I love my country -- the U.S.A. -- for its great potential, its guarantees of freedom to think, explore, question, invent and act. And yet, here are so many of my compatriots determined to restrict that freedom, to demand one and one only way of thinking and believing -- a lot of them in Texas.
We will never defeat the anti-thinkers totally, because the demand for ignorance is eternally reborn and encouraged by those who profit from it. But we must hold them at bay, or risk creating a Christian version of Iran's theocracy, or more likely, just dumbing down our population to the point where we won't be able to compete at all with places with smarter, more questioning kids. How Christian Were the Founders? - NYTimes.com
2010/02/13
2010/02/08
Justice -- a justice -- pursued
All world-aware citizens outside of Spain must be stunned by the news that Judge Baltasar Garzón, who pursued state-sponsored terrorists from Augusto Pinochet to Argentina to the U.S.'s Guantánamo, is in danger of suspension because he has dared investigate the state crimes of Franco and his followers in his own country.In case you missed this -- I know, the world is full of crises, and it's hard to keep up on all of them -- here's the background: As an administrative magistrate, it is Garzón's job to investigate supposed crimes to determine whether there is cause for trial, and if so, to determine (a) if such a trial would be in his jurisdiction and (b) if not, to remand it to the appropriate court. That is, part of his job is to do what a grand jury does in the U.S. system, i.e., first decide whether there is a case.
The Audiencia Nacional, the penal court with jurisdiction over the entire country, is served by six investigative judges, but -- presumably because of Garzón's reputation and the attention he gets in the media -- many of the most ticklish issues end up in Section No. 5, Garzón's. In the course of his career he has taken on some of the most powerful and dangerous groups in the country. He was, very briefly (in 1993), part of Socialist goverment of Felipe González, and is generally supposed to have Socialist Party leanings, but he returned to the bench and led an extremely damaging inquiry of that government in 1998, for state terrorist tactics against ETA (a secret police group pretending to be independent activists were assassinating ETA members) This was not out of any fondness for ETA, but (he maintains) out of a very strict and uncompromising devotion to legality. He has in fact been one of the most aggressive judges pursuing ETA itself -- he has been creative (in the vew of some, too creative) in his interpretations of laws to isolate that terrorist organization from its civilian support network. And he has taken on other notable foes, including the U.S. government of George W. Bush, arguing the illegality of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Lately, as though he didn't have enough enemies, he has been very aggressive in pursuing political corruption in deeply entrenched, very well-connected Partido Popular (Aznar's party, in power in several autonomous communities and likely to return to national power).
But back to the Franco investigation. Groups of survivors of people killed in the military rebellion and civil war of 1936-39 or by the Franco military regime after the war petitioned him to order the opening of the unmarked graves to determine identities of the dead and causes of death. He began his preliminary investigation, summoning hitherto secret records of the armed forces and of the Catholic Church, which knew were many of the bones were buried but was not at all interested in telling. For the Church the only martyrs worth remembering are those who were Catholic, killed by Godless Communists, Socialists or anarchists -- there were many of these, but they have been well remembered.
The Church feared that mentioning all those Godless Republicans killed by Catholics would open up old wounds; the survivors said that those wounds were already open, and the only way to close them was to find out the truth. In any case, and whatever the political or psycological consequences, Garzón saw his job as finding out that truth, and so subpenoed documents and witnesses. And now an investigative judge of Spain's Supreme Court, Luciano Varela Castro, has accepted complaints against Garzón by an ultra right outfit of ex-government functionaries, Manos Limpias, and -- this is especially startling -- the Falange, the Fascist party that backed Franco. The charge is that Garzón knowingly exceeded his authority (in Spain that's called prevaricación) by investigating the supposed crimes of Franco, because the Spanish courts had declared a Law of Amnesty -- in 1977, that is, just two years after Franco's death, when Spanish judges were still all Franco appointees.
It was all very well for Garzón or another internationally-minded judge to decide that human rights violations do not prescribe in Uganda or Chile or Argentina or Rwanda or Bosnia. But in Spain a Franco-ist self-amnesty must be respected, says the Falange and at least one judge of the Supreme Court.
It's not over yet, and not every judge on the Supreme Court agrees with Varela Castro, but it looks bad for Spain's -- and possibly the world's -- most famous judge. This is just another sign that the Spanish Civil War is not yet over.
