a lack of trust.
There is a difference between having the faith and having faith in the institution which dispenses it, and the fall in attendance in recent times may well be the result of society finally accepting that it doesn't have to be seen to be attending something to which there has been ambivalence for far longer. It may also be the result of the Church being out of step with changes in society's attitudes. While senior figures in the Church might hope for a return to more reactionary attitudes, their wish is unlikely to be granted. The politicians are nibbling at the edges of these attitudes, as with backtracking on advances made under Zapatero with regard to abortion for instance, but the Partido Popular is in danger of being cast in the same light as the Church - out of step.
Rather like the PP is, perhaps deliberately, focusing on issues that might be better left alone, so the Church's hierarchy would be advised to do likewise. It has a role, a very positive role to play during the times of crisis, a role no better demonstrated than through the sterling efforts of its Caritas charitable arm - so badly needed in a country that cannot and shows little desire to look after its people adequately - and its pastoral function is one that it should concentrate on. Instead, it has found itself embroiled in political matters and in controversies over its finances, one of the more spectacular being its stubborn refusal to pay property tax, an arguably scandalous betrayal of society when society is being hit so hard by all sorts of taxes.
Against this background, the more sympathetic figure of Monseñor Salinas is to be welcomed. If he proves to be, as he has already hinted that he will be, a far more accessible voice in local society, and one of sensitivity to the various difficulties Mallorca faces, then he is likely to turn out to be a popular appointment. But popular or not, just how relevant he is to the majority of Mallorcans, let alone foreigners, is another matter.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Los Kinks: Mallorca and sixties pop
Francesc Vicens can't be accused of not being eclectic in his musical interests. Two years ago, the views of this Mallorcan musicologist were being widely sought when the Sibil·la chant was placed on UNESCO's list of practices which add to the "intangible cultural heritage of humanity". He has now produced a book on a subject far removed from the folk and religious heritage of the Sibil·la. Entitled "Paradise of Love", it deals with pop music and culture in the Mallorca of the sixties.
The book's subtitle is "L'Illa imaginada". From this, I take it that the book is in Catalan. It sounds as if consideration should be given to publishing it in English as well. Sixties pop groups from Mallorca would be unfamiliar to almost anyone who wasn't Mallorcan, but the groups themselves are only as important as the cultural context of the growth of tourism, the influence of pop culture from the UK and the US and the social climate of Mallorca under Franco. As such, it appears to be as much a social history as it is a musical one. Its story deserves to be told more widely.
Spanish pop music in the sixties, as far as a British audience was concerned, was of little consequence. There may have been others but the only hit song that comes to mind is Los Bravos' "Black Is Black". Los Bravos weren't completely Spanish in that the singer, Michael Kogel, was German, but Los Bravos had a connection with Mallorca. It was at the Jaima nightclub in Cala Mayor that Kogel met members of a group called Los Sonor from Madrid. They joined forces and eventually changed their name to Los Bravos.
Otherwise, Spanish popular music meant that from Latin America and the US. "Guantanamera" was a hit in 1966 for the American group The Sandpipers whose version retained some Spanish lyrics from a song that was originally Cuban; the song's title means, by the way, woman from Guantánamo, a place that has since acquired an altogether different reputation. There was Herb Alpert, who was American, and his "Spanish Flea" and very little else.
Mallorcan pop groups of the time that Vicens has chronicled will mean very little, but the names of the groups of that era certainly reflected the era: Los Bohemios; Los Millionarios, who apparently had a big hit with "Jardín de Rosas", a cover of Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden"; Los Geminis who did their own take on Tommy James & The Shondells' "Mony, Mony"; Los Telstars who were part of Beatlemania in a Mallorcan style, though they dared to venture into Troggs territory by recording "A Girl Like You". There was also a duo, Juan and Junior; Juan was from Palma and Junior was from The Philippines and they were about as big as it got in Mallorca in those days. They were for a time part of Los Brincos who recorded a song called "El Pasaporte" which was apparently critical of Franco.
I've listened to a not terribly good quality recording of "El Pasaporte" (its English version) and it wasn't bad, though it's difficult to make the lyrics out, and I have to thank, as I also do for names of artists listed above, a remarkable resource at http://66spanishgarage.blogspot.com.es for making it available. I urge you to visit this website as it is full of absolute gems.
Being critical of Franco wasn't the best career move a pop group or anyone could make in the 1960s, but the fact that there may have been some criticism, albeit almost subliminal, does indicate the way in which the sixties brought about social change in Mallorca, and especially in Mallorca and the Costas because of tourism. Allied to nudges from the US for more liberalism in return for all the aid that was coming Franco's way, tourism plus pop culture began to erode Francoism. Yet, as Vicens appears to point out in his book, protest wasn't a facet of this new pop culture. It may not have been openly expressed in the music, but it surely played its part in altering society, given that protest had moved into the pop mainstream and away from its folk roots of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and others.
Occasionally, you stumble across an item in the local press that pulls you up and makes you think: "now that's really interesting". So it was with the piece about Vicens' book in "Ultima Hora", replete with a poster for The Kinks (and not Los Kinks) at Palma's bullring on 17 July 1966. The combination of the sixties (with all the baggage the sixties imply), tourism, a society in change, music and pop culture is a heady and vibrant mix. I do hope a way is found to publish this book in English.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The book's subtitle is "L'Illa imaginada". From this, I take it that the book is in Catalan. It sounds as if consideration should be given to publishing it in English as well. Sixties pop groups from Mallorca would be unfamiliar to almost anyone who wasn't Mallorcan, but the groups themselves are only as important as the cultural context of the growth of tourism, the influence of pop culture from the UK and the US and the social climate of Mallorca under Franco. As such, it appears to be as much a social history as it is a musical one. Its story deserves to be told more widely.
