Valtonyc: A Berk, Not A Threat

In August 2012 I wrote: "I can't be certain but I wouldn't be at all surprised were Josep Miquel Arenas, aka Josemy Valtonyc Marx Beltrán (Es Rapero Pagés - Marxista Leninista) to receive a visit from someone in the near future. Who is Josemy Valtonyc etc.? He is a 17-year-old rapper and he is not happy with, variously: the King and the royal family; Jorge Campos, the founder of the Círculo Balear; the mayor of Sineu; and the president of Nuevas Generaciones in Sineu.

Referred to as the rapper from Sa Pobla, despite a connection with Sineu (he went to school there and has, you might have noticed, got problems with some people from Sineu), Valtonyc has been creating a right old rapping rumpus. Via his poetry, he has nominated the King for assassination, Jorge Campos for death, and both Pere Joan Jaume, the mayor, and Laura Montenegro, of Nuevas Generaciones, for the receipt of a silver bullet, presumably from the barrel of a gun and not in a velvet-lined presentation box."

Five years and six months later, a prison sentence of three and a half years for Valtonyc has been confirmed by the Supreme Court. Valtonyc had taken an appeal to the highest court, the Audiencia Nacional having a year ago handed out the original sentence. The court has rejected his appeal, which was based on freedom of expression and artistic creativity. The court has pointed to the "seriousness" of what was expressed in a Valtonyc song (and others) and has taken into account, among other things, the "lauding" of terrorist organisations, such as ETA, which went beyond expressions of solidarity based on ideology and instead involved praise of violent means and political objectives of those organisations.

The Supreme Court also identified all those who Valtonyc had threatened, insulted or humiliated: King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, the Infanta Elena, Jorge Campos, Dolores de Cospedal, Esperanza Aguirre, Iñaki Urdangarin, the Guardia Civil, Froilán Marichalar (the son of Elena), José Ramón Bauzá, and more. An open and shut case? Three and a half years?

Valtonyc has reacted to the court's rejection of his appeal by insisting that there is no freedom of expression, that he has no trust in the "Spanish state", that he will be a "political prisoner" and that he didn't commit any "blood crime", he just wrote a song.

A whole host of personalities from the arts and culture worlds have come out in support of Valtonyc. They include the veteran Mallorcan singer Tomeu Penya, hardly the most rebellious of artists or performers. Some two hundred of them have signed up to a manifesto which rejects the sentence as it limits a fundamental right of freedom of expression. It will condemn the now 23-year-old to serve time in prison when the same judicial institutions that have condemned him absolve and pardon businesspeople, politicians and members of royalty.

His lawyer, Juan Manuel Olarieta, says that the sentence hadn't been expected; it makes no sense. It is a total "aberration", and there is to be a further appeal to the Constitutional Court. Political parties and politicians on the left have attacked the sentence. Jorge Campos, satisfied with the court's decision, has called for the resignation of politicians who have sided with Valtonyc. They include Bel Busquets and David Abril of Més; the mayor of Calvia, Alfonso Rodríguez; Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos; Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona.

It can be easy to pick and choose from what Valtonyc rapped. Wanting to get Iñaki Urdangarin to work in a Burger King was hardly threatening or insulting. Saying that the Bourbons are thieves was more serious insofar as a crime can be deemed to have been committed if the royal family is insulted. Generally though, the courts -at most - issue fines if an insult is considered to have been particularly serious.

The apparent lauding of terrorism was another matter, as were the apparent threats. Defending these on the grounds of freedom of expression inevitably raises questions of what limits there should be (if any) to this freedom. Nevertheless, the sentence is harsh; it is wrong. Three and a half years?

Valtonyc's greatest crime was not that he threatened anyone or praised terrorist organisations; it was that he was a berk. He was a teenage berk who allowed his immaturity to get the better of him. He, in himself, is and was no threat to anyone. He was a stupid boy who was rather too full of himself. You don't or shouldn't send someone to jail for being a berk.

The judicial process has merely given him publicity. Yes, he overstepped the mark; yes, in law he was wrong; yes, there are limits to freedom of expression. But the sentence serves little purpose. It also fuels further the current political unrest, and now Valtonyc may be added to the other political prisoners.

Lessons In Free Speech

Our good friend Valtonyc keeps popping up. If he isn't quite your good friend and you need reminding of his existence, he is the Sa Pobla rapper Josep Miquel Arenas Beltran, who has found himself in hot water with the courts over what boils down to a question of freedom of expression.

Since being condemned, pending appeal, to three and a half years for, inter alia, wishing harm to the old king, appearing to support terrorism and wishing death on certain individuals, Valtonyc has been constantly to the fore. His latest appearance, in non-rapping style (one guesses), was at the secondary school in Santa Margalida.