2010/02/05
"Breakthrough"
I just submitted my entry for this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. I thought you might be interested to see what I came up with as the "pitch," what might appear on the back cover of the printed book. Here it is:
A great city, attacked by enemies of its faith and urbanity and betrayed from within, calls upon its faith, cynicism, and chicanery to survive and seduce its anti-urban adversaries. In the summer of 1402, as the walls of Christian Constantinople tremble under Ottoman siege machines, acting ruler Ioannes VII secretly sends Ottoman Sultan “Thunderbolt” Bayezid a gift -- including the key to the city and 14-year old Princess Theodota Palaiologina for the harem. But before this surrender can be consummated, the sultan suspends his siege to confront the khan Timur (Tamerlane) who has invaded from the east, and the princess, key and treasure are entrusted to the gazi Arslanshahin (“Lionhawk”), an Islamic war chief, to deliver. To prevent the battle with Timur, Arslanshahin must reach the sultan quickly -- the conquest of Christendom’s most holy city will bring such prestige as to prevent another Muslim from attacking. But the gazi’s band of horse archers is slowed in the Anatolian mountains by their burden of treasure-laden camels and the Greek-speaking Christian princess, her demands and her retinue. Theodota, believing herself to be on a divine mission to convert her captors, makes contact with a Greek-born janissary with a confusion of loyalties, a multilingual Serbian slave girl and the resourceful Turkish women accompanying the warriors, and develops an intense and conflictive relationship with the gazi who is both her captor and protector. The novel conveys the passions of the conflicting faiths in a historically accurate portrayal of this tense moment, just half a century before the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmet the Conqueror. It will appeal to all those eager to understand the background of Christianity’s complicated relations with Islam today, and especially to those who have enjoyed International Booker Prize-winner Ismail Kadare’s novel The Siege or the works of Orhan Pamuk.
2010/02/02
Mother Spain and her difficult daughters
When a Peruvian friend heard, his voice trembled at the thought that I would be moving to la madre patria, the "mother-fatherland." I laughed and explained that, for me, Spain was more like an adoptive "tía abuela" (great-aunt) -- my known ancestors all hailed from more northern parts of Europe.
My Spanish American friends tend to have strong, ambivalent feelings about the Madre Patria, and because I had lived and worked for so many years in the former Spanish colonies, I shared those ambivalences. Madrileños were said to be arrogant and racist, contemptuous of Latin Americans who failed to speak with their ridiculous, effeminate lisp. Gallegos were said to be dull-witted and suspicious, catalanes shrewd and money-grubbing, and andaluces simpáticos and frivolous and not to be taken seriously. Other Spaniards -- e.g., asturianos, vascos or leoneses -- barely existed in our mental picture of the country.
These thoughts and some scant knowledge of the history -- there had been a terrible civil war, and then the cruel Franco dictatorship -- and some poetry of García Lorca were what I had in my head when I arrived on my first visit in the summer of 1981. Franco had died 6 years earlier, but an assault on parliament in February 1981 had very nearly succeeded in restoring his repressive system. (See the note by my alter ego, Baltasar Lotroyo, on this dangerous moment: Un instante que sigue reverberando.) The scary Guardias Civiles were still parading around with their bandoliers, three-corner hats and submachine guns, and the stirrings that would give rise two years later to the huge Socialist Party victory were barely discernible to a visitor.
And I had a wonderful time, made even better by the fact that I had expected to be miserable. The Guardias Civiles who approached when I had a flat in my rented car turned out to be shy and eager to help --even willing to get their uniforms dirty to crank up the jack. Nobody laughed at my accent, though I spoke like a South American, pronouncing Z's like S's. And the music, the food, the wine, the laughter, the kindness of people, the fascinating layers of history visible in caves and castles -- you can see my reactions in this poem I wrote at the end of my trip, Las cosas buenas de Andalucía.
And now, since 2006, we are living here, in Andalucía. Spain has changed enormously, mostly for the better: the democratic system has been greatly strengthened, the country is far more prosperous, and both the government and its many civil organizations are very active in aid of all sorts to needier countries, for example in the current crisis in Haiti. There are many other examples, some of them controversial, such as the military presence in Lebanon and Afghanistan, but all of them obeying a sense of obligation and international solidarity. Spain has in particular been a major contributor to economic development and cultural programs in its former colonies.
Many Latin Americans have by now forgiven Spain for the massacres of the conquistadores, the Inquisition and expoliation, for two compelling reasons: They see that Spain is no longer the same country it was in its imperial days, and they have seen that crimes like those are not specifically Spanish. In fact, Spain was a refuge for many Latin Americans fleeing the barbarism of military regimes in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and elsewhere in the Americas in the 1980s.