Spanish pop music in the sixties, as far as a British audience was concerned, was of little consequence. There may have been others but the only hit song that comes to mind is Los Bravos' "Black Is Black". Los Bravos weren't completely Spanish in that the singer, Michael Kogel, was German, but Los Bravos had a connection with Mallorca. It was at the Jaima nightclub in Cala Mayor that Kogel met members of a group called Los Sonor from Madrid. They joined forces and eventually changed their name to Los Bravos.
Otherwise, Spanish popular music meant that from Latin America and the US. "Guantanamera" was a hit in 1966 for the American group The Sandpipers whose version retained some Spanish lyrics from a song that was originally Cuban; the song's title means, by the way, woman from Guantánamo, a place that has since acquired an altogether different reputation. There was Herb Alpert, who was American, and his "Spanish Flea" and very little else.
Mallorcan pop groups of the time that Vicens has chronicled will mean very little, but the names of the groups of that era certainly reflected the era: Los Bohemios; Los Millionarios, who apparently had a big hit with "Jardín de Rosas", a cover of Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden"; Los Geminis who did their own take on Tommy James & The Shondells' "Mony, Mony"; Los Telstars who were part of Beatlemania in a Mallorcan style, though they dared to venture into Troggs territory by recording "A Girl Like You". There was also a duo, Juan and Junior; Juan was from Palma and Junior was from The Philippines and they were about as big as it got in Mallorca in those days. They were for a time part of Los Brincos who recorded a song called "El Pasaporte" which was apparently critical of Franco.
I've listened to a not terribly good quality recording of "El Pasaporte" (its English version) and it wasn't bad, though it's difficult to make the lyrics out, and I have to thank, as I also do for names of artists listed above, a remarkable resource at http://66spanishgarage.blogspot.com.es for making it available. I urge you to visit this website as it is full of absolute gems.
Being critical of Franco wasn't the best career move a pop group or anyone could make in the 1960s, but the fact that there may have been some criticism, albeit almost subliminal, does indicate the way in which the sixties brought about social change in Mallorca, and especially in Mallorca and the Costas because of tourism. Allied to nudges from the US for more liberalism in return for all the aid that was coming Franco's way, tourism plus pop culture began to erode Francoism. Yet, as Vicens appears to point out in his book, protest wasn't a facet of this new pop culture. It may not have been openly expressed in the music, but it surely played its part in altering society, given that protest had moved into the pop mainstream and away from its folk roots of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and others.
Occasionally, you stumble across an item in the local press that pulls you up and makes you think: "now that's really interesting". So it was with the piece about Vicens' book in "Ultima Hora", replete with a poster for The Kinks (and not Los Kinks) at Palma's bullring on 17 July 1966. The combination of the sixties (with all the baggage the sixties imply), tourism, a society in change, music and pop culture is a heady and vibrant mix. I do hope a way is found to publish this book in English.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Does The Centre Hold?: Class in the Balearics
The classless society. Remember that? It was John Major's big thing. The classless society was idealistic nonsense, but it reflected what has often been thought to be a British obsession with class.
Why is this meant to be such a British obsession? Because class doesn't exist elsewhere? Well, one place it does exist is the Balearics, though for the purposes of discovering where political sympathies lie, social-class categories aren't defined according to high, medium or low birth. Rather, they are grouped mainly according to employment status, though this will often amount to the same thing as privilege by birth.
The Balearics upper-class is inhabited by those from large businesses with property and capital and who hold senior managerial positions. The lower-class comprises the long-term unemployed, uneducated young people and immigrants without social networks. Between these two polarities are the lower-middle, middle and upper-middle classes. It all sounds pretty familiar.
This social classification comes in handy when researchers wish to go a-researching. And no more so than when the research has to do with politics. The Mallorcan research organisation Gadeso has been doing just this, and what has it discovered?
Would you be surprised to know that among the upper-class 71.4% are centre-right and a mere 1.4% is either left or centre-left? Equally, would you be amazed to learn that of the lower-class a further 1.4% describes itself as right-wing and 4% as left-wing?
I don't know about you, but I am amazed. A lower-class that is defined, by implication and in part, as socially excluded and poor would, you would think, be up for higher levels of extremism. It is perhaps difficult to know where centre becomes centre-left and centre-left becomes left, but the lower-class is pretty much solidly centre to centre-left; sympathetic to the PSOE socialist party, the PSM Mallorcan socialists and others, but not out on the loony fringe.
The lunatics are instead to be found among the upper class and more or less them alone. A lower percentage of the upper-middle class is on the far right (5.7%) than the 9.5% of the upper class and a much lower percentage is centre-right (a mere 30.8%).
The centre dominates, to the extent that 43.1% of the Balearics population considers itself to be of the centre. But isn't there a discrepancy here? How come the Partido Popular are in power?
One thing the PP isn't is of the centre. Despite constant references otherwise, it isn't really centre-right. There are certainly those who would argue that it is the most right-wing party in Europe, though it would be given a good run for its money by the weirdos knocking around a few former Soviet-bloc countries.
The inference, where the most recent elections were concerned, is that the real centre was abandoned. Though it might occasionally come up with its own nutty ideas, PSOE is pretty much that centre. It most certainly isn't the party of its socialist revolutionary origins in the nineteenth century.
