The fallacy of Spain’s democracy

"Spain is an example of a young democracy."

Countless times we read or listen to some pundit in the media, in Spain or somewhere else in the world, referring to Spain to “an example of a young democracy”. As if the exercise of moving from a fascist dictatorship to something resembling a democracy had been a success. What a load of nonsense: nothing could be further from the truth.

For a start, we have inherited some of the fascist dogmas of the old Franco’s regime. Namely, that the Army has the right to attach anyone or anything (including elected regional governments) that threatens the “Unity” (Unidad) and “Integrity” of the Spanish nation. (Indisolubilidad). That Spanish is the only language that is truly mandatory, (it says so in the Constitution), and Catalan and Basque an add-on. The list is endless.

The democratic right of self-determination of the Basques and Catalans is forbidden. And the Army will be the guarantor of that. Not very democratic, is it? More Turkey or Chinese-style democracy than a normal European democracy.

In a previous post, I wrote about the situation of the political prisoner Iñaki de Juana Chaos. This man, a former ETA terrorist, has served his sentence and was due for release. He made the mistake of publishing two newspapers articles and the Tribunal Supremo (another institution inherited from the Franco era) served him with a dozen years extra. Yes, that’s right, in Spain you get sent to prison for publishing a newspaper article. After an appeal, the sentence was cut to four years.

The man started a hunger’s strike and has become an international news story, more so since the British newspaper The Times published an exclusive interview. At least the rest of the world can see what kind of democracy exists in Spain.

Oleguer Pressas is a footballer for F.C Barcelona. For a footballer he is rare: he is studying economics at University, is articulate, has written his own book without any ‘ghost writer’ help and has a record of supporting the Catalan movement for independence and national emancipation from Spain. A few weeks ago, he published an article (in Catalan) on the topic of how the Spanish state treats convicted criminals in a different way, depending on their ideological background. He did nothing more than state the bloody obvious: that the Spanish policemen that kill and torture walked free from prison, whereas anyone convicted of supporting pro-independence movements, either in the Basque Country or in Catalonia, is punished harshly and ideologically criminalised by the nationalistic Spanish media. I read the article and thought: state of fact, no big deal.

Well, not so in Spain of course. The article caused a furore and Kelme ( a firm under the defacto control of the Spanish nationalistic right-wing Popular Party) withdrew their sponsorship of the player. The Spanish media has criminalised and vilified the player, as they do with anyone who dares to questions their proto-fascist dogmas.

Again, a British newspaper has exposed the fallacy of Spanish democracy. The Guardian published a few days ago, this well-researched piece on Oleguer, together with an English translation of the article. I encourage you to read it.

I copy and paste below the article from The Guardian for your reading pleasure. Now, can anyone tell me if there is anything other than the plain truth in what Oleguer writes?

PS: I am trying to find the two newspapers published by De Juana Chaos that cost him 4 years in prison; I plan to translate them into English at some point. I will keep you posted.

Translation of Oleguer Pressas article, by Sid Lowe of The Guardian.
-----------------------------
In Good Faith (07/02/2007)
Ignacio De Juana Chaos has spent the last twenty years in jail. Reduced according to the penitentiary rules put in place by the previous government, he had been condemned to an 18-year sentence for the crimes he committed. However he remains in jail on remand, pending the final resolution of the case which has been opened against him because of two articles published in the newspaper Gara. The High Court [Audiencia Nacional] judged that in those articles, De Juana Chaos committed the crime of making terrorist threats and condemned him to 12 and a half years in jail. De Juana Chaos has decided to go on hunger strike in protest against that ruling and is prepared to take his protest to the ultimate conclusion [his death].

The State of Law [estado de derecho] - that phrase that has been repeated so many times you would think it was an advertising campaign - does not permit the death sentence nor life imprisonment. Likewise, there is no room for euthanasia. I will allow myself to be guided by good faith and will therefore presuppose that the State of Law has not stopped trusting in its own laws and still does not want to impose the death sentence or life imprisonment. Guided by that same good faith, I will assume that there is no political intention to make euthanasia legal. I will suppose, again guided by good faith, that the content of De Juana Chaos's articles is sufficiently explicit and unambiguous as to keep a man in jail, despite the risk that he may die there. I would like to believe that in the State of Law freedom of expression exists and that in this case, just as in the Egunkaria case or in the case of the actor Pepe Rubianes (to cite just two examples), there is sufficient evidence to try those involved. If that were not so, everyone would be protesting long and loud like they do when freedom of expression is denied in other countries, such as Morocco, Cuba or Turkey. Good faith obliges me to believe that in the State of Law, justice is equal for everyone, that political pressure has no part to play and that judicial independence really does exist; that when the Minister of Justice Lopez Aguilar announces, in reference to the De Juana case, that "the government will construct new punishments and sanctions to avoid such releases", those words have no influence on the judicial sentence.