But 2010 is the bicentennial of the first cries of independence, the beginning of the wars that finally "liberated" most of Spain's American colonies. The anger of two centuries ago, and beyond to the 300+ years of colonization, is now an atavism, but still kept alive by nationalist politicians, and we'll be hearing demands for apologies and reparations. Spain has more than apologized: its historians and musicians and writers embrace and are embraced by their counterparts everywhere in the Spanish-speaking world. And as for reparations, Spain's sponsorship of schools, hospitals and development projects in the bast 30 years has been exceptionally generous for an economy of its size. But the ambivalence persists, and so will angry cries of victimhood. So be ware.
My Spanish American friends tend to have strong, ambivalent feelings about the Madre Patria, and because I had lived and worked for so many years in the former Spanish colonies, I shared those ambivalences. Madrileños were said to be arrogant and racist, contemptuous of Latin Americans who failed to speak with their ridiculous, effeminate lisp. Gallegos were said to be dull-witted and suspicious, catalanes shrewd and money-grubbing, and andaluces simpáticos and frivolous and not to be taken seriously. Other Spaniards -- e.g., asturianos, vascos or leoneses -- barely existed in our mental picture of the country.
These thoughts and some scant knowledge of the history -- there had been a terrible civil war, and then the cruel Franco dictatorship -- and some poetry of García Lorca were what I had in my head when I arrived on my first visit in the summer of 1981. Franco had died 6 years earlier, but an assault on parliament in February 1981 had very nearly succeeded in restoring his repressive system. (See the note by my alter ego, Baltasar Lotroyo, on this dangerous moment: Un instante que sigue reverberando.) The scary Guardias Civiles were still parading around with their bandoliers, three-corner hats and submachine guns, and the stirrings that would give rise two years later to the huge Socialist Party victory were barely discernible to a visitor.
And I had a wonderful time, made even better by the fact that I had expected to be miserable. The Guardias Civiles who approached when I had a flat in my rented car turned out to be shy and eager to help --even willing to get their uniforms dirty to crank up the jack. Nobody laughed at my accent, though I spoke like a South American, pronouncing Z's like S's. And the music, the food, the wine, the laughter, the kindness of people, the fascinating layers of history visible in caves and castles -- you can see my reactions in this poem I wrote at the end of my trip, Las cosas buenas de Andalucía.
And now, since 2006, we are living here, in Andalucía. Spain has changed enormously, mostly for the better: the democratic system has been greatly strengthened, the country is far more prosperous, and both the government and its many civil organizations are very active in aid of all sorts to needier countries, for example in the current crisis in Haiti. There are many other examples, some of them controversial, such as the military presence in Lebanon and Afghanistan, but all of them obeying a sense of obligation and international solidarity. Spain has in particular been a major contributor to economic development and cultural programs in its former colonies.
Many Latin Americans have by now forgiven Spain for the massacres of the conquistadores, the Inquisition and expoliation, for two compelling reasons: They see that Spain is no longer the same country it was in its imperial days, and they have seen that crimes like those are not specifically Spanish. In fact, Spain was a refuge for many Latin Americans fleeing the barbarism of military regimes in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and elsewhere in the Americas in the 1980s.
But 2010 is the bicentennial of the first cries of independence, the beginning of the wars that finally "liberated" most of Spain's American colonies. The anger of two centuries ago, and beyond to the 300+ years of colonization, is now an atavism, but still kept alive by nationalist politicians, and we'll be hearing demands for apologies and reparations. Spain has more than apologized: its historians and musicians and writers embrace and are embraced by their counterparts everywhere in the Spanish-speaking world. And as for reparations, Spain's sponsorship of schools, hospitals and development projects in the bast 30 years has been exceptionally generous for an economy of its size. But the ambivalence persists, and so will angry cries of victimhood. So be ware.
2010/01/31
Recent reading: On reading
Here's a fascinating book by a French brain scientist who is elegantly articulate in English. The language is important, because he uses the peculiarities of English spelling, and the consequent difficulties of inexperienced readers to interpret it, to demonstrate how many different areas of the brain must be activated to interpret something as simple as the sentence you have just read.
Stanislas Dehaene, Reading in the brain : the science and evolution of a human invention. (Viking, 2009)
When we begin to read a page of text, we don't take in the whole page or even a whole line, but visualize clearly only a very small section at a time, moving our eyes in rapid saccades. Reading requires rapid and successive interpretations of small sets of visual marks (in alphabetic writing, no more than 5-7 letters per saccade) by neurons from several regions of the brain, interrogating the symbols until the most likely hypothesis of their meaning is established. The very first operation in each saccade is to recognize the symbols as letters (rather than corporate logos, or numbers, or something else) and attribute possible sounds to them. If the symbols invariably represent a single sound (as in Italian or German), it is quickly recognized by the phonics neurons. If they may represent several possible sounds (e.g., the letters "ough" in English), other neurons from other parts of the brain must apply grammatical rules while others evaluate context (the symbols seen in previous saccades) to narrow the possible interpetations.
