I've been reading Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 (London: Phoenix, 2006), and just got through the intro and Part I, “Old Spain and the Second Republic”. It's a marvelously clear, though overly concise, account of some of the key events and for this reason will be an excellent starting point for anyone new to the subject and a good refresher for those who already know some of it. There is much to praise here -- but still, it left me unsatisfied. It doesn't really explain why things happened the way they did. And I think this has to do with the hidden, unasked questions that a more sociologically-minded author would make explicit.
The first question is, what are the criteria for selecting certain events and ignoring others? This is a big book (479 pages plus intro, notes, maps, index, etc.), but it can't tell us everything and if it did it would be no more useful than the mapamundi that Borges imagined, of exactly the same dimensions as the territory it mapped. For example, why tell us about the anarchist rising and subsequent massacre at Casas Viejas, in Cádiz (1933)? And not about, for example, the traveling puppet theater and variety performances organized by Federico García Lorca and his associates as part of the cultural awakening of the same stratum of angry, ignorant peasants who were massacred at Casas Viejas? The first mention of García Lorca in this book is his murder (1936), but great upheavals are made up of more than violence and political maneuverings. The cultural changes during the first, left-liberal government of the Republic (1931-34), especially the increasing political and civil consciousness of many women, had a lot to do with the repression during the second, right-wing government of the Republic (1934-36) and the intensity of political conflict in the months between the election of a new, further left government (January 1936) and the rising of Franco and other generals (July 1936).
The second question is really another way of putting the first one: How do we think certain kinds of events affect others? What sorts of cultural phenomena could explain, for example, the extremely inflammatory rhetoric of Calvo Sotelo (on the right) or Largo Caballero on the left? For example, what were the imagined audiences for each one? History? A close circle of sycophants?
I don't really fault Beevor for not posing these questions. He has done what he saw as his job, of telling the overtly political events as clearly as possible. This gives us a good basis for working out the next part of the job, forming and testing hypotheses that may better explain the events and so help us understand other phenomena that may or may not be comparable (factional conflict in Iraq today, for example).
2008/03/16
The disunited left
Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday) is a day for pageantry. Colorful costumes, processions, elaborate tronos (“thrones” shouldered by a dozen or more marchers and bearing the Virgin or other saintly figures) in a tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages, when (we assume) people actually believed in that stuff. This year, it comes as Spain is still trying to assimilate the results of last Sunday's election, which brought mixed effects for another tradition in Spain, at least as old, of rebellion against the combined powers of Church and State. The Socialists (Partido socialista obrero español, PSOE) won enough seats to govern comfortably, but Izquierda Unida (IU, "United Left"), heirs of Spain's Communists, all but disappeared from congress.
At its peak, in 1996, IU won 2,639,774 votes, 10.54% of the total, and 21 seats in congress, making it a major bloc. Last Sunday it got only 963,040 votes, a mere 3.8% of the total, and only 2 congressional seats -- a disaster for the group. Without a minimum of 5 deputies (which they had 2004-2008), IU no longer constitutes a parliamentary "group" with the right to question the president of the government in parliamentary debates.A large part of IU's difficulty is the electoral system, analyzed here two weeks ago, which makes it almost impossible for a third party that is national, not regional, to win any seats in small provinces (even if they get substantial votes). A second part is the increasing polarization in Spain, the division into two giant parties: PP on the right, PSOE on the left. Because IU sympathizers (especially in the smaller provinces) know that IU candidates can't win, they either stay home or vote PSOE to keep the rightists out. And the third cause is IU's own turbulent, erratic and less-than-united history.
The Partido comunista de España (PCE) was a powerful clandestine force against Franco and came out strong after the dictator's death in 1975. The party was legalized and in 1977 won 1,709,890 votes, over 9% and in 1979 1,938,487 votes, 10.77% of the total. But the sweeping success of the renewed PSOE under Felipe González in 1982 won away more than half its electorate, which dropped to 846,515 votes that year, just 4.02% of the total. To fight back, in 1986 the PCE gathered half a dozen smaller left parties to form IU in 1986, opposed to the PSOE government's decision to join NATO.
The new formation's success contributed to its downfall. The IU's big share of the left vote in 1996 contributed to the defeat of the socialists and the victory of the PP under José María Aznar. IU voters who had thought they were pressuring the Socialists to move further left, found instead that they had allowed the election of a government that increased the power of the Catholic Church, privatized essential industries (including electric power and telephone) to allow private enrichment, cut social programs, and pursued a foreign policy that turned its back on Latin America would eventually follow the U.S. into its war in Iraq.
The next election, 2000, about 1.4 million of those IU voters either stayed home or voted for the PSOE. The IU vote dropped from 10.5% (with 21 deputies) to 5.45% (8 deputies) and has continued to slide. The other parties that had been parts of the original coalition dropped out, leaving the PCE and independents, who blamed each other for the losses. This year the infighting even led to a split in the IU in Valencia, causing it to lose its sole deputy in that province.
