(Calvià, Mallorca)
July has been a particularly bloody month in a particularly violent year for Spain. Bombs in Durango, Burgos and today in Mallorca have left two dead, forty-eight injured and extensive physical damage to surrounding buildings.
Every time there is news of another bomb attack in Spain people’s thoughts inevitably turn to the bombings at Atocha Station in 2004, the worst attack the country has suffered on its soil (Franco’s atrocities aside) since Napoleon’s troops retaliated against an uprising in Madrid in May 1808.
My window at work looked out over the station; it also looked out over the sea of umbrellas as a million and a half people flooded the streets of the capital to protest not only against the bombings but also against the right-wing government’s handling of the affair.
Of course, the Atocha bombings had nothing to do with ETA, in spite of the best efforts of Aznar, Zaplana, Pastor and the comic-book simpleton Acebes to convince the world otherwise. We all knew almost immediately that it wasn’t ETA – it didn’t feel like them, it didn’t sound like them. ETA generally give warnings, and while it’s true they don’t always do so what they never do is deny responsibility afterwards, and Arnaldo Otegi’s words after news of the bombings had hit the television screens were the equivalent of a denial.
There was also the small matter of the reaction of the Spanish police. Nobody but the most deluded ever took Aznar’s regime seriously, but the police are not generally considered to be fools. The government could bleat what it liked, but the police had a serious job to do, and already on the Friday morning (the day after the attacks) there were lecheras blocking the streets around Lavapiés and north African men lined up facing the wall as the anti-terrorist brigade tracked down the people who had provided the mobile phones which had been used in the attacks.
In 2007 I was chatting to a young Spanish professional when the subject of Atocha came up. He was a nice enough bloke in his late twenties, smartly dressed and well-spoken, university-educated and well-travelled. However, this apparently educated man tried to convince me that the bombings were instigated by Zapatero, in collusion with ETA, in order to fool the people into thinking that it had been al-Qaeda so that they would vote against Aznar.
He tried to lend weight to his theory by stating that as he was a member of the Partido Popular he was privy to such intimate details of the Spanish political panorama. This theory, he claimed, was gospel among the ranks of pepeístas.
Today I was chatting to another Spanish person, a young woman who would fit the general description I have just given of the young man. She tried to convince me that Franco had never been all that bad, and that the atrocities that the “reds” would have committed had they won the Civil War would have been “worse than a hundred Francos”.
The Spanish are predominantly (and peacefully) socialistas and republicanos, and yet this country of contrasts never ceases to amaze me as it throws up the sort of person who would make not just Franco but Hitler proud.
Every aspect of modern Spanish history is tortuously complicated, but basically ETA was founded as a direct challenge to the brutality of Franco’s totalitarian regime and the organisation still generally targets the Civil Guard, seen by Basque nationalists as the inheritor of Franco’s men. Socialist governments tend to favour dialogue whereas the PP tends to favour torture and oppression. So if the PP with its intransigence, lies and dictatorial attitude were ever to get back into power Spain could expect even more blood and violence. And more denial.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Waste not, want not
(Dublin, Ireland)
The financial situation in Ireland is well-known around the world; all the neighbours have watched as the failing banks have hung the country’s dirty knickers on the line. This week the extravagant junkets of former tourism minister John O’Donoghue and his wife have come to light, straining the ability to be shocked at government incompetence to the limit.
This squander by the ruling regime is akin to the father of a poor family going out to buy expensive alloy wheels for his car while his children go hungry. Government ministers should be working on the same shoestring as the people, and their partners should stay at home instead of going on holiday at the expense of the Irish workforce.
The likes of O’Donoghue should think on – come the next election he’ll be out of a job too. Then he’ll be bleating about how much the next government is wasting. And his tongue will be nowhere near his overfed cheek.
The financial situation in Ireland is well-known around the world; all the neighbours have watched as the failing banks have hung the country’s dirty knickers on the line. This week the extravagant junkets of former tourism minister John O’Donoghue and his wife have come to light, straining the ability to be shocked at government incompetence to the limit.