Recognition of symbols as letters (or phonemes or characters in nonalphabetic systems) occurs in all humans, regardless of culture or writing system, in approximately the same section of the left brain hemisphere (Dehaene calls it the "letter box"), but requires activation of other brain sections to interpret them. Recognition of simplified symbols, or "proto letters", evolved millions of years before the invention of writing, inspired by common forms seen in nature: L, Y, T etc. Even apes recognize such symbols. What humans have been able to do that apes cannot is to learn to give different interpretations to the symbols, that is, to invent writing.
"…over time, scribes developed increasingly efficient notations that fitted the organization of our brains. In brief, our cortex did not specifically evolve for writing. Rather, writing evolved to fit the cortex." Thus all writing systems in all cultures, even Chinese or the many Indian scripts, share common features: combinations of symbols of no more than 4 strokes, arranged in straight, regular lines. All (even Chinese) include some signal of sound. Those writing systems that correspond most closely to spoken sounds (e.g., Finnish, Italian, German) are the quickest for children to learn, English is the most difficult of the European languages and reading Chinese takes much longer. Phonics teaching is far superior to "whole word" approach for enabling the learner to read unfamiliar words.
There is much more to this book, including diagrams of brains and brain activity, a capsule history of the probable history of writing (how the first symbols were invented and how they evolved), anecdotes from the history of reading-brain research, an impassioned discussion of pedagogy, and chapters on dyslexia and mirror writing. It's a very complex subject, but Dehaene is a graceful writer and makes it about as clear as it can be for us non-neuroscientists.
For more on this author, see Overview - Experimental Cognitive Psychology - Stanislas Dehaene - Collège de France
Stanislas Dehaene, Reading in the brain : the science and evolution of a human invention. (Viking, 2009)
When we begin to read a page of text, we don't take in the whole page or even a whole line, but visualize clearly only a very small section at a time, moving our eyes in rapid saccades. Reading requires rapid and successive interpretations of small sets of visual marks (in alphabetic writing, no more than 5-7 letters per saccade) by neurons from several regions of the brain, interrogating the symbols until the most likely hypothesis of their meaning is established. The very first operation in each saccade is to recognize the symbols as letters (rather than corporate logos, or numbers, or something else) and attribute possible sounds to them. If the symbols invariably represent a single sound (as in Italian or German), it is quickly recognized by the phonics neurons. If they may represent several possible sounds (e.g., the letters "ough" in English), other neurons from other parts of the brain must apply grammatical rules while others evaluate context (the symbols seen in previous saccades) to narrow the possible interpetations.
Recognition of symbols as letters (or phonemes or characters in nonalphabetic systems) occurs in all humans, regardless of culture or writing system, in approximately the same section of the left brain hemisphere (Dehaene calls it the "letter box"), but requires activation of other brain sections to interpret them. Recognition of simplified symbols, or "proto letters", evolved millions of years before the invention of writing, inspired by common forms seen in nature: L, Y, T etc. Even apes recognize such symbols. What humans have been able to do that apes cannot is to learn to give different interpretations to the symbols, that is, to invent writing.
"…over time, scribes developed increasingly efficient notations that fitted the organization of our brains. In brief, our cortex did not specifically evolve for writing. Rather, writing evolved to fit the cortex." Thus all writing systems in all cultures, even Chinese or the many Indian scripts, share common features: combinations of symbols of no more than 4 strokes, arranged in straight, regular lines. All (even Chinese) include some signal of sound. Those writing systems that correspond most closely to spoken sounds (e.g., Finnish, Italian, German) are the quickest for children to learn, English is the most difficult of the European languages and reading Chinese takes much longer. Phonics teaching is far superior to "whole word" approach for enabling the learner to read unfamiliar words.
There is much more to this book, including diagrams of brains and brain activity, a capsule history of the probable history of writing (how the first symbols were invented and how they evolved), anecdotes from the history of reading-brain research, an impassioned discussion of pedagogy, and chapters on dyslexia and mirror writing. It's a very complex subject, but Dehaene is a graceful writer and makes it about as clear as it can be for us non-neuroscientists.
For more on this author, see Overview - Experimental Cognitive Psychology - Stanislas Dehaene - Collège de France
2010/01/27
Haiti’s glory and poverty
How was the richest country in the Western Hemisphere turned into the poorest?
To understand and to confront the terrible disaster that has just occurred in Haiti, it is vital to understand how wealth was destroyed and poverty constructed in that country. Otherwise we are likely to assume that the massive overcrowding of Port-au-Prince, the flimsiness of the shacks of the poor, and the deforestation and consequent impoverishment of the soil are all the fault of the people who live there.
