Saint Valentine's Day Massacring

The Council of Mallorca has been undertaking its version of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. No submachine guns have been involved, only the small fire of a campaign aimed at "dismantling" Saint Valentine, disassembling the old fellow, taking him apart and leaving him divorced of romantic love.

Saint Valentine himself may or may not have been physically disassembled when it came to the act that led to his martyring. One reason for such uncertainty is that there were various Valentines who may have been the saint. The chances are that he was combi-Valentine, made up of components, and moulded into saintliness with legend fully attached. According to the inexact history books, he copped for it in 275 when in Rome. And when in Rome in those days, it wasn't a wise thing to be going around being a Christian. If 275 was the date of his untimely end, then at least he wasn't a victim of Diocletian, who pushed martyrdom to unprecedented levels.

Valentine supposedly got into trouble for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry. Not each other, you understand, though this might be taken as something of a theme for the Council's massacring. His legendary association with weddings was to come to the aid, several centuries later, of Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1382, Chaucer scribed Parlement of Foules, which wasn't a parliament of fools but one of birds. On Saint Valentine's Day, according to Chaucer, every bird went to choose a mate, and his work was written to mark the engagement of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia.

One of his lesser known works, it was to have a profound influence, as it popularised the concept of romantic love. Without Chaucer, it is unlikely that we would have Valentine cards, Valentine candlelit dinners, Valentine city-breaks for lovers or any of the contemporary manifestations of the saint. Indeed, had it not been for Chaucer, I wouldn't be writing this and the Council of Mallorca wouldn't be engaged in its disassembling.

It wasn't as though Chaucer invented romantic love within a courtly setting. Other mediaevalists had done likewise, none more so than Andreas Capellanus with De Amore, which has come to be known as The Art of Courtly Love in English. But it was a combination of this early literary tradition and Chaucer that propelled not only Valentine's Day along its path to eventual full-blown commercialism but also inspired the dominant romanticism of Spain's literature. Despite Cervantes' lampooning of this chivalrous love, the influence remained and did so to an extent that society - part of it anyway - reflected the unreal world of literature more than literature did society.

What this bred (so to speak) was a much broader society based on what the Council of Mallorca now wishes to dismantle. This is the ubiquitous message of romantic love in which love is presented as a utopian state and that love is worth anything that it might take in order to achieve it. The mediaevalists' portrayal of romantic or courtly love placed enormous emphasis on the lengths that had to be gone to, and a current-day view suggests that this persists in creating dangerous situations that foster jealousy, control, possession. dependence and ultimately mistreatment.

Nina Parrón, the councillor for equality, believes that Valentine's Day is a celebration of "unbalanced relationships" in which the "myth" of romantic love dominates and limits love to a single way of wanting. It is this myth that the Council wishes to demolish in promoting "respect-based and equal" relationships. Furthermore, it is couching this against the background of the campaign against gender violence. Valentine's Day reinforces the presentation of a love that is not real and so leads to unequal relationships, in which violence may exist.

In addition, this leads to a stereotyping of relationships that exclude alternative ones - lesbian and gay. All of which has prompted the less than left-wing Balearic Family Forum to denounce what it considers to be the demonisation of love by the Council, which is doing so using public money. The forum argues that the Council is seeking to impose gender ideology in a totalitarian manner. "To try to say that romantic love is the same as imposition, disrespect, submission and dependence is a crude means of imposing gender ideology."

The Council's president, Miquel Ensenyat, accepts that some controversy has been aroused. But controversy is useful in order to engender debate. If the campaign makes people asks questions, then good, and he has placed it in the context of the "serious problem of gender-based deaths".

So, will people today be thinking deeply of the controversy as they head off for their Valentine's meals? What will they believe that the cards they receive really represent? Will they side with the Council's view or the family forum's view? What do you think?

Especially For You

With no small amount of predictability, Alcúdia town hall has not exactly greeted the no-to-Es-Foguero decision with great enthusiasm, but at least it does appear to accept the decision as the emphasis now seems to be to find a way of locating the terminal anywhere that isn't behind the auditorium. It needs to be stressed that all that has actually been decided regarding the route of the train is that it will follow the so-called northern "corridor" and not the southern.

We are still no nearer to knowing the exact location. The area by both roundabouts - Horse and Magic - are in the town hall's sights, but the government is pretty much excluding them without any further consideration because of the wetlands. Doubtless there is some environmental significance, which is lost on me, but these wetlands are not things of some wonder as is the case with Albufera; they are basically also wasteland and things of a complete lack of wonder. A spurious environmental objection should be discounted; dig them up and shove the bloody railway station on them. From the point of view of the landscape, this would be an improvement; the area around the Horse and Magic roundabouts that isn't already built on is an eyesore, and the fact is that much of it has been built on - the swimming-pool, the sports centre, etc, these were all on what were once wetlands, so why should there be any sentiment stopping the railway line? Environmental group GOB, who see the no-to-Es-Foguero decision as a result, would presumably object to more wetlands becoming dry, but for once the politicos should show some independence and not be driven by making common cause with the enviros for some potential political gain.


Wetlands and wetness of different sorts - the sea and water sports. There are in Spain a number of "estaciones náuticas" which best translate as water-sport centres. These cover all manner of things that happen on water and very often things that don't, all in the name of sport and activities. While there are "estaciones" on the mainland and also elsewhere in the Balearics, there is not one in Mallorca, but this may be about to change as Alcúdia could become one such and a part of the association of water sport centres. There are to be meetings this coming week about all this. What actually it would all mean, I don't quite know, which is why I have been trying to find out, and hopefully the chap who deals with the media (if I can call myself the media, and I think I probably can) and is currently away on business will be kind enough to get in touch. Meantime, you can see something about these centres here - http://www.estacionesnauticas.info.


You may recall that Alcúdia town hall put together a chill-out CD with which to enchant visitors at its stand at the Fitur trade fair in Madrid. I happened to notice a copy of this knocking around town hall HQ the other day with a post-it note on the box with five euros written on it. Probably they produced far too many and are now hoping to flog them off through the season. Someone, from the town hall, said to me that it wasn't much good, and so impressed by what was included on the CD was I, that I have completely forgotten. Anyway, if you can't get it through official town hall channels, I daresay a pirated copy or several will have fallen into the clutches of the luckies come April, and you'll be able to get a fake one at a knockdown price of, say, five euros.


And today of course is Valentine's Day, and I should just mention that among the bars offering an event in celebration will be Vamps with a karaoke Valentine and some grand, computer-generated bingo do. But this raises the question as to what would be karaoke Valentine favourites, and my guess would be "Saving All My Love For You" (Whitney) and as a duet - Kylie and Jason's peerless "Especially For You", which is today's title. Incidentally, the Spanish do Valentine's, though it should be noted that the Catalans have another day - Sant Jordi (George) when they give each other a rose or a book.

And while on bars and things that could help attract the masses at this time of difficulty, I note that the Indians are to produce a soft drink based on cow's urine, which should be rather less than gnat's or indeed cow's piss I should have thought if it were a cocktail with Red Bull.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - David Bowie. It was not one of his best, but from the album came something that was ok - "Golden Years" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd2clb5T8JA). Today's title - already mentioned; a Valentine's special.

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