Gadeso's findings are significant, though they do, as always with surveys, come with the caveat that surveys aren't necessarily completely accurate. What they suggest is that the PP, far from being the natural party of Balearics government (which history since autonomy in 1983 suggests), is not, and that were PSOE to sharpen up its act, and its organisation is lamentable by comparison with the PP, it could well return to government next time round. Lack of progress on the economy by the PP might lead to this in any event, but the general sympathies of the population indicate an underlying support, were the conditions to be appropriate.
The rejection of more extremist stances among the lower class, be they left or right, is also significant. This suggests that there is no groundswell of fanaticism in the Balearics that might lead to the sort of social disaffection and agitation that rotten economic circumstances can give rise to.
The most significant finding, and the most disturbing, is the one of the rightist sympathies of the upper class, that which holds power through large organisations. To what extent these sympathies coincide with more extremist elements one can only guess at. But one can guess how they might manifest themselves, and not just in terms of handling the economy or industrial relations. Social and religious issues are bound up in this rightism. And if it is the case that extremism on these counts are promulgated by a powerful upper-class, then what otherwise appears to be a moderate, centrist Balearics could cease to be so.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Why is this meant to be such a British obsession? Because class doesn't exist elsewhere? Well, one place it does exist is the Balearics, though for the purposes of discovering where political sympathies lie, social-class categories aren't defined according to high, medium or low birth. Rather, they are grouped mainly according to employment status, though this will often amount to the same thing as privilege by birth.
The Balearics upper-class is inhabited by those from large businesses with property and capital and who hold senior managerial positions. The lower-class comprises the long-term unemployed, uneducated young people and immigrants without social networks. Between these two polarities are the lower-middle, middle and upper-middle classes. It all sounds pretty familiar.
This social classification comes in handy when researchers wish to go a-researching. And no more so than when the research has to do with politics. The Mallorcan research organisation Gadeso has been doing just this, and what has it discovered?
Would you be surprised to know that among the upper-class 71.4% are centre-right and a mere 1.4% is either left or centre-left? Equally, would you be amazed to learn that of the lower-class a further 1.4% describes itself as right-wing and 4% as left-wing?
I don't know about you, but I am amazed. A lower-class that is defined, by implication and in part, as socially excluded and poor would, you would think, be up for higher levels of extremism. It is perhaps difficult to know where centre becomes centre-left and centre-left becomes left, but the lower-class is pretty much solidly centre to centre-left; sympathetic to the PSOE socialist party, the PSM Mallorcan socialists and others, but not out on the loony fringe.
The lunatics are instead to be found among the upper class and more or less them alone. A lower percentage of the upper-middle class is on the far right (5.7%) than the 9.5% of the upper class and a much lower percentage is centre-right (a mere 30.8%).
The centre dominates, to the extent that 43.1% of the Balearics population considers itself to be of the centre. But isn't there a discrepancy here? How come the Partido Popular are in power?
One thing the PP isn't is of the centre. Despite constant references otherwise, it isn't really centre-right. There are certainly those who would argue that it is the most right-wing party in Europe, though it would be given a good run for its money by the weirdos knocking around a few former Soviet-bloc countries.
The inference, where the most recent elections were concerned, is that the real centre was abandoned. Though it might occasionally come up with its own nutty ideas, PSOE is pretty much that centre. It most certainly isn't the party of its socialist revolutionary origins in the nineteenth century.
Gadeso's findings are significant, though they do, as always with surveys, come with the caveat that surveys aren't necessarily completely accurate. What they suggest is that the PP, far from being the natural party of Balearics government (which history since autonomy in 1983 suggests), is not, and that were PSOE to sharpen up its act, and its organisation is lamentable by comparison with the PP, it could well return to government next time round. Lack of progress on the economy by the PP might lead to this in any event, but the general sympathies of the population indicate an underlying support, were the conditions to be appropriate.
The rejection of more extremist stances among the lower class, be they left or right, is also significant. This suggests that there is no groundswell of fanaticism in the Balearics that might lead to the sort of social disaffection and agitation that rotten economic circumstances can give rise to.
The most significant finding, and the most disturbing, is the one of the rightist sympathies of the upper class, that which holds power through large organisations. To what extent these sympathies coincide with more extremist elements one can only guess at. But one can guess how they might manifest themselves, and not just in terms of handling the economy or industrial relations. Social and religious issues are bound up in this rightism. And if it is the case that extremism on these counts are promulgated by a powerful upper-class, then what otherwise appears to be a moderate, centrist Balearics could cease to be so.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Tradition Industry
There was this flyer in the letter-box. "Traditional Mallorcan cuisine." The words were in Spanish. You might think that advertising traditional Mallorcan cuisine should demand that the blurb is in Catalan and not in Spanish, but maybe the restaurant is owned by a staunch supporter of the Partido Popular. Anyway, let's not go there again.
The flyer was less a promotion for the restaurant and more one for a take-away service. "We will cook for you and bring our specialities to your home." Which is sort of what you expect with a take-away service, but perhaps these things have to be spelt out, as traditional Mallorcan cuisine being ferried around in cardboard containers covered with aluminium on the back of a scooter (or however it is transported) doesn't sound all that traditional. Contemporary meets the traditional, and it comes on a Honda 125.
Take-away is really pizzas, beef chow mein and tikka masala. Pork wrapped in cabbage? It doesn't quite have the take-away ring about it. Traditional cuisine demands traditional modes of eating, as in sitting down in a restaurant. But there again, what is traditional?