Does it matter? I think it does, because the IU represents a substantial body of opinion in Spain, more than its roughly 4% of the vote -- which is itself substantial, nearly a million voters. And the combination of a skewed electoral system, bad strategic decisions a dozen years ago, and continued infighting leaves those voters unrepresented. Can they save and renew IU? Even the IU's biggest vote-getter and sole mayor of a major city, Rosa Aguilar of Córdoba, is doubtful. Can they form a new, truly "united" left party? Almost impossible under the present electoral system, and with a rightwing party so threateningly close to power. Or can they do what many leftists have tried to do in the U.S., work from within the major, less offensive party, in this case the PSOE? That seems like the most viable path for now.
Other events that merit analysis:
> Three more women were murdered by their partners or ex-partners this week, reminding us of the huge problem of violence and other abuse directed against women. See Nearly 2 million women suffer some sort of abuse in Spain (in Spanish)
> An extremely conservative, extremely Catholic young hotshot politician, former lieutenant governor of Palma (PP, of course), was caught by anti-corruption police (looking for money laundering) after spending neary 50,000€ on a city credit card in gay brothels. Reminds us of a certain recent governor of New York -- with two big differences. First, the New York governor was spending his own money, and second, in Spain the courts decided NOT to publicize this until AFTER the election so as not to affect the campaign.
> Spain's peculiar housing crisis. Stay tuned.
2008/03/09
Spain: Election results
It's over -- the big election in Spain -- and the Socialist Party has won big. Not the absolute majority they were hoping for (176 of 350 diputados in parliament), but close. The Partido Popular got more than it deserved (increasing their representation from 148 to something over 150 -- votes are still being counted as I write this), but mainly its very clumsy and self-sabotaging campaign was more help to the Socialists than to themselves. My hunch is that the PP's most fearsome allies, ex-president José María Aznar and Cardinal Rouco, were so scary that they stimulated a lot of the undecided to go to the polls just to keep them out.
"Spain is breaking apart" cried PP leaders, as they tried to mobilize the rest of Spain against Catalonia. "The economy is collapsing" -- when Spain's growth rate is among the highest in Europe and half the PP's own mayors are in jail or in court for corruption. "Zapatero has reduced Spain to global irrelevance"-- as though standing in Bush's shadow (under Aznar) had made the country more important. "The Socialists are destroying the family" -- because they protect rights to abortion and homosexual marriage. And then, from the PP's allies in the Church, the terrible threat of "laicizing" Spain -- separating State from Church.
As an American president famously said, You can't fool all the people all the time.
More when we know more. As I said, they're still counting the votes at this moment, about 10:30 p.m. here in Spain.
La historia de ETA (El Mundo)
Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL) - Wikipedia
"Spain is breaking apart" cried PP leaders, as they tried to mobilize the rest of Spain against Catalonia. "The economy is collapsing" -- when Spain's growth rate is among the highest in Europe and half the PP's own mayors are in jail or in court for corruption. "Zapatero has reduced Spain to global irrelevance"-- as though standing in Bush's shadow (under Aznar) had made the country more important. "The Socialists are destroying the family" -- because they protect rights to abortion and homosexual marriage. And then, from the PP's allies in the Church, the terrible threat of "laicizing" Spain -- separating State from Church.
As an American president famously said, You can't fool all the people all the time.
More when we know more. As I said, they're still counting the votes at this moment, about 10:30 p.m. here in Spain.
La historia de ETA (El Mundo)
Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL) - Wikipedia
2008/03/05
All global politics is local
Viewed from an ocean away, the presidential campaign in the U.S. is highly entertaining but of only secondary importance. The principal question was settled months ago: no matter who wins in the U.S. in November, the neo-con offensive of the right-wing ideologues around Bush is over.
The lives of Spaniards, Colombians, Iraquis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Somalis, Palestinians and others almost everywhere have suffered from Bush's "war on terror" -- which has mainly provoked more terror -- and his flagrant disregard of international laws. In Spain, people hold Bush & Co. responsible for Spanish casualties in Iraq (before Zapatero withdrew the troops) and the 11 March 2004 bombing of the Atocha train station (hundreds of civilian deaths), continuing turbulence of relations with Islam (especially problematic for Spain), the falling dollar (which hurts all European exports), a good part of world climate change, and a generally insulting attitude to the rest of the world. But now, to everyone's relief, Bush, Cheney and their crowd have been completely discredited at home by their failures in war, economy and public security (remember New Orleans!). Once they are gone from the scene, it matters much less whether the new president is McCain, Rodham-Clinton or Obama -- but it sure is fun to watch the turmoil (especially the unprecedented likelihood of either a woman or a half-African man as chief executive) from such a safe distance.
The lives of Spaniards, Colombians, Iraquis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Somalis, Palestinians and others almost everywhere have suffered from Bush's "war on terror" -- which has mainly provoked more terror -- and his flagrant disregard of international laws. In Spain, people hold Bush & Co. responsible for Spanish casualties in Iraq (before Zapatero withdrew the troops) and the 11 March 2004 bombing of the Atocha train station (hundreds of civilian deaths), continuing turbulence of relations with Islam (especially problematic for Spain), the falling dollar (which hurts all European exports), a good part of world climate change, and a generally insulting attitude to the rest of the world. But now, to everyone's relief, Bush, Cheney and their crowd have been completely discredited at home by their failures in war, economy and public security (remember New Orleans!). Once they are gone from the scene, it matters much less whether the new president is McCain, Rodham-Clinton or Obama -- but it sure is fun to watch the turmoil (especially the unprecedented likelihood of either a woman or a half-African man as chief executive) from such a safe distance.