There has apparently been a "wave" of reaction against his having "given lessons" to pupils at the school. These lessons weren't lessons as such. According to the school's director, he was invited to a first year class for communication and language. The pupils, it would seem, needed someone of some media standing with whom they could do an interview. As Valtonyc has a relative at the school, it was easy enough to get in touch with him and ask him along.

If it was necessary for there to have been someone with media prominence, then there must have been others who could have been invited. Take the current mayor of Santa Margalida, for example. Joan Monjo is rarely out of the media and was rarely out of it during all the years prior to his having become mayor. One feels sure he could have found a window in his busy schedule to answer questions about putting up chiringuitos on unspoiled beaches in the municipality. Or possibly about his desire to name a street after that old rogue of the municipality, Joan March.

If not the mayor, then maybe his predecessor (one removed) would have sufficed and have been more of the left, to boot. The pupils could have enquired whether Toni Reus of Més still wishes tourist tax revenue to be spent on old folks' homes (that was his idea).

Well, they could have asked either of them, but neither, let's face it, would have held as much appeal as a young rapper and one with a prison sentence hanging over his head. I'm guessing that Valtonyc didn't start whipping up anti-monarchist and pro-terrorist fervour during his "lesson", though one suspects that freedom of expression may well have cropped up as a theme for discussion. In the context of a class on communication and language, that seems a relevant topic.

Very much more unlikely than Monjo or Reus as alternatives would have been Ignacio Arsuaga. And who is he? The president of Hazte Oír, the right-wing organisation that has been driving an orange bus around (or attempting to) for the past few weeks. This bus, dubbed The Bus of Freedom or The Free Speech Bus, has been attacking what Arsuaga says are laws of sexual indoctrination that exist in certain regions of Spain. Basically, he and Hazte Oír are against gays and lesbians and in particular transsexuals.

The bus has been immobilised by police in both Madrid and Barcelona. Bizarrely enough, it has now turned up in New York, where it has been vandalised. The bus and Hazte Oír had gone along for an event organised by Family Watch International, a body founded in 1999 which opposes homosexuality amongst other things.

In a current climate of movement towards the right it might be said that Hazte Oír has found its moment, though I would question whether it has. Spain, unlike elsewhere in Europe, does not have a prominent rabid right. It is the left which has adopted the alt mantle, a quite different take on the populist political fallout from economic crisis and austerity which consumed Europe. Is this so surprising? I would suggest not. Despite the struggles of the conventional left, as in PSOE, socially liberal policies that it advanced under Zapatero have not been undermined. It took Spain a long time to adopt them and it doesn't seem inclined to let them go.

Within this context and general social climate, therefore, one has the support shown for Valtonyc, mainly by the left but not completely. It isn't total support for what he rapped but it is support for his right to have done so.

Is such support misguided? The courts would suggest that it is, hence the prison sentence. There are limits to what can be said. Freedom of expression does not give anyone carte blanche, especially when there are laws preventing this. As a general principle, I'm inclined to agree, pushed to such a conclusion by the apparent impunity which individuals (and organisations) feel they have to state and espouse whatever the hell they want to. The internet takes a great deal of blame for this. There are limits, whether views are of the far right or left.

In Santa Margalida, was a lesson in communication learned?

From Our Court Correspondent

What do you do with yourself, do you suppose, when you've been handed a 75 months sentence but been allowed to toddle off to Switzerland while the Spanish legal system winds its way along its slow course to a Supreme Court appeal to confirm that you should indeed proceed straight to jail without passing Go? Geneva, one guesses, isn't such a bad place to while away the months (or more) until our learned friends gather - not that I've been there for over 40 years, but it seemed ok back then. But how does one, as in Iñaki, spend one's time? Eating cheese and heading into the mountains to do some yodelling? Or does one get a job? It might be a tad awkward informing a prospective employer that you are likely to need a 75 months holiday at some point, but Iñaki isn't your ordinary prospective employee.

Perhaps he just has to accept the fact that the missus will be bringing in the bacon (and the cheese). And seemingly there is a fair amount of bacon to be brought in. More than half a million euros worth per annum, courtesy of the La Caixa Foundation and the Aga Khan Foundation, or so it appears. Given this, couldn't Iñaki, rather than telling the court he didn't have two hundred grand to his name to stump up for bail, have asked the wife to sub him? I mean, she's also due to be repaid a hefty wedge of what she lodged with the court as a civil liability bond thanks to the court having levied a far lower fine on her.