This is a question I have been grappling with. Traditional - Mallorcan traditional - is referred to that often that is hard to know what is a tradition and what isn't. The word is interchangeable with "typical". Restaurants do typical/traditional cuisine, troupes perform typical/traditional dance and music, fiestas are typical/traditional. In the case of La Beata in Santa Margalida, this is the most typical of the lot - or so they always say. Girly saint rebuffs the attentions and temptations of the devil, good conquers evil and a whole tradition spawns demons with fire crackers, beasty masks and virgins of the parish parading in white.
The irony of tradition in a Mallorcan style is that it has created something that is distinctly of today - the tradition industry. There is marketing gold to be alchemised from a dry-stone wall, silver to be sold from the singing of a Sibil·la, bronze from coins clattering in the tills of the most ancient of the island's traditions, the Talayotic.
The blurring of the lines between modernity and antiquity invites a question as to the degree to which tradition is forced and with the express purpose of creating a marketing benefit from the historical. The very promotion of tradition, with its narrative captured in the word itself and in the words typical or authentic, is sloganising. The words themselves are marketing tools, directed at both the native and the visiting markets.
The constant reinforcement of tradition for domestic consumption reflects a society still uneasy with modernity. Traditional Mallorcan society, by which one means that before the tourism industrial revolution of the sixties and one that was far more wedded to the land than it is now, still resides in the collective memory. This is unlike Britain, for example, where there is a general lack of tradition and an accommodation with its absence that doesn't require an industry with its marketing plans to force it onto the populace or the tourist.
Of course, there are organisations such as English Heritage which maintain a connection with the past, but the promotion of English and British tradition and culture doesn't have a sense of desperation; that of demanding that the past is held onto.
A key difference, though, between what occurs in long-industrialised countries and an island such as Mallorca where traditional society can be actively remembered lies in the capacity for a tradition industry to flourish. It could never have happened in Britain, for instance, because the wherewithal for such an industry simply didn't exist. And by the time the wherewithal was discovered, it was far too late. Contemporary Mallorca, on the other hand, has that wherewithal, because the invention and development of marketing, and hence the tradition industry, pretty much coincided with the island's industrial revolution.
Mallorca's traditions aren't invented, thanks to the temporal proximity to when traditional society started its decline, but they are an invention of the marketer who flogs them to a tourist market which has forgotten its own traditions.
Tradition is good. That's the message, even if what is described as traditional isn't necessarily exceptional. So it is with much traditional Mallorcan cuisine. Yea, it's ok, but then so are fish and chips. They're traditional, but they don't come with a label attached that demands that they are considered thus. And the constant labelling is the constant reinforcement of a marketing message.
The flyer in the letter-box was selling. But it was also selling, in its curiously contemporary take-away way, that is on behalf of one of Mallorca's strongest industries, its tradition industry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The flyer was less a promotion for the restaurant and more one for a take-away service. "We will cook for you and bring our specialities to your home." Which is sort of what you expect with a take-away service, but perhaps these things have to be spelt out, as traditional Mallorcan cuisine being ferried around in cardboard containers covered with aluminium on the back of a scooter (or however it is transported) doesn't sound all that traditional. Contemporary meets the traditional, and it comes on a Honda 125.
Take-away is really pizzas, beef chow mein and tikka masala. Pork wrapped in cabbage? It doesn't quite have the take-away ring about it. Traditional cuisine demands traditional modes of eating, as in sitting down in a restaurant. But there again, what is traditional?
This is a question I have been grappling with. Traditional - Mallorcan traditional - is referred to that often that is hard to know what is a tradition and what isn't. The word is interchangeable with "typical". Restaurants do typical/traditional cuisine, troupes perform typical/traditional dance and music, fiestas are typical/traditional. In the case of La Beata in Santa Margalida, this is the most typical of the lot - or so they always say. Girly saint rebuffs the attentions and temptations of the devil, good conquers evil and a whole tradition spawns demons with fire crackers, beasty masks and virgins of the parish parading in white.
The irony of tradition in a Mallorcan style is that it has created something that is distinctly of today - the tradition industry. There is marketing gold to be alchemised from a dry-stone wall, silver to be sold from the singing of a Sibil·la, bronze from coins clattering in the tills of the most ancient of the island's traditions, the Talayotic.
The blurring of the lines between modernity and antiquity invites a question as to the degree to which tradition is forced and with the express purpose of creating a marketing benefit from the historical. The very promotion of tradition, with its narrative captured in the word itself and in the words typical or authentic, is sloganising. The words themselves are marketing tools, directed at both the native and the visiting markets.
The constant reinforcement of tradition for domestic consumption reflects a society still uneasy with modernity. Traditional Mallorcan society, by which one means that before the tourism industrial revolution of the sixties and one that was far more wedded to the land than it is now, still resides in the collective memory. This is unlike Britain, for example, where there is a general lack of tradition and an accommodation with its absence that doesn't require an industry with its marketing plans to force it onto the populace or the tourist.
Of course, there are organisations such as English Heritage which maintain a connection with the past, but the promotion of English and British tradition and culture doesn't have a sense of desperation; that of demanding that the past is held onto.
A key difference, though, between what occurs in long-industrialised countries and an island such as Mallorca where traditional society can be actively remembered lies in the capacity for a tradition industry to flourish. It could never have happened in Britain, for instance, because the wherewithal for such an industry simply didn't exist. And by the time the wherewithal was discovered, it was far too late. Contemporary Mallorca, on the other hand, has that wherewithal, because the invention and development of marketing, and hence the tradition industry, pretty much coincided with the island's industrial revolution.
