Too much like common sense

(Madrid, Spain)

Latin America has long enjoyed a tense and complicated relationship with the two European countries that did the most to shape its history over the last few centuries. The collision of different cultures can be magical or controversial, the waves of European émigrés have been replaced by a flood of Latin American immigrants and successive New World governments have tried to shake off the European influence while continuing to look to their Old World counterparts both politically and financially.

However, the existing symbiosis has recently thrown up one significant parallel between Spain and the whole of Latin America. The issue of abortion in a predominantly Catholic society is always likely to be controversial, but within a chauvinist context it is unlikely to be resolved in favour of those most affected, that is women.

Earlier this month there were demonstrations throughout Latin America for and against various aspects of the subject after the deaths of two young mothers highlighted the dangers of not introducing adequate legislation. There are estimated to be around four million secret abortions a year in the whole of Latin America, resulting in more than 4,000 deaths from surgical complications, infections and a lack of medical assistance.

In Colombia the demonstrations centred on the government’s refusal to inform girls of their rights on this subject, a refusal which had been central in the case of a thirteen-year-old girl who had been raped by a neighbour and was turned away from seven hospitals and one courthouse. A court finally ruled in her favour – after the baby had already been born.

In Chile, which enjoys the reputation of being one of the more progressive and liberal countries in Latin America, the law states that the life of the unborn foetus is always to take precedence over the life of the mother, wife, sister, lover, friend. Even having a female president has been insufficient to change this law.

The Dominican Republic is another example of countries which are not revising the laws in favour of women, but rather against them, as new legislation has made abortion illegal in any case and punishable by prison. Nicaragua is also going backwards – it has been a secular state since 1939, yet since 2006 abortion has been illegal.

The reason for the slide back into primitive legislation is of course the Catholic Church. In Colombia the government refuses to inform girls of their rights because the Church has instructed them to refuse. In Peru and Argentina the Church has organised counter-demonstrations in which the faithful have been ordered to insult the people who support women’s rights and threaten them into submission.

Europe, rightly or wrongly, is generally seen as more progressive and forward-thinking than many other areas of the world, a place where our wealth allows us access to better education and prolonged periods of peace enable us to see each other’s point of view with more ease. Within Europe Spain has long been a beacon of liberalism and equality – the Second Republic bestowed upon the people freedoms and rights of which other countries could only dream, and the current Socialist government has legalised gay marriage and done more than any other government to combat domestic violence.

However, at exactly the same time that Latin America is suffering this upheaval, Spain is undergoing its own share of unrest on the subject of abortion. Bibiana Aído, Minister for Equality, was quoted as saying that abortion was an issue on a scale with breast enlargement. Cardinal Antonio Cañizares was quoted as saying that abortion was worse than child sex abuse.

Somehow, the minister’s comments seem to have caused more of a stir than those of the cardinal, with bishops even threatening to excommunicate ministers, although that could be because certain commentators are striving to discredit the minister because of her support for a bill which would introduce a confidentiality clause for teenagers.

The Catholic Church professes to support life, yet it continues to condemn many of its followers to death through policies – not beliefs, because the Church is after all a political organisation – which do nothing to ease the lives of millions of women and children around the world. In theory the Church is a socialist organisation, yet its pursuit of the disadvantaged and the dissenters is fascist in its intensity.

Fortunately, what the Church lacks in compassion Zapatero’s government makes up for in common sense. Aído’s comments reveal a sharp insight into the world of young women today – breast enlargement operations and abortions are two surgical interventions which could make or break the life of a girl and require compassionate and protective legislation.

Fellow Socialist Carmen Montón, an MP from Valencia, went deeper into the topic saying that while parents had no right to oblige their child to abort neither had they the right to force their child to be a mother. She insisted that the law was about “young women having legal and health protection” and has also been quoted as reminding critics that laws are not just for perfect families but for everyone.

And the President himself showed honesty and intelligence when asked about the possibility of his own daughter deciding on an abortion: “The truth is I would like it if she talked to me about it, obviously. I feel that this desire for her to consult me is the result of the trust that should exist between parents and daughters and we parents have to earn that trust. But at the end of the day the decision must lie with the person who decides to voluntarily terminate their pregnancy.”

Therein lies the importance of this legislation – the daughters of parents who lack the common sense to build a trusting relationship with their children, along with the daughters of parents who would prefer to leave the job of parenting to a misogynist and child-free organisation like the Catholic Church, need the protection of the law to safeguard them against being told what to do simply because they are under eighteen and under their parents’ roof.

Being under your parents’ roof means an obligation on the part of the parents to protect, but does not allow the parents to dictate to children who are capable of making their own decisions. Perhaps they will make the “wrong” decision – all the more reason why the children need protection, not intransigence.

And as for the Catholic Church threatening to excommunicate the ministers in Spain and threatening the pro-women’s rights protesters in Latin America – the Church is reeling from the constant revelations of paedophilia and abuse and is slowly beginning to collapse with at least seven diocese in the United States declaring bankruptcy after being faced with multi-million-dollar compensation claims. It is time for the Church to face the truth of its demise and close its doors for good. For the good of everyone, in fact.

The British Army and the BNP - a marriage made in Hell

(London, England)

On the same day that it was announced that a list of BNP members has appeared on the internet a group of former British generals published an open letter in the press demanding that the party stop using British military symbols such as Churchill’s face and the Spitfire and declared that the party held values that “are fundamentally at odds with the values of the modern British military, such as tolerance and fairness”.

The British army is known the world over as a fascist organisation which draws its members from the thuggish underbelly of a jingoistic society and uses them to enforce the imperialist policies of the British government, the British crown and the xenophobic, hooligan majority of English people. It is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians this decade alone, as well as the deaths of some of its own members through intolerance and injustice.

It has yet to be demonstrated whether the list of BNP party members is real or a hoax, but it is probably not necessary to have a list to see who is a member or a sympathiser. The English are more than vocal in their support of the British army and the exploits of “our boys” against whichever group of foreigners happens to be this year’s target.

They turn out for military parades for returning soldiers, they tune in to television programmes that exalt and reward modern veterans, they read newspapers that support the army and incite hatred for foreigners and they use the national support as a convenient platform to demonstrate their primitive values.

The rise of the BNP simply underlines and confirms what those on the outside looking in have known for a long time – England is “against Continental totalitarianism” and the BNP is “the party of the British squaddie”.

Anybody in the British army that feels the BNP is distorting the world’s view of the British military is deluded. Anybody in the BNP who would rather we believed they do not support the British army’s slaughter of foreign civilians is deluded too. They are made for each other.