This squander by the ruling regime is akin to the father of a poor family going out to buy expensive alloy wheels for his car while his children go hungry. Government ministers should be working on the same shoestring as the people, and their partners should stay at home instead of going on holiday at the expense of the Irish workforce.
The likes of O’Donoghue should think on – come the next election he’ll be out of a job too. Then he’ll be bleating about how much the next government is wasting. And his tongue will be nowhere near his overfed cheek.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
I'm innocent (but punish me anyway)
(New York, USA)
Earlier this month Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle a lawsuit which alleged that the company were behind the campaign of “murder, torture and other abuses” perpetrated by Nigeria’s former military government. Shell denied any involvement before inexplicably accepting the financial imposition. Malcolm Brinded, executive director for exploration and production, was reported as saying, “Shell has always maintained the allegations were false”.
According to the Forbes Global 2000 list for 2009 Shell is the second biggest company in the world, so I imagine the compensation figure will not represent any hardship for them. As a proportion of their annual profit (as listed by Forbes) it would be the equivalent of my paying around ten cents of my own salary (if my sums are right).
The difference is that I would not be prepared to pay even ten cents for something I had not done. I contribute to charity on a monthly basis and I would have no problem in attempting to help any community in as desperate a situation as the Ogoni people of the Niger delta, but I would not pay for a crime I had not committed and I would certainly not allow such a serious charge as that levelled at Shell to be attached to my name.
Perhaps, if I was guilty, and somebody offered me the chance of paying ten cents to avoid any prosecution and the subsequent confirmation of guilt I would overcome my principles and accept. Perhaps if I was the sort of person who was guilty of such crimes there would be no principles to overcome. I would bite their hand off. If I was guilty.
It is clear then that I don’t understand one important detail – if Shell are innocent, why have they paid up?
And the Nigeria affair begs another question – how bad does the situation in Mayo have to become before it is necessary for Shell to settle with the Irish government?
Gloomsday, or the annual Lisbon referendum
(Dublin, Ireland)
Last week Dublin got its glad rags on to celebrate Bloomsday. For those who don’t know, this is the day when all the people who claim to have understood James Joyce’s “Ulysses” flock to certain landmark places in the city and gaze in self-satisfied delight at what the emperor is wearing.
In the same week Taoiseach Brian Cowen urged Irish voters to say yes to the Lisbon treaty as he announced that the government was about to make a formal decision on the date for a new referendum. Naughty children, you got it wrong so you’ll have to do it again. It is reminiscent of the referendum on the Treaty of Nice which the Irish electorate “got wrong” in 2001 and were forced to repeat until they “got it right”. It also reminds me of how the mothers of my childhood would serve the previous night’s dinner at breakfast time to bring recalcitrant children into line.
Perhaps, in a land so steeped in tradition, this could become a new annual festival. The people could mill around outside the schools that are used as polling stations, dressed as Declan Ganley, Václav Klaus or Durão Barroso, and spout the stream-of-consciousness rhetoric of our leading pallyticians. They could call it “Gloomsday”, because it is a sorry day indeed when the government is allowed to instruct the people how to vote.
Last week Dublin got its glad rags on to celebrate Bloomsday. For those who don’t know, this is the day when all the people who claim to have understood James Joyce’s “Ulysses” flock to certain landmark places in the city and gaze in self-satisfied delight at what the emperor is wearing.
In the same week Taoiseach Brian Cowen urged Irish voters to say yes to the Lisbon treaty as he announced that the government was about to make a formal decision on the date for a new referendum. Naughty children, you got it wrong so you’ll have to do it again. It is reminiscent of the referendum on the Treaty of Nice which the Irish electorate “got wrong” in 2001 and were forced to repeat until they “got it right”. It also reminds me of how the mothers of my childhood would serve the previous night’s dinner at breakfast time to bring recalcitrant children into line.