It's been, how can one put it, an interesting week for the legal system, top honours for which go to the court having decided that Manos Limpias should pay all the Infanta's costs. And quite right, too. Otherwise, there's the business with our good friend Valtonyc, the rapper who faces a rap of three and a half years for some deeply unpleasant things he rapped about the old king and others. Forty-two months for Valtonyc, seventy-five months for Iñaki. Hmm.

I'm certainly not defending what he rapped - promoting assassinations, supporting terrorism and what have you - but does this merit such a sentence? I have questioned whether he should have been in court at all, but then he - even as a mere 17-year-old, as he was - would have been familiar with the law which decrees it an offence to insult the crown. He would have known what he was doing, but even so - 42 months? It's not as if he had it away with a couple of million euros of Balearic government money, to say nothing of Valencia government moolah.

If he had to be in court, a guilty verdict should have condemned him to giving up a year's worth of royalties (assuming he gets any) and handing it over to charity, six months of community service picking up litter in the gardens at the Marivent royal palace and being branded - in public - a Spotty Herbert who should learn to behave himself. Instead, he's going to end up - in the eyes of some - as a martyr.

Then we have our even better friend, Balti of the Balearic parliament. Admittedly he's only copped for 601 euros - and again he would have been fully aware that resisting the Guardia Civil doesn't do you a great deal of good - but in his case I have to say I'm warming to him. Not for resisting - sorry, you can't do that - but for having protested against the bull-run. His fine is fair enough and so was (is) his cause.

The Parody Of Valtonyc

Claims as to the origins of rap music are as many as its styles. There are some frankly bizarre suggestions as to elements of rap before it truly burst onto the global music scene in the late 1970s. One, and I kid you not, was from the theme to the sitcom Are You Being Served?, which was clearly a great distance removed from gangsta rap.

As with other popular musical genres, especially the more controversial ones, there have been societal justifications for their development. Gangsta rap has had its, as in being a reflection of urban suffering and neglect that spilled over into crime and violence. Yet it also spawned misogyny, homophobia and serial killings. Rap therefore acquired a self-serving justification for its anti-social messages (not all of it, obviously, given the various styles that exist and have existed). It also attached to itself the notion of art form because of lyrical styles and phrasing. In so doing, rap lost sight of what may have one time been a pure form and wrapped itself within a blanket of pomposity and desperate cleverness in a similar way that rock did with progressive music before punk took such a clear aim at it.

Punk, though, serves as a reminder of how rapidly a genre can descend to the level of parody. Indeed, all genres end up going the same way and sometimes find themselves being satirised, which is what happened to hard rock through Spinal Tap and the Comic Strip's Bad News Tour. Likewise, rap seems endlessly trapped in its parodical urban posturing, constantly straining to maintain credibility through the assertion of the art form.

Art, freedom of expression and imagery, non-censoriousness have long been advanced as the justifications for the ground-breaking. But the art form has also long suffered with being chastised for going beyond the mere ground-breaking and advocating the tasteless. Challenging society's mores and attitudes is both positive and negative, and society occasionally decides that the negative outweighs the positive. It does so by merely rejecting, by excoriating or by going to court.

The test, in a sense, is if there is gratuitousness. Is the tasteless or the offensive being displayed for the sake of it? If so, then the art form evaporates and is replaced by a meanness of spirit. On top of which, one keeps returning to the propensity for parody. Combine this meanness with an "attitude" of the urban gun-fingered style exported from the American inner city to an island in the Mediterranean, graft onto it notions of Republicanism, and you end up with someone like Valtonyc, otherwise known as Josep Miquel Arenas Beltrán.

In August 2012, I suggested that the then 17-year-old rapper was likely to be receiving a visit from someone in the near future. He had, variously, nominated the former king for assassination, the founder of the right-wing Circulo Balear Jorge Campos for death, and the mayor of Sineu for a silver bullet. He was to also have suggestions to make about various Partido Popular politicians and the one-time leader of PSOE, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba.

The visit came, and Valtonyc has been appearing before the Audiencia Nacional, with the prosecution service calling for a sentence of three years and eight months for insulting Juan Carlos and a further two years for exalting terrorism (e.g. ETA). Whatever society might think of Valtonyc, there is the slight matter of legality: you can't go around insulting kings and the crown and necessarily expect to get off scot-free.

Valtonyc has played the art form card. He told the court that he is both a poet and an artist. His work is designed to provoke rather than to, for instance, humiliate the victims of terrorism. On leaving the court, he announced that he will continue to say that the Bourbons are "mafiosos". There's provocative.

Should he be in court? Certainly under the law that safeguards the honour of the crown, then he deserves to be. He isn't the first to find that a dim view is taken of such an attack and he won't be the last. One of the more celebrated cases of this type was when the editor and cartoonist from the satirical magazine El Jueves were taken to court for insulting the then Crown-Prince Felipe. They were fined.