Mallorca's traditions aren't invented, thanks to the temporal proximity to when traditional society started its decline, but they are an invention of the marketer who flogs them to a tourist market which has forgotten its own traditions.
Tradition is good. That's the message, even if what is described as traditional isn't necessarily exceptional. So it is with much traditional Mallorcan cuisine. Yea, it's ok, but then so are fish and chips. They're traditional, but they don't come with a label attached that demands that they are considered thus. And the constant labelling is the constant reinforcement of a marketing message.
The flyer in the letter-box was selling. But it was also selling, in its curiously contemporary take-away way, that is on behalf of one of Mallorca's strongest industries, its tradition industry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The Year Of Living Corruptly
This has been the year of the corrupt. Topped and tailed by cases that at the start of the year ensnared prominent members of one political party (the Unió Mallorquina) and at its end with the "Caso Puertos", 2010 has been one long and sorry tale of the enduring rotten state of Mallorcan public life.
So what's new, you might ask. The new year same as the old year. In her Christmas message in 2009, the president of the Council of Mallorca, Francina Armengol, had called for commitment to "ethical civic behaviour", referring to the "repeated occurrence of corruption". In this year's message, while praising the efforts of those pursuing the corrupt, she said that there needed to be a change of direction in politics to one of transparency that is far removed from corruption.
If Sra. Armengol is still in office this time next year, she will probably be revisiting her theme. If not her, then her successor. Despite the diligent probes by prosecutors, judges and police, the cases of corruption and allegations of corruption keep coming to the surface with the regularity with which malodour filters out of a sewer cover.
Even where public figures are beyond reproach, so prevalent, so almost institutionalised has corruption been that you cannot be certain as to what you're seeing. Mallorcan politics is like the doping cheats in athletics or cycling or Pakistani bowlers deliberately overstepping the crease. You just can't be sure.
The level of corruption in Mallorca is, in one respect, surprising. The degree of decentralisation in local government conforms with the principle of subsidiarity whereby organisation is passed down to ever smaller authorities. In theory, subsidiarity should be an obstacle to corruption because its manifestation is easier to detect rather than in monolithic centralised organisations. Perhaps this subsidarity could now be said to be working in that more and more cases are coming to light. But it doesn't stop it happening in the first place.
Less surprising as a cause of corruption is the sheer size of the local public sector and the plethora of authorities which are both directly governmental (town halls, Council of Mallorca, regional government) and quasi-governmental, such as the ports authority, the subject of the "Caso Puertos". The larger the public sector, the more fertile the terrain in which corruption can take root.
Yet this doesn't always follow. Scandinavian countries, for example, have large public sectors but a virtual absence of corruption. Mallorca's corruption stems in part from its system of government but more importantly from a societal ethic that transmits itself into government - it is one of tribalism and nepotism.
The newspaper "El Mundo" recently carried an article in which it quoted the views of Juan Luis Calbarro, the spokesperson in the Balearics for the Unión Progreso y Democracia, a national party that was formed three years ago. What he has to say makes for difficult but not revelatory reading. "The Balearics have the highest number of people who are corrupt or allegedly corrupt per square metre in Spain." He then reeled off a list of cases, all of them ongoing, and concluded by saying that all the main executive and legislative bodies in the islands are implicated along with various individuals - "businesspeople who are friends of certain politicians, businesspeople who assemble companies in order to receive adjudications decided by their political friends, as well as the wives, husbands, cousins and nephews of politicians".
His is a damning indictment of the nepotism and cronyism that are the root cause of Mallorca's corruption, and it is one that may well afflict even those who enter politics with honourable intentions. To what extent does a societal ethic of granting favours act as a form of pressure on politicians to engage in dishonourable practices? As Gabriel Garcías, a professor of law at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, has said: "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing." Which is a depressing view of how, despite the huge publicity given to cases, legal measures may not eradicate corruption. The line from Monty Python's "Church Police" sketch isn't far from the truth: "it's a fair cop, but society is to blame".
And so you wonder if, at the end of 2011, we will be saying much the same thing as we are now and whether the president of the Council of Mallorca, whoever it might be, will be relaying the same message. You wouldn't bet against it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
So what's new, you might ask. The new year same as the old year. In her Christmas message in 2009, the president of the Council of Mallorca, Francina Armengol, had called for commitment to "ethical civic behaviour", referring to the "repeated occurrence of corruption". In this year's message, while praising the efforts of those pursuing the corrupt, she said that there needed to be a change of direction in politics to one of transparency that is far removed from corruption.
If Sra. Armengol is still in office this time next year, she will probably be revisiting her theme. If not her, then her successor. Despite the diligent probes by prosecutors, judges and police, the cases of corruption and allegations of corruption keep coming to the surface with the regularity with which malodour filters out of a sewer cover.
Even where public figures are beyond reproach, so prevalent, so almost institutionalised has corruption been that you cannot be certain as to what you're seeing. Mallorcan politics is like the doping cheats in athletics or cycling or Pakistani bowlers deliberately overstepping the crease. You just can't be sure.
The level of corruption in Mallorca is, in one respect, surprising. The degree of decentralisation in local government conforms with the principle of subsidiarity whereby organisation is passed down to ever smaller authorities. In theory, subsidiarity should be an obstacle to corruption because its manifestation is easier to detect rather than in monolithic centralised organisations. Perhaps this subsidarity could now be said to be working in that more and more cases are coming to light. But it doesn't stop it happening in the first place.