And as long as we believe that, we will assume that the only salvation must come from us, smarter or better people from outside. And if we act on that premise, we will continue to squash the promise of that proud little country that has had so much determination and ingenuity that they defeated Napoleon, 8 years before Wellington finally stopped his career at Waterloo.
Haitians, in the western part of Hispaniola, won victory in their revolution in 1804, just 8 years after the 13 North American colonies started theirs. They financed and armed Simón Bolívar, enabling him to carry the national liberation struggle to and through South America. Their power was such that they invaded and conquered the eastern part of the island, driving the Spaniards from Santo Domingo. But then, beginning in the mid 19th century, too many forces began to conspire against them, a combination far more powerful even than Napoleon's expeditionary army. I don't yet know the full story as well as I should, but it is clear that French bankers, Arkansas rice growers, U.S. timber interests and much else was involved in destroying the national wealth. And for Haitians to regain some of it, they are going to have to free themselves of those and similar outside interventions. Aristide tried it, and made some progress before he was whisked out of the country by a frightened U.S. military. Others will try and will get further if given a chance. The poverty is reversible, I am convinced, and only the Haitians can do it.
But the starting point for understanding the country's tragic history, including hurricanes, civil wars and invasions by U.S. Marines as well as brutal exploitation of the natural and human resources, has to be the amazing revolution 200 years ago. The most stirring account I ever read is James, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1963. But if you don't have that handy, this is also good to read:
FRANKLIN W. KNIGHT | The Haitian Revolution | The American Historical Review, 105.1 | The History Cooperative
To understand and to confront the terrible disaster that has just occurred in Haiti, it is vital to understand how wealth was destroyed and poverty constructed in that country. Otherwise we are likely to assume that the massive overcrowding of Port-au-Prince, the flimsiness of the shacks of the poor, and the deforestation and consequent impoverishment of the soil are all the fault of the people who live there.
And as long as we believe that, we will assume that the only salvation must come from us, smarter or better people from outside. And if we act on that premise, we will continue to squash the promise of that proud little country that has had so much determination and ingenuity that they defeated Napoleon, 8 years before Wellington finally stopped his career at Waterloo.
Haitians, in the western part of Hispaniola, won victory in their revolution in 1804, just 8 years after the 13 North American colonies started theirs. They financed and armed Simón Bolívar, enabling him to carry the national liberation struggle to and through South America. Their power was such that they invaded and conquered the eastern part of the island, driving the Spaniards from Santo Domingo. But then, beginning in the mid 19th century, too many forces began to conspire against them, a combination far more powerful even than Napoleon's expeditionary army. I don't yet know the full story as well as I should, but it is clear that French bankers, Arkansas rice growers, U.S. timber interests and much else was involved in destroying the national wealth. And for Haitians to regain some of it, they are going to have to free themselves of those and similar outside interventions. Aristide tried it, and made some progress before he was whisked out of the country by a frightened U.S. military. Others will try and will get further if given a chance. The poverty is reversible, I am convinced, and only the Haitians can do it.
But the starting point for understanding the country's tragic history, including hurricanes, civil wars and invasions by U.S. Marines as well as brutal exploitation of the natural and human resources, has to be the amazing revolution 200 years ago. The most stirring account I ever read is James, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1963. But if you don't have that handy, this is also good to read:
FRANKLIN W. KNIGHT | The Haitian Revolution | The American Historical Review, 105.1 | The History Cooperative
2010/01/26
Spain's conflicted immigration policies
The incoherence and contradictions of Spanish immigration practices are among the more serious consequences of the disunity of Spain that I've been describing here lately, the multiplicity of governmental authorities with overlapping powers and conflicting agendas.
For the past 15 years and up until recently, almost all those goverment authorities, from the national ministries of social services and foreign relations down to municipal mayors and town councils were doing everything they could to encourage immigration, for different but convergent reasons. The local authorities were in many cases pressured by local builders and agriculturalists who wanted cheap man- or womanpower, to build homes or pick olives and strawberries. The lefties in the Socialist party exulted in Spain's ever greater diversity, and the righties -- the same folks making money on the cheap labor -- enjoyed making a display of their Christian generosity toward the newcomers.
But then, just a few months ago, the bottom fell out of the housing market. No more demand for cheap unskilled labor. Fewer buyers for industrial goods, and thus fewer jobs. And the local governments, which had been financing themselves mainly by licencing construction projects and collecting tax on rising real estate values, were suddenly strapped. The immigrants were the first to be "let go", but there they were, still needing to eat, their kids needing school, all of them needing medical services at least occasionally.