Actions speak louder than words, they say. Well, David Fernàndez in his book 'Crónicas del 6 y otros detalles de la cloaca policial', informs us of the following events: the ex-Civil Guard General and the man responsible for the horrors of Intaxaurrondo, Enrique Rodríguez Galindo, was condemned to 75 years in jail for the assassination of Lasa and Zabala but served just over four years, claiming health problems. Julen Elorriaga was also released for health reasons: condemned to almost 80 years in jail, he served just 3% of his sentence. After conning the whole of Spain, De la Rosa is able to enjoy a generous house arrest because of depression. Rafael Vera, condemned to 10 years in jail for the GAL-led kidnap of Segundo Marey, spent just eight years in jail for the same reason ...

David, in his book, talks mainly about torture and torturers; about how the justice system seems to see different degrees of severity based not on the crime but the perpetrator of the crime; about how the media machine works so as to criminalize certain forms of dissidence and not others; of how the police create the evidence necessary to implicate people according to their political interests; of how the government does not want to know about the reports put together by the United Nations' special investigators on torture or even hear about organisations like Amnesty International, who have claimed that in this [Spain's] State of Law, torturing does take place.

But now, on top of all that, it turns out that the attorney's office from the Audiencia Nacional has asked for the Egunkaria case to be dropped because, they allege, there is no proof. It turns out that, in November 2004, a court in Strasbourg condemned the Spanish state for "not investigating" the tortures denounced some twelve years earlier by 17 supporters of Catalan independence - it was necessary to silence discordant voices during the Olympic Games. It turns out that, in November 2005, Zapatero pardoned four policemen from Vigo who had been suspended and sentenced to 2-4 years for beating, insulting and humiliating the Senegalese citizen, Mamadou Kane. It turns out that Aznar had done the same in December 2000: 14 policemen convicted for torture were pardoned. One of them was a reoffender. It turns out ...
... that I do not know what to think.

Too often the State of Law has dark spots which make me doubt. It smells of hypocrisy. And too much hypocrisy can make you lose that good faith.

Everything goes

The Spanish conservatives have lost the plot. Completely. Ever since, I hear you say, but even more so since the Madrid train bombings on 11-March-2004.

This week is the start of the trial of the accused of carrying out the 11-M train bombers.

In case you were not aware, the government of the day, (PP-conservatives) told the Spanish public that the terrorist atrocities were conducted by ETA. They even phoned up newspaper editors to make sure nobody made any mistake in their newspaper’s front page: the attacks were carried out by ETA was the official line and it was enforced across the Spanish mass media.

(I know, newspapers publishing whatever the government tells them, but this is Spain remember, not the UK or any other normal country with centuries of democratic tradition).

The Governement of day lied. The attacks were not carried out by ETA. There was no ETA link. It was a local Al-Qaida cell, in reprisal for the Spanish government decision to send troops to fight Bush&Blair’s illegal and ill-conceived war in Iraq.

I remember vividly the day of the attacks. All the main Spanish web sites (except a few honourable exceptions like Vilaweb, Avui and a couple of Basque newspapers that refused to yield to the government and compromise their integrity) pointed at ETA as the group behind the attacks. Even the pro-Labour Spanish press (El País, El Periodico) followed government instructions and printed in their editions that ETA was behind the attacks. However, 99.9% of the non-Spanish press pointed at Al-Qaida.
We were being duped, lied to, the press was being manipulated. Just like when Franco was in power. This is what the Spanish Right got wrong: they thought people were as stupid in 2004 as when it was 1972, when Franco, and Fraga (founder of the PP) were in power in fascist Spain. Alas, the internet made people realise that the government was blatantly lying.

The attacks happened on a Thursday. There were Spanish general elections on the following Sunday. Against all previous polls, and an Goebbelian-like manipulation of the public broadcaster, the ruling party was voted out of office. Because they deliberately lied to the public. Had they admitted the attacks were conducted by Islamic terrorists, they would probably have won the elections. But they chose to lie and to manipulate the media, because that’s what the Spanish Right, devoid of all morality and democratic ethos, is used to doing.

There are three mass media in Spain that still insist, against all credible evidence, that ETA was linked to the attacks. They are the only ones in the world.