Less surprising as a cause of corruption is the sheer size of the local public sector and the plethora of authorities which are both directly governmental (town halls, Council of Mallorca, regional government) and quasi-governmental, such as the ports authority, the subject of the "Caso Puertos". The larger the public sector, the more fertile the terrain in which corruption can take root.
Yet this doesn't always follow. Scandinavian countries, for example, have large public sectors but a virtual absence of corruption. Mallorca's corruption stems in part from its system of government but more importantly from a societal ethic that transmits itself into government - it is one of tribalism and nepotism.
The newspaper "El Mundo" recently carried an article in which it quoted the views of Juan Luis Calbarro, the spokesperson in the Balearics for the Unión Progreso y Democracia, a national party that was formed three years ago. What he has to say makes for difficult but not revelatory reading. "The Balearics have the highest number of people who are corrupt or allegedly corrupt per square metre in Spain." He then reeled off a list of cases, all of them ongoing, and concluded by saying that all the main executive and legislative bodies in the islands are implicated along with various individuals - "businesspeople who are friends of certain politicians, businesspeople who assemble companies in order to receive adjudications decided by their political friends, as well as the wives, husbands, cousins and nephews of politicians".
His is a damning indictment of the nepotism and cronyism that are the root cause of Mallorca's corruption, and it is one that may well afflict even those who enter politics with honourable intentions. To what extent does a societal ethic of granting favours act as a form of pressure on politicians to engage in dishonourable practices? As Gabriel Garcías, a professor of law at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, has said: "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing." Which is a depressing view of how, despite the huge publicity given to cases, legal measures may not eradicate corruption. The line from Monty Python's "Church Police" sketch isn't far from the truth: "it's a fair cop, but society is to blame".
And so you wonder if, at the end of 2011, we will be saying much the same thing as we are now and whether the president of the Council of Mallorca, whoever it might be, will be relaying the same message. You wouldn't bet against it.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Do Me A Favour: Spas, corruption and society
One of the features of quality and service improvements to Mallorca's hotels has been the introduction of spas - beauty salons, jacuzzis, wellness sessions, all that sort of carry-on. Demand for spas has come from tour operators who see them as important in upgrading the standard of hotels. Provision for their additional creation was covered by the virtually zero-rate interest finance offered by the regional government as a way of assisting hotel upgrades during the crisis and by the so-called "decreto Nadal" which cut out some bureaucratic procedures in order to facilitate renovation and development work at hotels. The reclassification of hotels that is to take place within the next few years will take account of spas.
All good stuff, but as usual there is a rather different story to be told. Note that "decreto". Who was the Nadal in question? Miguel. The former tourism minister and the "chosen one" by his predecessor as leader of the Unió Mallorquina, the matriarchal Mother Maria, Munar of that ilk. Nadal and Mother have since fallen out, their lovey-dovey photos regularly reproduced in order to stress the irony of the breakdown in their relationship, Nadal trying for all he's worth to avoid taking the rap for corruption allegations that have come his and Mother's way.
Building spas was fair enough, but who do you think was instrumental in a process for the spas - the number of which could be expected to increase - to be accredited and given quality ratings?
Maria Antònia Munar, never a hair out of place, always looking a million dollars, but don't let's ask where the dollars might have come from. As befits a one-time president of the Council of Mallorca and speaker of the regional parliament, she did of course need to look a million dollars.
Mother Munar had a personal beautician, and it was thanks to Munar that the beautician, Marisol Carrasco, along with two partners, managed to secure the contract, worth around a hundred thousand euros, to audit and certify hotel spas. The process of awarding the contract was rigged. There were three companies invited to tender for the award of the contract from the Inestur agency within the tourism ministry. However, all three belonged to the same group of people - those who won the contract.
Two former tourism ministers and key men in the UM, Francesc Buils and his successor, the aforementioned Nadal, were also keys to the process as it unravelled. Buils, himself implicated in scandal, had to have his arm twisted in order to set the process in motion. By whom? Yep, Mother. Nadal was the one who signed off on the invoices to Carrasco's company once the auditing work had commenced last year. A fourth UM politician, Antoni Oliver, is also tied up in this deal. Oliver is the former director of Inestur and was a mate of one of Carrasco's partners, one Josep Lluís Capllonch who owns a cosmetics firm in Pollensa. The role of Oliver in Pollensa's own politics has been subject to questions raised by opposition groups in the town.
The story of the spas - and all this information is, by the way, in the public domain - tells you much about how the "system" works in Mallorca. Personal favours allied to political ones. All that seems to be missing in this instance is familial nepotism. It is a system that stinks in such a rotten way that not even the aromas from a spa could get rid of the stench. And in Mother you have, or had, someone who treated her party as her own personal fiefdom, with the wretched Buils, Nadal and others her subservient Mark Antonys.
Nothing in the UM appeared to happen without Mother's bidding or approval. The election of her successor, Nadal, was a case in point. She let the chosen one have his scrapes with his rivals, Ferrer and Grimalt, let him throw his toys out of the pram and then stepped in to give them a telling-off and to approve him as leader, an outcome that had never been in question. The UM, in particular the party's mechanism in Palma, was as close as you could get to familial nepotism without there actually being blood ties. But it was a metaphor for a society in which deference - matriarchal or patriarchal - persists, and which goes a long way in explaining the "system".