To qualify for public services in any town in Spain, all you need is proof that you live there. You do this by showing your national ID if you are a citizen or your passport and proof of residence, such as a light bill, if you are not. The process is called empadronamiento, registration in the municipal padrón or registry. This according to a 1997 law signed by the then Minister of Social Services, Mariano Rajoy.
But lately the mayors of some towns have invented new requirements for empadronamiento -- such as proving that you have more than 20 square meters of living space per member of your family, or (in one town) that you are not here on a tourist visa (which is the way many immigrants start out, until they can find a job and get more settled). Their rhetoric is obfuscatory, involving peculiar (perverse) interpretations of clauses in the law, but they appear to believe they can save money by denying school and medical services to immigrants. But they also lose money, because the central government gives financing to municipalities according to their registered (empadronado) population, regardless of immigration status. The net result is just to make life a lot more difficult for immigrant families, already in bad straits with no jobs.
A lot of this anti-empadronamiento agitation is coming from mayors and even regional presidents of the opposition Popular Party, whose head is that very same Mariano Rajoy -- who deals with the contradiction by not dealing with it, saying vague things about guaranteeing everybody basic education and medical rights "just for being human beings" and at the same time that probably the law on immigration ought to be changed in some unspecified, but presumably more restrictive fashion.
For generations Spain, impoverished after the loss of the remnants of empire in 1898 (Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines), then torn by civil war (1936-39) and finally suffocated by a dictatorship that was both oppressive and economically stagnant, was a net exporter of people -- until the 1973 petroleum crisis wiped out jobs in the countries they'd been migrating to, slowing the outflow almost to nil. Finally, the death of Franco and the dismemberment of his system, the reforms begun by his successor Suárez and carried further and with greater energy by the Socialist government of Felipe González turned Spain into a country to come to, not one to flee from. By the year 2000, Spain's rapid economic growth and reputation for civil liberties turned this fountain of emigration into one of the countries with the highest rate of immigration anywhere -- 8 times greater than neighboring France, which was where so many Spaniards had been looking for work in earlier decades.
France and other industrialized countries already had a large proportion of immigrants, but Spain's post-2000 rate of attraction has been so great that it has now surpassed France in percentage of foreign born: 12% of Spain's 47 million people (as compared to 8% in France).
More than 36% of these come from the 20+ countries of "Iberoamerica," mostly Ecuador (11.13%) and Colombia (6.40%), though we also know several Argentinians and Uruguayans and Peruvians. About as many (nearly 35%) come from other countries in the European Union, including nearly 10% from Rumania (where the language is distantly related to Spanish). Others face a far greater linguistic and cultural hurdle, including the nearly 15% from North Africa (mostly Morocco) and another 4% from Sub-Saharan Africa; the ones we know here in Carboneras are mostly from Senegal or Mali.
Now that the housing boom is over and unemployment in almost all industries is at record highs, Spain is no longer so welcoming. But conditions in the source countries of most of those immigrants continue to be even worse, and Spain (as well as other countries of Western Europe) are going to be increasingly dependent on young foreign-born to take care of their aging native populations and to do the jobs that have to be done.
Las claves del empadronamiento de 'sin papeles' -- ELPAÍS.com
Inmigración en España - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
EUROPA: Inmigrantes entre la expulsión y la muerte - IPS ipsnoticias.net
Immigration en France - Wikipédia
For the past 15 years and up until recently, almost all those goverment authorities, from the national ministries of social services and foreign relations down to municipal mayors and town councils were doing everything they could to encourage immigration, for different but convergent reasons. The local authorities were in many cases pressured by local builders and agriculturalists who wanted cheap man- or womanpower, to build homes or pick olives and strawberries. The lefties in the Socialist party exulted in Spain's ever greater diversity, and the righties -- the same folks making money on the cheap labor -- enjoyed making a display of their Christian generosity toward the newcomers.
But then, just a few months ago, the bottom fell out of the housing market. No more demand for cheap unskilled labor. Fewer buyers for industrial goods, and thus fewer jobs. And the local governments, which had been financing themselves mainly by licencing construction projects and collecting tax on rising real estate values, were suddenly strapped. The immigrants were the first to be "let go", but there they were, still needing to eat, their kids needing school, all of them needing medical services at least occasionally.
To qualify for public services in any town in Spain, all you need is proof that you live there. You do this by showing your national ID if you are a citizen or your passport and proof of residence, such as a light bill, if you are not. The process is called empadronamiento, registration in the municipal padrón or registry. This according to a 1997 law signed by the then Minister of Social Services, Mariano Rajoy.