2008/03/02
Two campaigns: Spain & the U.S.
Spaniards, like people everywhere, are intently watching the presidential campaign in the U.S., trying to understand it and to guess what if any consequences the victory of one candidate rather than another might have for them. But they are even more stirred, agitated and irritated by Spain's own campaign for the national elections scheduled for next Sunday, March 9, whose likely consequences are more immediate and much clearer.
Any superficial resemblances between the two campaigns are due to the globalization of electoral techniques, most of them invented in recent years in the U.S. but now widely imitated in Mexico, Guatemala, Ukraine and other places. They include attack ads on TV, the use of SMS and Internet to create rapid rallies, the color coordination and choreography of banners and chants at those rallies for television, the instigation of bloggers and radio talk-show hosts to launch unprovable accusations against opponents, and insistent use of a few carefully chosen photos of the party's leader.
But the real dynamics of political mobilization (often mistaken for the democratic process) are radically different, because the issues, the social history and constitutional system in each of these countries are different. Here I'll try to understand the peculiarities of the Spanish process and how it came about.
In the rocky period known as "the Transition" when Spain was struggling to create a new society after the death of Francisco Franco (November, 1975), conservatives were hysterically fearful that their ancient enemies, the Communist Party and the revived and renewed Partido Socialista, would win open elections and burn their churches, nationalize their property and otherwise make their lives miserable. These people were too many and too well organized --- for example in the armed forces and in church organizations -- to be ignored. Outside of the ideological Right, minority nationalities (including but not limited to the Catalans, Basques and Gallegos) and rural provinces with small populations feared that their rights would be ignored in outright majority rule. A third fear, widely shared by people of varying ideologies, was that with so many new parties contending for power, the system would be as unstable as Italy, and worse, that the instablity would invite a new military coup.
The compromise worked out in 1977 and institutionalized in the 1978 constitution was designed to guarantee representation for even the least populous districts and to exaggerate the winning party's share of power, to ensure that it had sufficient seats to resist threats of "no confidence" votes.
It is a parliamentary system in which no one votes for president. Although portraits of Mariano Rajoy, leader of the Partido Popular (the largest party of the opposition), José Rodríguez Zapatero, leader of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español and incumbent President of the Government, and Gaspar Llamazares of Izquierda Unida appear throughout Spain in every available space, their names will appear on the ballot only in Madrid -- as candidates for diputado, not presidente.
In each electoral district, people vote for candidates for diputado (member of parliament), from the list of candidates presented by each party. The elected deputies -- a total of 350, a number that has been constant since 1978 -- then vote on which of them will become presidente del gobierno. If one party wins a majority of deputies, its leader becomes presidente del gobierno and it forms the government. More often (as in the last election, 2004), no party wins an absolute majority, so the party with the most deputies (in 2004 that was the Socialists) must enter into agreement with smaller parties to get their vote (and usually make programmatic concessions or include the smaller party's members in the government). It is not possible in Spain (as is currently the situation in the U.S.) for the president to be of one party and the legislature of another -- whichever party (or coalition of parties) has the most deputies, chooses the president.
So far, no problem. The problem comes in the way those deputies are elected, which gives exaggerated weight to small provinces and grossly underrepresents the smaller parties.
Spain is divided into 52 congressional districts (circunscripciones), the 50 provinces plus the two urban enclaves in Africa, Ceuta and Melilla. These are very unequal in population, but each province gets two deputies automatically just for being a province (Ceuta and Melilla get one each). Thus 102 parliamentary seats (out of the 350 total) are assigned without regard to the population they represent. Only the remaining 248 parliamentary seats are assigned according to population. The number may vary slightly from election to election, as relative population shifts. In 2004 the Community of Madrid, with over 6 million inhabitants, had a total of 35 deputies (2 for its territory plus 33 as its proportion of the 248 other seats), and Barcelona, the second largest, with a population of 5.3 million, had 31 (2 + 29). The nine smallest provinces, with populations ranging from only 93,593 (Soria) up to 220,000 (Huesca) had 3 diputados each (2 + 1). Thus a vote in Soria (3 seats divided by 93,500) is weighted roughly 6 times as heavily as a vote in Madrid (35 seats divided by 6 million) or Barcelona (31 seats divided by 5.3 million).
The system is further skewed by the way votes are translated into parliamentary seats. To ensure that the party with the most votes could form a stable government, the makers of the 1978 constitution adopted a complicated system invented by a Belgian mathematician, Victor d'Hondt (1841-1901), which overweights the larger votes. (For an explanation, see D'Hondt Method - Wikipedia).