Back in March, I wrote about the emergence of all the scandal that had engulfed Munar and the UM. Then I said that rather than there being concerns as to an electoral system that facilitates coalition (wrongly being singled out as a breeding ground for corruption), the "corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about"; that it is society (Mallorcan) that "begets the politics of the island, not the other way round". In other words, it is societal collusion or at least societal mores and the way in which society operates which breed political corruption.
The other day there was a debate, one that featured leading figures from the university. A professor of law said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I suppose I feel vindicated in what I had said in March.
The spa story is a relatively minor matter when compared to some of the other charges that have been emerging, but is significant in that it highlights what many suspect, which is that little or nothing happens - be it spas or whatever - without someone benefiting in a way that they shouldn't. The spas should be places of health, but even they have been tainted by disease.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
All good stuff, but as usual there is a rather different story to be told. Note that "decreto". Who was the Nadal in question? Miguel. The former tourism minister and the "chosen one" by his predecessor as leader of the Unió Mallorquina, the matriarchal Mother Maria, Munar of that ilk. Nadal and Mother have since fallen out, their lovey-dovey photos regularly reproduced in order to stress the irony of the breakdown in their relationship, Nadal trying for all he's worth to avoid taking the rap for corruption allegations that have come his and Mother's way.
Building spas was fair enough, but who do you think was instrumental in a process for the spas - the number of which could be expected to increase - to be accredited and given quality ratings?
Maria Antònia Munar, never a hair out of place, always looking a million dollars, but don't let's ask where the dollars might have come from. As befits a one-time president of the Council of Mallorca and speaker of the regional parliament, she did of course need to look a million dollars.
Mother Munar had a personal beautician, and it was thanks to Munar that the beautician, Marisol Carrasco, along with two partners, managed to secure the contract, worth around a hundred thousand euros, to audit and certify hotel spas. The process of awarding the contract was rigged. There were three companies invited to tender for the award of the contract from the Inestur agency within the tourism ministry. However, all three belonged to the same group of people - those who won the contract.
Two former tourism ministers and key men in the UM, Francesc Buils and his successor, the aforementioned Nadal, were also keys to the process as it unravelled. Buils, himself implicated in scandal, had to have his arm twisted in order to set the process in motion. By whom? Yep, Mother. Nadal was the one who signed off on the invoices to Carrasco's company once the auditing work had commenced last year. A fourth UM politician, Antoni Oliver, is also tied up in this deal. Oliver is the former director of Inestur and was a mate of one of Carrasco's partners, one Josep Lluís Capllonch who owns a cosmetics firm in Pollensa. The role of Oliver in Pollensa's own politics has been subject to questions raised by opposition groups in the town.
The story of the spas - and all this information is, by the way, in the public domain - tells you much about how the "system" works in Mallorca. Personal favours allied to political ones. All that seems to be missing in this instance is familial nepotism. It is a system that stinks in such a rotten way that not even the aromas from a spa could get rid of the stench. And in Mother you have, or had, someone who treated her party as her own personal fiefdom, with the wretched Buils, Nadal and others her subservient Mark Antonys.
Nothing in the UM appeared to happen without Mother's bidding or approval. The election of her successor, Nadal, was a case in point. She let the chosen one have his scrapes with his rivals, Ferrer and Grimalt, let him throw his toys out of the pram and then stepped in to give them a telling-off and to approve him as leader, an outcome that had never been in question. The UM, in particular the party's mechanism in Palma, was as close as you could get to familial nepotism without there actually being blood ties. But it was a metaphor for a society in which deference - matriarchal or patriarchal - persists, and which goes a long way in explaining the "system".
Back in March, I wrote about the emergence of all the scandal that had engulfed Munar and the UM. Then I said that rather than there being concerns as to an electoral system that facilitates coalition (wrongly being singled out as a breeding ground for corruption), the "corruption scandals should be informing a debate as to what brings them about"; that it is society (Mallorcan) that "begets the politics of the island, not the other way round". In other words, it is societal collusion or at least societal mores and the way in which society operates which breed political corruption.
The other day there was a debate, one that featured leading figures from the university. A professor of law said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I suppose I feel vindicated in what I had said in March.
The spa story is a relatively minor matter when compared to some of the other charges that have been emerging, but is significant in that it highlights what many suspect, which is that little or nothing happens - be it spas or whatever - without someone benefiting in a way that they shouldn't. The spas should be places of health, but even they have been tainted by disease.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Careful What You Wish For
Sardinia may seem an unlikely starting-point for a piece on this blog, but bear with me. The island of Sardinia, which is not named by the way after sardines (they were named after it), lies some 260 or so miles to the east of Mallorca. It is quite a bit bigger than Mallorca, but it has some similarities - a Catalan dialect (and an obscure language of its own); it was once under Aragonese dominance; it witnessed a major battle against the Moorish Turks; it is an autonomous region; and it is also a tourism centre and a place for the rich to flaunt themselves, their money and their properties. Maybe you can start to see where I'm coming from.
Some days ago there was en editorial in "The Bulletin" which spoke about the property market in Mallorca. It enthused that the luxury end of the market is holding strong. And this at a time when the market for the ordinary man and woman is floating adrift. Good for the luxury market. The fact that individuals are willing to part with seven figure sums or more was evidence that the island was in grand shape despite other problems. Loadsamoney, fine investment prospects, blah-blah; it was similar to the notion that Freddy Shepherd's one-time interest in Real Mallorca was in some way indicative of wider British confidence to invest in the island. Pass me those straws and let me clutch them; but not for long, they're going in the bin with the rest of the rubbish.