A few days ago there was a benefit event for him Arta, at which performers made clear their beliefs in his freedom of expression. And it is for this reason that I have some sympathy for him. Moreover, placing him in the legal spotlight fuels the very messages that caused the legal system to take action. Valtonyc has thus been granted a greater sense of self-importance than he merits. He cloaks himself in the art form defence, when he's little more than a mean parody. What's the point of his being in court?

MALLORCA TODAY - The rapper is arrested and then released with charges

The rapper, Josep Miquel Arenas, better known as Valtonyc, who had called for the murder of Jorge Campos, the founder of the Círculo Balear, was arrested today by the National Police following a denuncia by Campos. He has been released but with charges.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

Rapper's Delete

I can't be certain but I wouldn't be at all surprised were Josep Miquel Arenas, aka Josemy Valtonyc Marx Beltrán (Es Rapero Pagés - Marxista Leninista) to receive a visit from someone in the near future. Who is Josemy Valtonyc etc.? He is a 17-year-old rapper and he is not happy with, variously: the King and the royal family; Jorge Campos, the founder of the Círculo Balear; the mayor of Sineu; and the president of Nuevas Generaciones in Sineu.

Referred to as the rapper from Sa Pobla, despite a connection with Sineu (he went to school there and has, you might have noticed, got problems with some people from Sineu), Valtonyc has been creating a right old rapping rumpus. Via his poetry, he has nominated the King for assassination, Jorge Campos for death, and both Pere Joan Jaume, the mayor, and Laura Montenegro, of Nuevas Generaciones, for the receipt of a silver bullet, presumably from the barrel of a gun and not in a velvet-lined presentation box.

In case you are not quite up to speed with some of this, Campos' Círculo Balear is a sort of Catalan anti-Christ, while Nuevas Generaciones are like the Young Conservatives but without the Harris tweeds. Given his various targets, you can conclude that Valtonyc is not exactly a monarchist, not exactly a great admirer of Castellano and not exactly a supporter of the Partido Popular. The "Marxista Leninista", which is how he describes himself on his Facebook page, is a bit of a giveaway, after all. His revolutionary tendencies extend to his also describing himself as an "independentista", which is not a type of orthodontics, but a declaration of support for an independent Mallorca or Balearics or Catalan Lands or probably all three.

Rap is prone to the use of extreme lyrics, but going around suggesting that the King should be assassinated is not likely to be dismissed as rapping poetic licence. It's why I fancy that Valtonyc might just find himself in a spot of bother. One of his latest outpourings is unlikely to endear him to the good people of Sineu either. "Sineu Will Be Afghanistan" is its title, which will come as a shock to the residents of the town though not as much of a shock as to the mayor who is now also being lined up for the guillotine.

While Valtonyc's extremism probably won't be overlooked, might it be better if it were? Is he just an angry young teenager who has found he has a talent (at least one presumes this to be the case) for rap and poetry and has a lot to get off his chest? It might, therefore, be wiser to ignore him rather than fuel his extremism with the publicity of martyrdom that could yet come his way.

Does, however, Valtonyc represent an undercurrent of belief among Mallorcan youth? Mallorca has historically not been especially radical. Quite the contrary, it is an essentially conservative society. But such an undercurrent does exist and not only among the youth.

There is an event called the "Acampallengua". It is held annually and is a youth festival that celebrates Catalan language and culture. During the 2009 event in Sa Pobla, a spokesperson from the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), an organisation that is the complete opposite to the Círculo Balear, delivered a speech in which it was stated that "we will not take a step backwards in the struggle for our language". At the time, I asked whether the Acampallengua might just contribute to a radicalisation of youth. During this year's event in Manacor, there was a performance by ... you've guessed it, Valtonyc.

It would be quite wrong to suggest that all those who attend these events are either radical or are prone to being radicalised or that they have any sympathy for Valtonyc's lyrics. But there will be some, and the organisers of the events, a group called Mallorcan Youths for the Language, have as a key sponsor the OCB. And the OCB promotes independence, just like Valtonyc.

It would be interesting to know what the OCB thinks of Valtonyc's death threats. Chances are that they would be put down to teenage angst and the excesses of rap culture. And to be honest, this is probably what they should be put down to.

Nevertheless, there is an uneasy sense that Valtonyc is tapping into a growth of what I discerned in 2009, a time when there wasn't a ruling political party that took a negative view of Catalan, a time also when economic crisis hadn't caused the decimation it since has.

Will the rapper of Sa Pobla just be ignored or will he join the ranks of the new Catalan martyrs? It won't be the former. Jorge Campos has denounced him.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.