The Partido Popular has an especially strong following in the least populous, most conservative provinces; in all but 1 of the 9 smallest, the PP won 2 of the 3 available seats in 2004 and the PSOE picked up the remaining seat. (The exception was Huesca, where proportions were reversed). Thus: (1) by winning more seats in the little provinces where votes are most heavily weighted, the Partido Popular needs fewer votes per deputy than the PSOE, and both parties (PP & PSOE) need fewer votes per deputy than any of the smaller competing parties. In 2004, the PSOE won 42.6% of the votes and almost 47% of the seats (164 deputies), but the disproportion for the PP was greater: 37.7% of the votes, but 42.3% of the seats (148 deputies). The third largest vote-getter, Izquierda Unida, with 5% of the votes, but none of the smaller provinces, took only 5 seats, slightly over 1%. (2) To win a seat in a province with 5 or fewer representatives, you need at least 20% of the votes, or 25% if there are only 4 deputies, etc., whereas in Madrid or Barcelona you can get elected with about 3%. This puts the third largest party, Izquierda Unida, at a great disadvantage, because its supporters don't reach 20% anywhere. Nationwide, in 2004 IU won 5% of the votes, but instead of 17 deputies (5% of 350), won only 5 seats: 2 each in Barcelona and Madrid, plus 1 in Valencia (the next largest province, with 16 deputies). (3) Regional, ethnic-based parties do better with fewer votes than the IU because their supporters are more concentrated geographically and can win even in some of the constituencies with as few as 6 representatives, as well as in the larger cities of their regions. Thus the conservative Catalonian party CiU (Convergència i Unió), with only 3.2% of the votes, won 10 seats in 2004. The Basque national party PNV, with only 1.6% of the votes, got 7 seats.
This is why Gaspar Llamazares, leader of Izquierda Unida, complains that his party (whose supporters are widespread, not concentrated in any one electoral district) needs three times as many votes to get the same number of parliamentary seats, and demands a reform of the electoral law. (See Gaspar Llamazares responde). It is also why he is not likely to get it -- the two largest parties, which would have to agree to any reform, are doing just fine the way things are. It's not fair, but that's the way it is.
Any superficial resemblances between the two campaigns are due to the globalization of electoral techniques, most of them invented in recent years in the U.S. but now widely imitated in Mexico, Guatemala, Ukraine and other places. They include attack ads on TV, the use of SMS and Internet to create rapid rallies, the color coordination and choreography of banners and chants at those rallies for television, the instigation of bloggers and radio talk-show hosts to launch unprovable accusations against opponents, and insistent use of a few carefully chosen photos of the party's leader.
But the real dynamics of political mobilization (often mistaken for the democratic process) are radically different, because the issues, the social history and constitutional system in each of these countries are different. Here I'll try to understand the peculiarities of the Spanish process and how it came about.
In the rocky period known as "the Transition" when Spain was struggling to create a new society after the death of Francisco Franco (November, 1975), conservatives were hysterically fearful that their ancient enemies, the Communist Party and the revived and renewed Partido Socialista, would win open elections and burn their churches, nationalize their property and otherwise make their lives miserable. These people were too many and too well organized --- for example in the armed forces and in church organizations -- to be ignored. Outside of the ideological Right, minority nationalities (including but not limited to the Catalans, Basques and Gallegos) and rural provinces with small populations feared that their rights would be ignored in outright majority rule. A third fear, widely shared by people of varying ideologies, was that with so many new parties contending for power, the system would be as unstable as Italy, and worse, that the instablity would invite a new military coup.
The compromise worked out in 1977 and institutionalized in the 1978 constitution was designed to guarantee representation for even the least populous districts and to exaggerate the winning party's share of power, to ensure that it had sufficient seats to resist threats of "no confidence" votes.
It is a parliamentary system in which no one votes for president. Although portraits of Mariano Rajoy, leader of the Partido Popular (the largest party of the opposition), José Rodríguez Zapatero, leader of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español and incumbent President of the Government, and Gaspar Llamazares of Izquierda Unida appear throughout Spain in every available space, their names will appear on the ballot only in Madrid -- as candidates for diputado, not presidente.
In each electoral district, people vote for candidates for diputado (member of parliament), from the list of candidates presented by each party. The elected deputies -- a total of 350, a number that has been constant since 1978 -- then vote on which of them will become presidente del gobierno. If one party wins a majority of deputies, its leader becomes presidente del gobierno and it forms the government. More often (as in the last election, 2004), no party wins an absolute majority, so the party with the most deputies (in 2004 that was the Socialists) must enter into agreement with smaller parties to get their vote (and usually make programmatic concessions or include the smaller party's members in the government). It is not possible in Spain (as is currently the situation in the U.S.) for the president to be of one party and the legislature of another -- whichever party (or coalition of parties) has the most deputies, chooses the president.
So far, no problem. The problem comes in the way those deputies are elected, which gives exaggerated weight to small provinces and grossly underrepresents the smaller parties.
Spain is divided into 52 congressional districts (circunscripciones), the 50 provinces plus the two urban enclaves in Africa, Ceuta and Melilla. These are very unequal in population, but each province gets two deputies automatically just for being a province (Ceuta and Melilla get one each). Thus 102 parliamentary seats (out of the 350 total) are assigned without regard to the population they represent. Only the remaining 248 parliamentary seats are assigned according to population. The number may vary slightly from election to election, as relative population shifts. In 2004 the Community of Madrid, with over 6 million inhabitants, had a total of 35 deputies (2 for its territory plus 33 as its proportion of the 248 other seats), and Barcelona, the second largest, with a population of 5.3 million, had 31 (2 + 29). The nine smallest provinces, with populations ranging from only 93,593 (Soria) up to 220,000 (Huesca) had 3 diputados each (2 + 1). Thus a vote in Soria (3 seats divided by 93,500) is weighted roughly 6 times as heavily as a vote in Madrid (35 seats divided by 6 million) or Barcelona (31 seats divided by 5.3 million).