- El Mundo newspaper.
- Cadena COPE radio network, owned by the Catholic Conference of Bishops.
- Telemadrid, regional TV network in the Madrid province, controlled by the PP, who is in charge of the regional administration in the province of Madrid.

All these three media outlets are outspoken supporters of the PP. The PP still claims that there is an ETA link to the attacks. Yet, there is not a shred of evidence of it.

But this is the level of depravity that the “People’s Party” has sunk to. Everything goes. Against the Catalans, the Basques or even against the Labour party. Anyone who is not fully behind the radical wing of the party is an enemy, and is treated as such. No surrender. No debate, no dialogue. Just the obliteration of the political opponent. Fraticide politics. Spanish politics.

That these people are still sitting in the European Parliament with other democratic conservative/liberal parties from around Europe is a disgrace. These bunch of neo-Francoist should sit in Brussels with the likes of the Polish nationalist parties, or the other far-right parties in the EU.

If Spain was a normal country, history would be ruthless with such despicable people. Spain is anything but, and so we are damned.

Spanish democracy? Don't make me laugh

The Spanish state tries to portray itself as a modern democracy, where human rights are respected and where freedom of speech is tolerated barely 30 years after Franco's death.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Spain is not a democracy in the liberal, western sense of the word. Just a quick review of a couple of issues that are in the news these days:

+ETA prisoner kept in prison because of newspaper articles

Iñaki de Juana Chaos is a ETA prisoner. He is on a hunger strike and his medical condition has deteriorated substantially. The Procurator applied for him to be given conditional release, which means that he will go home but will be under 24/7 surveillance.
The Judges of the Tribunal Supremo (a High Court set up by Franco which was not disbanded after his death) have decreed that he is to remain in prison. Investigating this case further, one discovers that this man is due for release as he has served the maximum term under Spanish law. However, he is being kept in prison under a provisional judgement, which found him guilty of sponsoring and appearing to give support to political acts of violence (apology of terrorism). He wrote two articles in newspapers attacking some of the Spanish dogmas (unity, etc) and supporting the democratic right of self-determination of stateless nations. His pending release was reviewed after that. The newspapers have not been prosecuted though.
All this and more is explained in this eye-opening editorial article of Vilaweb, the Catalan news portal.

+ Prosecutor pursues case against satirical actor who questioned the holy unity of Spain

Then we have the case of Pepe Rubianes. (Previous post)
Now the Spanish Prosecution Service is soliciting a fine of 21,600 euros for actor Pepe Rubianes for an alleged "ultraje a España" (Insulting Spain). Apart from Turkey, Spain is the only country either in the EU or trying to get in, with this kind of thought crime still being punished by the authorities. Can anyone imagine the CPS (Crime Prosecution Service) in the UK pursuing a similar case?

Yet, the Spanish Prosecution Service does not pursue similar cases when rabid Spanish nationalists like radio network COPE, or Libertad Digital, El Mundo, etc, promulgate their agenda of hatred and racism against Catalans or Basques or immigrants. In a normal European country, the COPE network would have its licensed withdrawn and its main journalists being prosecuted for hate crimes. Alas, they are Spanish nationalists, so it is a free for all. Very much like General Galindo, condemned and sentenced to prison after being found guilty of killing several civilians while being Chief Commander of the Spanish Guardia Civil, but released only after a couple of years. It is one law if you are a dogmatic Spanish nationalist, and a different one for Basques and Catalans.

Spain, far from being a democracy, is a place where thought crime is actively punished by the authorities, and freedom of speech severely curtailed by an establishment that is heir to the Spanish nationalism and protofascist dogmas of Franco and his followers.

I give my full support and backing to Pepe Rubianes and all the journalists who write under the menacing monitoring of Spanish nationalist groups, judges, policeman, military and prosecutors.

I too think this dogmatic obsession with the unity of Spain is bollocks and fascist bullshit. Moreover, I can tell the Tribunal Supremo, the Spanish Governent, the protofascist COPE, Libertad Digital, Fundación para la Defensa de la Nación Española and all the rest of scummy fascist bastards that they can stick their fucking Spain up their tight arses. I think Spain, the Spanish Constitution and the Tribunal Supremo and the Tribunal Constitucional are all fucking shite, bullshit and horseshit of the highest order. Up yours.

Loose Spanish translation for the pleasure of Spanish police, judges, politicians and other authorities reading this humble blog. I am looking forward to your extradition proceedings notice….