But lately the mayors of some towns have invented new requirements for empadronamiento -- such as proving that you have more than 20 square meters of living space per member of your family, or (in one town) that you are not here on a tourist visa (which is the way many immigrants start out, until they can find a job and get more settled). Their rhetoric is obfuscatory, involving peculiar (perverse) interpretations of clauses in the law, but they appear to believe they can save money by denying school and medical services to immigrants. But they also lose money, because the central government gives financing to municipalities according to their registered (empadronado) population, regardless of immigration status. The net result is just to make life a lot more difficult for immigrant families, already in bad straits with no jobs.
A lot of this anti-empadronamiento agitation is coming from mayors and even regional presidents of the opposition Popular Party, whose head is that very same Mariano Rajoy -- who deals with the contradiction by not dealing with it, saying vague things about guaranteeing everybody basic education and medical rights "just for being human beings" and at the same time that probably the law on immigration ought to be changed in some unspecified, but presumably more restrictive fashion.
For generations Spain, impoverished after the loss of the remnants of empire in 1898 (Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines), then torn by civil war (1936-39) and finally suffocated by a dictatorship that was both oppressive and economically stagnant, was a net exporter of people -- until the 1973 petroleum crisis wiped out jobs in the countries they'd been migrating to, slowing the outflow almost to nil. Finally, the death of Franco and the dismemberment of his system, the reforms begun by his successor Suárez and carried further and with greater energy by the Socialist government of Felipe González turned Spain into a country to come to, not one to flee from. By the year 2000, Spain's rapid economic growth and reputation for civil liberties turned this fountain of emigration into one of the countries with the highest rate of immigration anywhere -- 8 times greater than neighboring France, which was where so many Spaniards had been looking for work in earlier decades.
France and other industrialized countries already had a large proportion of immigrants, but Spain's post-2000 rate of attraction has been so great that it has now surpassed France in percentage of foreign born: 12% of Spain's 47 million people (as compared to 8% in France).
More than 36% of these come from the 20+ countries of "Iberoamerica," mostly Ecuador (11.13%) and Colombia (6.40%), though we also know several Argentinians and Uruguayans and Peruvians. About as many (nearly 35%) come from other countries in the European Union, including nearly 10% from Rumania (where the language is distantly related to Spanish). Others face a far greater linguistic and cultural hurdle, including the nearly 15% from North Africa (mostly Morocco) and another 4% from Sub-Saharan Africa; the ones we know here in Carboneras are mostly from Senegal or Mali.
Now that the housing boom is over and unemployment in almost all industries is at record highs, Spain is no longer so welcoming. But conditions in the source countries of most of those immigrants continue to be even worse, and Spain (as well as other countries of Western Europe) are going to be increasingly dependent on young foreign-born to take care of their aging native populations and to do the jobs that have to be done.
Las claves del empadronamiento de 'sin papeles' -- ELPAÍS.com
Inmigración en España - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
EUROPA: Inmigrantes entre la expulsión y la muerte - IPS ipsnoticias.net
Immigration en France - Wikipédia
2010/01/25
España mañana, folks
Apologies. My weekly commentary on Spain, scheduled to appear on Sunday (preferably) or Monday (if necessary), will have to wait yet another day. I want to discuss the ticklish problem of immigration policy, as hot a button here as it is in the U.S. or many other countries. But this weekend and today, Monday, have been consumed by a business trip to Murcia (not the most exciting town in Spain, but business is business). So, hasta mañana, amigos lectores.
2010/01/17
Many Spains
The image of a fratricidal Spain divided in two irreconcilable camps goes back at least to the Carlista wars of the 1830s, but it was Antonio Machado (1875-1939) who gave it its most memorable expression :
(There is a Spaniard now who wants/ to live and begins to live,/ between a Spain that is dying / and another Spain that yawns. / Little Spaniard coming /into the world, may God protect you. / One of the two Spains / is destined to freeze your heart.)
The poem is quoted endlessly, perhaps most effectively in the voice of Joan Manuel Serrat. For the little Spaniard coming into the world, there is a Spain that is tolerant, optimistic and progressive, and for these reasons also too trusting and vulnerable. There is another Spain that is cynical, authoritarian, pessimistic and intolerant. The second one has always done all it could to kill the first one, and by the end of the 1936-39 war, its proponents, led by Generalísimo Francisco Franco, were confident that they had succeeded, and that unwavering and hierarchical authority, merciless policing, and strict Catholicism in the schools and family law, would ensure forever one united Spain with only one way of thinking, one loyalty, one faith.
But tolerant, optimistic and progressive little Spaniards continued to be born, and in the years since Franco's death they and allies abroad, now less naïve, have constructed a wider space for themselves and for many Spains.