The system is further skewed by the way votes are translated into parliamentary seats. To ensure that the party with the most votes could form a stable government, the makers of the 1978 constitution adopted a complicated system invented by a Belgian mathematician, Victor d'Hondt (1841-1901), which overweights the larger votes. (For an explanation, see D'Hondt Method - Wikipedia).
The Partido Popular has an especially strong following in the least populous, most conservative provinces; in all but 1 of the 9 smallest, the PP won 2 of the 3 available seats in 2004 and the PSOE picked up the remaining seat. (The exception was Huesca, where proportions were reversed). Thus: (1) by winning more seats in the little provinces where votes are most heavily weighted, the Partido Popular needs fewer votes per deputy than the PSOE, and both parties (PP & PSOE) need fewer votes per deputy than any of the smaller competing parties. In 2004, the PSOE won 42.6% of the votes and almost 47% of the seats (164 deputies), but the disproportion for the PP was greater: 37.7% of the votes, but 42.3% of the seats (148 deputies). The third largest vote-getter, Izquierda Unida, with 5% of the votes, but none of the smaller provinces, took only 5 seats, slightly over 1%. (2) To win a seat in a province with 5 or fewer representatives, you need at least 20% of the votes, or 25% if there are only 4 deputies, etc., whereas in Madrid or Barcelona you can get elected with about 3%. This puts the third largest party, Izquierda Unida, at a great disadvantage, because its supporters don't reach 20% anywhere. Nationwide, in 2004 IU won 5% of the votes, but instead of 17 deputies (5% of 350), won only 5 seats: 2 each in Barcelona and Madrid, plus 1 in Valencia (the next largest province, with 16 deputies). (3) Regional, ethnic-based parties do better with fewer votes than the IU because their supporters are more concentrated geographically and can win even in some of the constituencies with as few as 6 representatives, as well as in the larger cities of their regions. Thus the conservative Catalonian party CiU (Convergència i Unió), with only 3.2% of the votes, won 10 seats in 2004. The Basque national party PNV, with only 1.6% of the votes, got 7 seats.
This is why Gaspar Llamazares, leader of Izquierda Unida, complains that his party (whose supporters are widespread, not concentrated in any one electoral district) needs three times as many votes to get the same number of parliamentary seats, and demands a reform of the electoral law. (See Gaspar Llamazares responde). It is also why he is not likely to get it -- the two largest parties, which would have to agree to any reform, are doing just fine the way things are. It's not fair, but that's the way it is.
2008/02/27
Venezuela again
An excellent review of the strengths and shortcomings of Hugo Chávez's charismatic leadership appears in the March 10 issue of The Nation: Chávez's Fix, by Daniel Wilkinson.
I'll have something to say about the intense and nasty electoral campaign in Spain shortly. I was in Madrid the past two weeks, where I didn't have easy (home) access to the Internet and also had a touch of fever, which seemed to me to be two good excuses to miss last week's blog deadline. Instead, I spent what writing energy I could summon on my personal priority, the novel on a great historical conflict that I'm anxious to complete.
I'll have something to say about the intense and nasty electoral campaign in Spain shortly. I was in Madrid the past two weeks, where I didn't have easy (home) access to the Internet and also had a touch of fever, which seemed to me to be two good excuses to miss last week's blog deadline. Instead, I spent what writing energy I could summon on my personal priority, the novel on a great historical conflict that I'm anxious to complete.
2008/02/11
A qualification: not so tactical
Yesterday I wrote of Spain's Partido Popular that it "is mainly a tactical alliance for winning elections, sort of like other parties we know." That is, an organization where opportunity to win political power trumps ideology.
Not so fast. The party's biggest vote-getter, Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, has been excluded from the PP's electoral lists in a very public humiliation (orchestrated by his biggest in-party rival, Madrid region president Esperanza Aguirre) and is having to defend himself against attacks by the PPs favorite radio commentator, who in his program on the bishops' radio station COPE has repeatedly called him "traitor," an infiltrator from the Socialists, and a man who cares nothing about the victims of the 2004 Atocha train station bombing, etc.
The PP's putative leader, Mariano Rajoy, boasts of his and his party's "common sense," which would seem to imply pragmatism. His "common sense" consists of smiling blandly while harder-liners in his party tear each other apart. So I have to revise my original statement:
The Partido Popular is mainly a very loose tactical alliance among diverse factions pretending to agree on principles but actually seeking power for their own regional, ideological, or old-boy networks; the alliance functions only when the various factional bosses can see "there's something in it for me."
