Saturday 31 March 2007

Spanish censorship alive and well…

Another political party supporting independence and freedom for the Basque Country, another Spanish judge ordering that party is banned –even before it has been officially formed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6512929.stm

This is the nature of the Spanish ‘democracy’: political parties are allowed, but not if they threaten the “unity” of Spain. The excuse of banning Batasuna because they advocate violence is a joke: I don’t see any judges banning the far-right extremist parties (Falange, Democracia Nacional, Espana 2000, etc) that advocate the use of violence and make use of it regularly in their demonstrations.

This inequality is what is revealing about Spain: you can be an extremist but only if you are on the Spanish side. Thus, Falange and Democracia Nacional are allowed. Batasuna is banned. Fascists newspapers are allowed to print xenophobic and racist vile; on the other hand Basque newspapers are closed.

This is democracy, Spanish style.

4 comments:

Garci said...

Yes, it is amazing that fascist media are allowed in Spain. Avui is one of them.

Rab said...

Garci, what a silly comment. Are you losing your cool devoid of arguments?

As some others, you come up with some random reply but fail to address the issue explained in the post: in Spain some extreme views are banned (those who challenge the concept of Spain), and some others are tolerated and nurtured by the Spanish state (those who support the Spanish-nation state).
That is a fact.
Batasuna is banned.
Falange and Democracia Nacional are allowed.
Discuss.

Anyhow, can you explain exactly why AVUI is a fascist newspaper?
Let me guess: probably is because AVUI is a Catalan newspaper, edited, designed and written (not translated into) Catalan.
Perhaps it is because AVUI is a newspaper that dares to challenge the status quo and whose view of the world bypasses the Spanish political and cultural framework.
AVUI believes in Catalonia participating in the world as a free nation, without having to ask permission to Spain, or changing our language to Spanish.
Is this the problem, Garcia? Is it these qualities that make AVUI so undesirable for you and others? A Catalan newspaper printed in Catalan upsets you so much?

Possibly you are just another person (don’t worry there are thousands like yourself) who has an opinion about the AVUI newspaper without ever having bothered to read it.
For your information Garci, AVUI is one of the few newspapers in Spain where you can find articles and columns from a wide range of political views and opinion articles, including members of parliament, within its ‘Dialeg’ (Dialogue) section.
If you ever bother to read AVUI, you will find regular columnists on the right (Quintá and Sentís), centre (Sintes) and left (Clara-Simó or Cardús). I cannot think of any other newspaper in Spain where such diverging views are printed day in, day out.
AVUI is partly owned by the Planeta group. Do you know who is the owner of Planeta and what other newspapers are published by this group? It is also partly owned by the employees and Grupo Godó. Arguably a pretty diverse group of owners, don’t you think? How can a newspaper with such diverge (politically contradictory) ownership be described as ‘fascist’?
If anything, without anyone having outright control of the editorial policy and content, AVUI is probably more independent and free of political manipulation than any other newspaper. Possibly, journalists in the AVUI are freer to express their opinions and are subject to less ‘self-censorship’ than those in El Periodico, El País, El Mundo, ABC or La Vanguardia.
Make yourself a favour: if you can read in Catalan, go on and read AVUI for a few days.
You will be surprised.

If you ever can be bother to read it, some days you will find articles by some politicians from the PP or even Ciudadanos and from someone from ERC or IC-V or CiU or PSC-PSOE.

To use the ‘fascist’ label for AVUI (a newspaper that could only be set up after Franco’s fascist dictatorship ended) is an insult to our intelligence and clearly reveals your own biased prejudices and political agenda.

Anonymous said...

Avui is the greatest crap I have ever seen: Narcissistic and always turning around the same point staring at their navel.

If not subsidized by the "generalitat" and tax money, it couldn't exist because nobody reads it.

Anonymous said...

#ox: If not subsidized by the "generalitat" and tax money, it couldn't exist because nobody reads it.
Another myth: if you check the numbers, it turns out that La Vanguardia and El Periodico receive more 'subsidies' per reader than AVUI. Yet nobody describes these two newspapers as being subsidized. AVUI is a great read and its political coverage is more independent than El Periodico o El País, who are unashamedly pro-PSOE.