Be careful what you wish for. That wealthy people may wish to line the pockets of estate agents, existing landowners and some professionals is evidence of no more than a desire to purchase a luxury pile. It is not, by some vague implication, the creation of some form of Thatcherite distribution of wealth through entrepreneurialism for the good of all. Some builders, some gardeners, some pool-maintenance firms and a scattering of menials may also benefit but that's it. If I can come back to yesterday's piece, are the wealthy purchasers like to be integrating with Mallorcan society? They take but what do they give back? Are they going to establish high-tech new businesses with high employment opportunities? No they are not. At least Paul Davidson, the likely new owner of Real Mallorca, seems to have the right attitudes. And let us certainly not decry the benevolence and humility of some of the wealthy. I once bumped into the German rock star Peter Maffay as he was getting off his push bike to unlock the gates to the Trencadora in Pollensa; his foundation is lauded for its good works and one only hears good things of the man.
Be careful what you wish for. And who are these wealthy people? Perhaps some warning bells should have been ringing when Matthias Kühn of Kühn & Partner, purveyors of property to the filthy rich, spoke about the opportunities afforded by the new wave of the industrial-scale-minted foreign buyer. Russians, in a word. And Heaven forbid that there is some high-rent, high-security gated villa on the go or perhaps Mark Thatcher will pitch up, giving the luckies the possibility of diversifying into a bit of bounty-hunting in the form of kidnapping on behalf of some God-forsaken African basket case of a nation. Mallorca has a long reputation as a millionaire's playground. There are plenty of wealthy Mallorcans. And now there's this new wave.
Be careful what you wish for. A while back a local politician expressed a concern that the current economic difficulties could lead to increased crime. It was over-blown scare-mongering perhaps, but civil disobedience ...? Which brings me back to Sardinia. What's happening there? "Arrogant ostentation of the super-rich." "These people think they rule the world." Hugely expensive properties, Russian oligarchs and celebrity Italians such as Flavio Briatore who recently was greeted as his motorised dinghies were making shore with cries of "louts, go home" and a barrage of wet sand.
Economic difficulties can create strong reactions. The mega rich are not necessarily the solution to these difficulties; in fact far from it. The Sardinians have had enough of those who show off their wealth. Be careful what you wish for Mallorca.
* The quotes and some Sardinian references are from an article by Alexander Chancellor in "The Guardian" - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/italy.globaleconomy.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssqBjaTzOU). Today's title - album by a Scottish band.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Some days ago there was en editorial in "The Bulletin" which spoke about the property market in Mallorca. It enthused that the luxury end of the market is holding strong. And this at a time when the market for the ordinary man and woman is floating adrift. Good for the luxury market. The fact that individuals are willing to part with seven figure sums or more was evidence that the island was in grand shape despite other problems. Loadsamoney, fine investment prospects, blah-blah; it was similar to the notion that Freddy Shepherd's one-time interest in Real Mallorca was in some way indicative of wider British confidence to invest in the island. Pass me those straws and let me clutch them; but not for long, they're going in the bin with the rest of the rubbish.
Be careful what you wish for. That wealthy people may wish to line the pockets of estate agents, existing landowners and some professionals is evidence of no more than a desire to purchase a luxury pile. It is not, by some vague implication, the creation of some form of Thatcherite distribution of wealth through entrepreneurialism for the good of all. Some builders, some gardeners, some pool-maintenance firms and a scattering of menials may also benefit but that's it. If I can come back to yesterday's piece, are the wealthy purchasers like to be integrating with Mallorcan society? They take but what do they give back? Are they going to establish high-tech new businesses with high employment opportunities? No they are not. At least Paul Davidson, the likely new owner of Real Mallorca, seems to have the right attitudes. And let us certainly not decry the benevolence and humility of some of the wealthy. I once bumped into the German rock star Peter Maffay as he was getting off his push bike to unlock the gates to the Trencadora in Pollensa; his foundation is lauded for its good works and one only hears good things of the man.
Be careful what you wish for. And who are these wealthy people? Perhaps some warning bells should have been ringing when Matthias Kühn of Kühn & Partner, purveyors of property to the filthy rich, spoke about the opportunities afforded by the new wave of the industrial-scale-minted foreign buyer. Russians, in a word. And Heaven forbid that there is some high-rent, high-security gated villa on the go or perhaps Mark Thatcher will pitch up, giving the luckies the possibility of diversifying into a bit of bounty-hunting in the form of kidnapping on behalf of some God-forsaken African basket case of a nation. Mallorca has a long reputation as a millionaire's playground. There are plenty of wealthy Mallorcans. And now there's this new wave.
Be careful what you wish for. A while back a local politician expressed a concern that the current economic difficulties could lead to increased crime. It was over-blown scare-mongering perhaps, but civil disobedience ...? Which brings me back to Sardinia. What's happening there? "Arrogant ostentation of the super-rich." "These people think they rule the world." Hugely expensive properties, Russian oligarchs and celebrity Italians such as Flavio Briatore who recently was greeted as his motorised dinghies were making shore with cries of "louts, go home" and a barrage of wet sand.
Economic difficulties can create strong reactions. The mega rich are not necessarily the solution to these difficulties; in fact far from it. The Sardinians have had enough of those who show off their wealth. Be careful what you wish for Mallorca.
* The quotes and some Sardinian references are from an article by Alexander Chancellor in "The Guardian" - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/italy.globaleconomy.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssqBjaTzOU). Today's title - album by a Scottish band.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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