Not so fast. The party's biggest vote-getter, Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, has been excluded from the PP's electoral lists in a very public humiliation (orchestrated by his biggest in-party rival, Madrid region president Esperanza Aguirre) and is having to defend himself against attacks by the PPs favorite radio commentator, who in his program on the bishops' radio station COPE has repeatedly called him "traitor," an infiltrator from the Socialists, and a man who cares nothing about the victims of the 2004 Atocha train station bombing, etc.
The PP's putative leader, Mariano Rajoy, boasts of his and his party's "common sense," which would seem to imply pragmatism. His "common sense" consists of smiling blandly while harder-liners in his party tear each other apart. So I have to revise my original statement:
The Partido Popular is mainly a very loose tactical alliance among diverse factions pretending to agree on principles but actually seeking power for their own regional, ideological, or old-boy networks; the alliance functions only when the various factional bosses can see "there's something in it for me."
2008/02/10
Claiming the soul of Spain
My apologies for failing to deliver last week’s scheduled essay on Spain – other things came up that had to take priority. To compensate, today I offer not two essays, but one on two aspects of the intense contest for the elections scheduled for March 9. The right-wing Partido Popular is still behind in the polls, but rapidly gaining ground on the governing Socialists. And they (the PP) will stop at nothing to gain a few more percentage points, exploiting every stratagem and, of course, misrepresenting everything (quite a lot, in fact) that the Socialist government has accomplished in this legislature.The first dramatic new twist has been the Catholic Church’s vigorous irruption into the campaign on the side of the PP, creating dilemmas for both sides. The second is the Partido Popular’s latest stratagem to steal votes from the Socialist Party base, its (so-far, verbal) assault on immigrants.
First, a quick historical summary to understand who the players are.
Spain, at the beginning of the 20th century one of Western Europe’s most backward countries, began its exuberant entry into the modern world in 1931. That was when the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), after half a century of struggle, and its allies, including the newer Communist Party and most liberal intellectuals, won elections and proclaimed the Second Republic – i.e., a democratic polity without a king. Democracy, land-reform, equal rights for women, and modern secular education were among the novelties, mobilizing workers, peasants and urban middle-class people who never before had had much to say about how they were governed. The Civil War (1936-39) and the triumph of Francisco Franco’s falangistas undid all of that, and Franco’s regime tried to set the country back into the structures of domination of the 19th and even earlier centuries. It was only after his death in 1975 that the process could begin again. After a confused and highly conflictive interim, a revived and invigorated PSOE led by Felipe González swept the first democratic national elections. González was re-elected President of the Government for four terms (1982-1996), usually by wide margins.
Meanwhile, the conservative opposition regrouped as the “Alianza Popular” which later transformed itself into the Partido Popular. It was not really “popular,” that is, of the common people, the working-class majority. Rather it included military officers trained in Franco-ist authoritarianism, organizations of civilian fascists and racists nostalgic for the old Franco regime, forward-thinking and even liberal entrepreneurs who considered socialism bad for business (especially their business), conservative Catholics who associated socialism with persecution of the Church, and all those opposed to one or another of the Socialist government’s many social reforms, whether in labor, gender, pedagogical or regional autonomy issues. From the beginning, the only things that held this disparate group together were opposition to the Socialists (but for the most varied and contradictory reasons) and the desire for power – that is, the Party is mainly a tactical alliance for winning elections, sort of like other parties we know.
The PP has always been hampered by its own in-fighting and by the bad reputation of some of its elements, but finally, in 1996, after a scandal involving secret police operations against the Basque ETA, it got its chance and won national election. Its leader, José María Aznar, even won re-election in 2000, serving until 2004. In that year, after massive protests against his involvement of Spain in Bush’s war in Iraq, followed by widespread disgust over government deceptions about the bloody bombing of the Atocha train station (see my article, Historic reversal: Bombs & ballots in Spain), the PP lost and the PSOE, now led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, returned to power.
I’m reminding us of this history so that we keep in mind that the PSOE is a very deeply-rooted Spanish party, with a history of trade union and even military combativeness and commanding the loyalties of a very large part of the Spanish population, in every province. The PP, which claims to represent the most ancient Spanish values, is barely 25 years old and is still mostly an alliance of political opportunists, outright fascists, entrenched and corrupt local political bosses, and that dwindling minority of Spaniards who take the Church’s word as Holy Gospel. For example, in Murcia, 14 of the 19 or so mayors on trial for corruption (requalifying unqualifiable land as "urbanizable" for juicy kickbacks from real estate developers) are members of the PP; the Socialists have a few bad apples, too, very few, considering the temptations available to mayors in Spain's frenzied development boom. For the PP mayors, kick-backs and perks seem to be the norm and the reason for running for office. But all that is old news. For the past few months, the PP has begun to act like a Vatican front organization.
The Spanish bishops' outright denunciation of one political party -- the Socialists, of course -- and impassioned declarations that if you vote for it, you are not a good Catholic, has created quite a stir and lots of funny cartoons. The PSOE reacted indignantly, but on second thought, may not really mind. It's the other guys, the PP, who look embarassed by this unsolicited endorsement. They want the hard-core Catholic vote, but they can't afford to look like a hard-core Catholic party, because that will scare away more people than it attracts.
Does Europe have a soul? And is Spain its special guardian, against the threats of foreign doctrines and foreign peoples?