Too many, perhaps, to create a coherent government. Seventeen autonomous regions, as I mentioned last week. And though the democratic institutions appear far less vulnerable to antidemocratic forces than in the Second Republic (the one that was destroyed by the 1936 military uprising), the multiplicity of autonomous regions, along with other linguistic divisions, create gaps for the authoritarian, antidemocratic Spain to assert itself. An especially outrageous example occurred this past week: The Supreme Court permitted the Falange, the party behind the massacres and repression of the Franco forces, to sue the judge who began (finally, many years after the events) to investigate the crimes of Franco! Judge Baltasar Garzón became known outside Spain for his prosecution of the criminal generals of Argentina and Chile, and other places. But when, under great pressure from Spaniards whose families had suffered under Franco, he began investigating similar outrages in this country, he gets accused of "abuse of authority" (prevaricación is the Spanish legal term), as though the decisions of that 40-year dictatorship could not be questioned by a mere judge. We'll be watching this case closely; it is a test not only of Garzón (who has been under enormous pressure also because of his investigation of political corruption by the rightwing Partido Popular), but of the entire legal system.
Also to be closely watched: The equally outrageous decision of the courts to fine and jail two prominent journalists for publishing accurate and important political information -- the same as had already been published in print -- on the web.
But it's late here, and we'll need to develop these thoughts in coming notes. Coming soon: a discussion of how language plays into questions of identity and regional conflict. Because the many Spains don't all speak the same tongue, or at least not at the same time.
(For earlier notes on Spain, click on keyword "Spain" below.)
Some sources:
Ya hay un español que quiere
vivir y a vivir empieza,
entre una España que muere
y otra España que bosteza.
Españolito que vienes
al mundo, te guarde Dios.
Una de las dos Españas
ha de helarte el corazón.
(There is a Spaniard now who wants/ to live and begins to live,/ between a Spain that is dying / and another Spain that yawns. / Little Spaniard coming /into the world, may God protect you. / One of the two Spains / is destined to freeze your heart.)
The poem is quoted endlessly, perhaps most effectively in the voice of Joan Manuel Serrat. For the little Spaniard coming into the world, there is a Spain that is tolerant, optimistic and progressive, and for these reasons also too trusting and vulnerable. There is another Spain that is cynical, authoritarian, pessimistic and intolerant. The second one has always done all it could to kill the first one, and by the end of the 1936-39 war, its proponents, led by Generalísimo Francisco Franco, were confident that they had succeeded, and that unwavering and hierarchical authority, merciless policing, and strict Catholicism in the schools and family law, would ensure forever one united Spain with only one way of thinking, one loyalty, one faith.
But tolerant, optimistic and progressive little Spaniards continued to be born, and in the years since Franco's death they and allies abroad, now less naïve, have constructed a wider space for themselves and for many Spains.
Too many, perhaps, to create a coherent government. Seventeen autonomous regions, as I mentioned last week. And though the democratic institutions appear far less vulnerable to antidemocratic forces than in the Second Republic (the one that was destroyed by the 1936 military uprising), the multiplicity of autonomous regions, along with other linguistic divisions, create gaps for the authoritarian, antidemocratic Spain to assert itself. An especially outrageous example occurred this past week: The Supreme Court permitted the Falange, the party behind the massacres and repression of the Franco forces, to sue the judge who began (finally, many years after the events) to investigate the crimes of Franco! Judge Baltasar Garzón became known outside Spain for his prosecution of the criminal generals of Argentina and Chile, and other places. But when, under great pressure from Spaniards whose families had suffered under Franco, he began investigating similar outrages in this country, he gets accused of "abuse of authority" (prevaricación is the Spanish legal term), as though the decisions of that 40-year dictatorship could not be questioned by a mere judge. We'll be watching this case closely; it is a test not only of Garzón (who has been under enormous pressure also because of his investigation of political corruption by the rightwing Partido Popular), but of the entire legal system.
Also to be closely watched: The equally outrageous decision of the courts to fine and jail two prominent journalists for publishing accurate and important political information -- the same as had already been published in print -- on the web.
But it's late here, and we'll need to develop these thoughts in coming notes. Coming soon: a discussion of how language plays into questions of identity and regional conflict. Because the many Spains don't all speak the same tongue, or at least not at the same time.
(For earlier notes on Spain, click on keyword "Spain" below.)
Some sources:
Comunidad autónoma - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
Idiomas de España - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
Ser de España - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
Manuel Castells, El poder de la identidad (nacionalismo), El País, 18 Febrero 2003
YouTube - Cantares - Serrat canta a Machado
Haiti’s Environment and Social Justice
I didn't know this. It's important, to help us know how to direct aid resources. Thanks to Dennis Hidalgo for posting. Professor of History: Haiti’s Environment and Social Justice
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