Me cago en la puta Unidad de España de los cojones. Os podéis meter la puta Unidad de España por donde os quepa, panda de hijos de puta fascistas. Me cago en la puta Constitución Española, en la puta Unidad de España, en la puta imposición del idioma español para todos y por cojones, en el puto Gobierno Español, el Tribunal Supremo y en la Audiencia Nacional. Me cago en el puto Rey Juan Carlos I, heredero del cabrón de Franco, que lo puso a dedo, y en toda su putrefacta familia de subnormales y vividores que son los Borbones de mierda. Y me cago en la puta Monarquía y en la institución del Jefe del Estado y en vuestro puto Ejercito Español de mierda y me cago en la Nación Española y sus defensores de mierda. Sois una panda de hijos de puta todos vosotros y vuestras sacrosantas instituciones y dogmas de mierda me dan arcadas. Os mando a todos a tomar por culo, porque no sois más que puta mierda, basura, caca de la vaca y vuestros dogmas de mierda me los paso por el culo. Ahora, si tenéis cojones, me buscáis la IP y contactáis con el Consulado Español en Edimburgo y pedís la extradición si tenéis cojones, hijos de puta, españolitos de mierda.

In the above paragraph in Spanish I more or less express my feelings for the Spanish Constitution and the concept of the Unity of Spain. I also encourage the Spanish authorities to locate my IP and launch extradition proceedings. After all, they are prosecuting Rubianes for much, much less than this.

Rubianes was having a laugh; he’s a comedy actor after all. However, I am dead serious. I honestly think that Spanish Unity and the fucking Spanish Constitution is pure horseshit.

Now you tell me if writing, saying or thinking the above is a crime that should be punished in a normal democracy.
Answers in a postcard to:
Juzgado de Primera Instancia/Instrucción nº5
C/ Dalt, 10-12
08980 Sant Feliu de Llobregat
BARCELONA
(Spain)

The above court will hold the preliminary hearing on this case.

Warning: the CFA exams can lower your self-esteem

After all the effort, after all the hours (about 150), after all the sacrifices, I got the CFA results today: fail.

Q#	Topic	Max Pts	<=50%	51%-70%	>70%
-	Alternative Assets	12	-	-	*
-	Derivatives	12	-	*	-
-	Economics	24	-	-	*
-	Equity Analysis	24	-	-	*
-	Ethical & Professional Stnds.	36	-	-	*
-	Financial Statement Analysis	68	*	-	-
-	Fixed Income Analysis	24	-	*	-
-	General Portfolio Management	12	-	*	-
-	Quantitative Analysis	28	-	-	*

Pass rate was 39%. It was a close call but a fail nevertheless.
I am drained and exhausted.

Advice: if you ever consider taking the CFA Level 1 exam, make sure you put in the recommended number of hours (250 hours) and don't do what I did: 150 hours.

Our own cowardice

I was reading the brillian post by Ian Llorens, ‘Catalonia, a country without cojones’.

He is damn right.

There is no possible excuse. There is no point in blaming immigration from the south of Spain or from South America. We are a cowardly nation that will never get rid of the Spanish yoke.

“We are the lowest of the low..”
Remember the rant by Renton (Ewan McGregor) in Trainspotting about how shite it is to be Scottish and to be from Scotland? I feel the same about Catalonia. Or worse.

The English at least are still a powerful nation and they gave the world, admittedly together with the Scots of the Enlightenment and early Industrial Revolution, great works of engineering, art, philosophy, etc. At least the Scots have been/are being conquered by a winning nation.

We on the other hand are being obliterated by the Spaniards. Spain has never won any war against anyone –apart from Catalonia. That’s how low, how miserable, and how pathetic we have become: everyone else have defeated Spain apart from us.

The language will disappear in a few years, and we will become just like any other region of Spain. A thousands years of history and fine cultural development gone, and probably the Spaniards will continue to rewrite history and also erase us from the history books and academia. What a pathetic bunch we are.

Sometimes I wonder what's the point.

2006: a missed opportunity. Another one.

In terms of Catalan politics, 2006 surely will be remembered because of the farce of the Estatut. A text approved in the Catalan Parliament by all parties except the loonies of the PP on September 2005, is then watered down is a shambolic round of negotiations between CiU and PSOE. ERC, the only party that remain loyal to the text approved in September was then kick out of government for campaigning in favour of a No vote on the text watered down between CiU and PSOE.

The referendum on the new text delivered the expected results, so no surprises there.

Was so much pain necessary to achieve so little? Moreover, Catalonia had to suffer the xenophobic commercial boycott promoted by the Spanish Right and their sidekicks in the press: El Mundo, ABC, Libertad Digital, COPE, etc.