The honchos of Spain’s PP seem to think so. Although in campaign speeches they fudge the theology (to win the national elections on March 9, they will need many votes of non- Catholics), they hint broadly that Europe’s soul is God-given and that Spain is where it lives in purest form. And the big threat is all those foreigners.
In summary, PP presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy has announced that if elected (Heaven forfend!), he will demand that prospective immigrants sign a "contract" that they will obey all Spanish laws, strive to learn the language, and adopt "Spanish customs." The first is institutionally superfluous -- everybody is Spain is already required to obey the law, though not everybody does, and those who don't are as likely to be Spaniards as foreigners. The second, learning the language, is also unnecessary; those immigrants come here to make a living, and they know that to do that they have to speak Spanish, or in Catalunya, Spanish and Catalan. And the last point, adopting "Spanish customs," has been a source of great hilarity and more cartoons (see above, by Peridis). Which Spanish customs? immigrant workers ask. Knocking off work early, spitting on the floor, midday siestas? (Actually, spitting here isn't all that common, but if it happens at all some of the immigrants find it especially repulsive).
Then last night Rajoy dropped another bomb, or let loose another peo (fart): he would take away the right of homosexual couples to adopt children. That right was granted by the legislature and is now Spanish law. This is the first time since Franco that a major politician has proposed eliminating already instituted rights.
If Spain does have a soul, it has one in the same sense that you and I have one: not something eternal and given by some deity with designs of his/its own, but a character, a way of thinking, a set of responses that help us deal with everything we have to deal with. A "self," as discussed in earlier notes here. And in Spain, both parties are parts of that self, and the PSOE is the better part. Boy, I hope they win. It's important not just for Spain, but all of Europe --especially as an example of enlightened immigration policy, gender equality, sexual orientation equality, workers' rights. I hope the rose in the fist wins against the cardinal's mitre and the whip.
2008/01/28
2008/01/27
The view from here
The world looks different from this little town in Spain than it did from New York, where I lived for more than 25 years. Especially, America looks different -- the U.S. of A. and all the other countries of that hemisphere.
To start with, the U.S. electoral process is hard to explain to Spaniards. How is it that that whole huge country can sustain a campaign of so many months, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people and costing millions or even billions of dollars, just so that the parties can choose their presidential candidates? Especially when, after all, there are only two parties, which should make things simpler than here. And why is that? Why has no third party emerged or survived, and why are there no important regional parties? The answers must be historical, geographical and legal, but back in the U.S., few of us ever raise the questions. I think they are things we should be asking ourselves -- there are alternative systems, representing a much wider range of views.
The campaign process fascinates Spaniards because so much here and everywhere else in the world seems to hang on the outcome. Or maybe not, because there's no guarantee that the next U.S. president, whoever he or she may be, will do anything about the most grievous of the problems created by his/her predecessors -- except probably closing down Guantánamo prison camp, as an embarrassment, though possibly continuing the tortures and abuses in other sites.
Hillary or Barack? my Spanish friends ask me. Gee, I don't know -- either one would open up the democratic process in the U.S., and that would be good. But how much difference will it make to the rest of the world? Nobody among the candidates has a convincing proposal for ending the war and undoing the damage to Iraq, and none even hints at a rational, comprehensive Mideast policy including a firm attitude toward Israel, such as cutting off support until that country begins obeying international law. And the lack of such a policy is a major stimulus (though not the only one) to the turmoil and violence spilling out from that region to Spain, Belgium, France, the U.K. and elsewhere.
The bizarre and complicated pre-presidential campaign in selected states of the United States seems likely to affect lives of everybody else, in some ways. But nobody knows how or -- except for voters in those selected states -- can do much about it. In a presidential system, the chief executive can get away with just about anything (invasions, wire-tapping, secret or overt funding of favored causes) as long as it doesn't affect the most powerful vested interests. That kind of power far beyond the country's borders seems really frightening, especially to people who don't even have the privilege of voting in the U.S. People who do have the privilege should be frightened, too.
The other parts of America also look different from here -- the parts that speak Spanish or Portuguese. Spain has complicated but basically good relations with those countries, most of the time, and takes them much more seriously than does the government of the U.S. For generations, migration flowed from peninsular Spain to those ex-colonies, where opportunities seemed much greater. Since the restoration of democracy in Spain and the 1982 constitution, that flow has been reversed -- because the economy has grown and civil rights have become much more secure than in much of Latin America. Spanish companies are heavily invested in every Latin American country, and the Spanish governments, national and regional, grant extensive aid in many of them.
But then, after looking from here at the globe, I turn back to Spain and see that a lot of what gets the media and some voters most excited is overblown. ETA terrorism is a real problem, but not one that deserves so much more press than the far graver threat of Islamist terrorism, which is international but includes Spanish institutions among its targets. The Islamists have killed many more Spaniards lately (Atocha, Casablanca), but the Basque ETA is useful in divisive politics -- the PP accuses the governing PSOE of being soft on ETA; focusing on Al Qaeda might foster national unity, which doesn't sell papers or mobilize party voters.