We then had the elections in November, and there were some pleasant (ERC held well considering the circumstances) and unpleasant (the appearance of the anti-Catalan, populist, Ciudadanos).

CiU was again the most voted party. ERC had a tough choice to make: either form a coalition government with CiU or a repeat of the Tripartite of the Left again, even though this would mean making President Don José Montilla, a man that sat in the opposite table during the negotiations of the failed Estatut. Montilla is an emigrant from the south of Spain. If anything, this proves that ERC is a modern, socialdemocrat, European-style party: it has agreed a coalition with someone like Montilla. Any claims that ERC are hardcore Catalan nationalists is nonsense. It is a modern proindependence party, and rightly so, but there is no nationalism within ERC: otherwise, Montilla would not be President.

By the way, I look forward to the day when a Spanish party (PP or PSOE) selects a Catalan for the Prime Minister job, and keep the first name in Catalan without translating it into Spanish. As we say in Scotland, “Aye right!”.

I have been in Barcelona for a week over Christmas and the situation cannot be any worse in terms of survival of the Catalan language. There are two new terrestrial TV channels, completely in Spanish and the freesheets given in public transport are 90% in Spanish. All the time I was in the Metro or the RENFE trains, I hardly heard anyone having a conversation in Catalan. I don’t see the language surviving for another generation or two, unless something very drastic happens.

On the other hand, I have to admit that public transport is so much better, we even have night buses to Caldes de Montbuï!

With these cheery thoughts, I wish you all a Happy New Year 2007.

A scary thought…

These days, I find myself thinking things that I never thought I would consider. I am starting to have my doubts about the Tripartite coalition government. Sometimes, when one’s strength weakens, I wonder if, perhaps, maybe, it was not that bad under CiU after all. Was it?

Let me set the record straight: I have never in my life voted for CiU. But nowadays I wonder: will I end up voting CiU in 3-4 years? That's a scary thought!!

I have always held the view that CiU would never lead the country anywhere. They may be good managers and talk a good game, but I don’t understand what is the outcome they are looking for. What do we want to achieve for Catalonia? Do they want to be part of Spain or not? And in what terms? Probably they are as confused as I am. But I have never voted them. I never got excited about CiU’s political message. I have been a loyal ERC voter (except a period when I was a communist… the shame!) for many years now.

ERC has taken a massive gamble with the Tripartit 2. A President with more power, perhaps less charisma but with more control of the media is now in charge. With Montilla, a proper Spaniard is in charge of the Generalitat. He is someone that wants Catalonia to be just like any other autonomous region in Spain. We know what his political project for Catalonia is: Spain. With Montilla we have certainty. At least with CiU I had some doubts.

Will ERC be able to influence government policy and decision-making with such a man in charge? So far it is not looking good but then again I don’t live in Catalonia so what do I know anymore?

Then I read that a security guard is still in prison for shooting at a car being driven by two thiefs that were trying to run him over. The man, who has all the required accreditations, is still in prison. I don’t understand why. As far as I can read in the press, this is no Tony Martin (the English farmer who shot two gipsies on the back as they were running away). Someone correct me if I am wrong but the thieves were in a car, trying to run him over, he fires away, one dies in hospital a few days later. The security guard has been accused of murder and is still in prison. I find this whole episode quite amazing to be honest.

But nothing surprises me in Catalonia anymore: we also have now a communist in charge of the police! What next?

I also read that the Government has passed a law in the Catalan Parliament that would allow the Generalitat to expropriate empty residential properties. Apparently this is in order to mitigate the acute shortage in housing and to increase the supply of properties available for rent. Even the most incompetent of economists knows that expropriation is the least effective policy mechanism to alter market characteristics. Has anyone in the Tripartit ever heard of the concept of Pigovian Tax?? Has anyone in the Government analysed if expropriation is the most cost-effective method? Would it not be easier to close tax loopholes and raise taxes for empty properties?

I am going over to Barcelona to visit family between the 20-26th December. I am looking forward to catch up with family and friends and eating out. But I am also wary that the country I left almost 8 years ago is changing beyond recognition. And I am not sure anymore it is for the better. I guess I will be able to have a wee look for myself shortly.

As I like to be an optimist, let’s finish on a positive note. It has been announced today that National Geographic will be published in Catalan. This is very good news indeed and will ensure that younger generations will have access to a high quality natural science publication in our precious and endangered language. Well done to the publishing house, RBA.

Never give all the Heart

Never give all the Heart
W.B. Yeats
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.

O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

------
PS: Apologies to regular readers but I have been far to busy lately and right now I could not care less about politics.