Behind ETA is the whole "nationalism" question, which seems archaic -- Do Basques or Catalans really want to become an independent new country in Europe? What would either of them gain, in terms of rights or economic benefits or anything else, in a Europe with a common currency and where national borders are becoming less and less relevant? As for the Basques, could they even really become a single, new independent country? For example, could the French Basques get along with the Spanish ones, or the sophisticated urbanites of Bilbao with the their rural countrymen? And could they even agree on what language, or which dialect of Basque, to use? What would they do about the very large non-Basque population of the so-called Basque Country? And so on -- questions that could only be settled by patient negotiations, not by bombs, kale borroka (street violence) or assassinations. Or by outlawing political parties.
And then there's "the Church" (because in Spain, there's only one billing itself as "the true Church"). Why does anybody pay attention to a group of robed fanatics so terrified by sex that they insist that their savior was born to a virgin? But those self-repressed men in purple have managed to infect others with their fears and close down perfectly legal abortion clinics in the past few weeks, creating enormous problems for hundreds of women. Some of those women have made their own internationalist response: they've maxed out their credit cards to flee to France, where the hospitals treat them courteously and professionally in the national health service.
To start with, the U.S. electoral process is hard to explain to Spaniards. How is it that that whole huge country can sustain a campaign of so many months, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people and costing millions or even billions of dollars, just so that the parties can choose their presidential candidates? Especially when, after all, there are only two parties, which should make things simpler than here. And why is that? Why has no third party emerged or survived, and why are there no important regional parties? The answers must be historical, geographical and legal, but back in the U.S., few of us ever raise the questions. I think they are things we should be asking ourselves -- there are alternative systems, representing a much wider range of views.
The campaign process fascinates Spaniards because so much here and everywhere else in the world seems to hang on the outcome. Or maybe not, because there's no guarantee that the next U.S. president, whoever he or she may be, will do anything about the most grievous of the problems created by his/her predecessors -- except probably closing down Guantánamo prison camp, as an embarrassment, though possibly continuing the tortures and abuses in other sites.
Hillary or Barack? my Spanish friends ask me. Gee, I don't know -- either one would open up the democratic process in the U.S., and that would be good. But how much difference will it make to the rest of the world? Nobody among the candidates has a convincing proposal for ending the war and undoing the damage to Iraq, and none even hints at a rational, comprehensive Mideast policy including a firm attitude toward Israel, such as cutting off support until that country begins obeying international law. And the lack of such a policy is a major stimulus (though not the only one) to the turmoil and violence spilling out from that region to Spain, Belgium, France, the U.K. and elsewhere.
The bizarre and complicated pre-presidential campaign in selected states of the United States seems likely to affect lives of everybody else, in some ways. But nobody knows how or -- except for voters in those selected states -- can do much about it. In a presidential system, the chief executive can get away with just about anything (invasions, wire-tapping, secret or overt funding of favored causes) as long as it doesn't affect the most powerful vested interests. That kind of power far beyond the country's borders seems really frightening, especially to people who don't even have the privilege of voting in the U.S. People who do have the privilege should be frightened, too.
The other parts of America also look different from here -- the parts that speak Spanish or Portuguese. Spain has complicated but basically good relations with those countries, most of the time, and takes them much more seriously than does the government of the U.S. For generations, migration flowed from peninsular Spain to those ex-colonies, where opportunities seemed much greater. Since the restoration of democracy in Spain and the 1982 constitution, that flow has been reversed -- because the economy has grown and civil rights have become much more secure than in much of Latin America. Spanish companies are heavily invested in every Latin American country, and the Spanish governments, national and regional, grant extensive aid in many of them.
But then, after looking from here at the globe, I turn back to Spain and see that a lot of what gets the media and some voters most excited is overblown. ETA terrorism is a real problem, but not one that deserves so much more press than the far graver threat of Islamist terrorism, which is international but includes Spanish institutions among its targets. The Islamists have killed many more Spaniards lately (Atocha, Casablanca), but the Basque ETA is useful in divisive politics -- the PP accuses the governing PSOE of being soft on ETA; focusing on Al Qaeda might foster national unity, which doesn't sell papers or mobilize party voters.
Behind ETA is the whole "nationalism" question, which seems archaic -- Do Basques or Catalans really want to become an independent new country in Europe? What would either of them gain, in terms of rights or economic benefits or anything else, in a Europe with a common currency and where national borders are becoming less and less relevant? As for the Basques, could they even really become a single, new independent country? For example, could the French Basques get along with the Spanish ones, or the sophisticated urbanites of Bilbao with the their rural countrymen? And could they even agree on what language, or which dialect of Basque, to use? What would they do about the very large non-Basque population of the so-called Basque Country? And so on -- questions that could only be settled by patient negotiations, not by bombs, kale borroka (street violence) or assassinations. Or by outlawing political parties.
And then there's "the Church" (because in Spain, there's only one billing itself as "the true Church"). Why does anybody pay attention to a group of robed fanatics so terrified by sex that they insist that their savior was born to a virgin? But those self-repressed men in purple have managed to infect others with their fears and close down perfectly legal abortion clinics in the past few weeks, creating enormous problems for hundreds of women. Some of those women have made their own internationalist response: they've maxed out their credit cards to flee to France, where the hospitals treat them courteously and professionally in the national health service.
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