Perhaps, in a land so steeped in tradition, this could become a new annual festival. The people could mill around outside the schools that are used as polling stations, dressed as Declan Ganley, Václav Klaus or Durão Barroso, and spout the stream-of-consciousness rhetoric of our leading pallyticians. They could call it “Gloomsday”, because it is a sorry day indeed when the government is allowed to instruct the people how to vote.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Colonial trespass
(Nairobi, Kenya)
“Cholmondeley” is one of those surnames that are guaranteed to get the anti-class brigade’s blood boiling, as it has become synonymous with arrogant, air-headed toffs and the dying tail-flapping of the feudal system. I have never met anybody whose surname is Cholmondeley and I don’t personally know anyone who has, but I suspect that’s not really the point. The Ruperts, Sebastians, Farquhars and ffoulkes of this world are destined to be reviled as worthless idiots until they do the sensible thing and change their name to something inoffensive. Something like Simon Howard, for example.
To be termed an “aristocrat” in the twenty-first century is indeed unfortunate for your public image, as is the fact of being an alumnus of Eton (or Harrow, or Rugby or any of the other knee-jerk school names). Shooting somebody doesn’t help much, either.
Last week Thomas Cholmondeley, an Eton-educated “aristocrat” and important landowner in Kenya was convicted of manslaughter after shooting an alleged poacher on his land in 2006. There were echoes of the case of Pádraig Nally, the County Mayo farmer who shot dead an alleged trespasser on his land in 2004, in that it brought up once more the debate of the right of a person to protect themselves on their own property, the moral or legal limits of the method used and the possible legal repercussions of the resulting death.
However, the West of Ireland is very different from Kenya. Cholmondeley is one of the white people who sit on vast tracts of land that once belonged to the indigenous population, land that was acquired through murder and maintained through violence and enforced poverty. Ever since they arrived – and apparently this is just as true now as ever – these landowners have killed anyone who has strayed onto their land and expected the justice system to absolve them of any wrong-doing.
In fact, Cholmondeley himself had a murder case against him dismissed for lack of evidence after shooting dead another alleged intruder on his land the year before the shooting for which he has just been convicted.
From afar we sit in judgement of the actions of others without pausing to consider what the local system of morals or ethics would allow or proscribe. In some places it is perfectly acceptable to shoot somebody who has trespassed on to your property or who appears to pose a physical threat to you. However, nowhere is it acceptable to attempt to maintain a status quo from colonial times, and it is obvious in this case that it is another example of a powerful landowner killing one of the indigenous people and expecting to be acquitted.
Cholmondeley was found guilty according to the current laws of the country he lives in, and if anything this conviction is a sign that in Africa, the white aristocratic landowner has more than outstayed his welcome.
“Cholmondeley” is one of those surnames that are guaranteed to get the anti-class brigade’s blood boiling, as it has become synonymous with arrogant, air-headed toffs and the dying tail-flapping of the feudal system. I have never met anybody whose surname is Cholmondeley and I don’t personally know anyone who has, but I suspect that’s not really the point. The Ruperts, Sebastians, Farquhars and ffoulkes of this world are destined to be reviled as worthless idiots until they do the sensible thing and change their name to something inoffensive. Something like Simon Howard, for example.
To be termed an “aristocrat” in the twenty-first century is indeed unfortunate for your public image, as is the fact of being an alumnus of Eton (or Harrow, or Rugby or any of the other knee-jerk school names). Shooting somebody doesn’t help much, either.
Last week Thomas Cholmondeley, an Eton-educated “aristocrat” and important landowner in Kenya was convicted of manslaughter after shooting an alleged poacher on his land in 2006. There were echoes of the case of Pádraig Nally, the County Mayo farmer who shot dead an alleged trespasser on his land in 2004, in that it brought up once more the debate of the right of a person to protect themselves on their own property, the moral or legal limits of the method used and the possible legal repercussions of the resulting death.
However, the West of Ireland is very different from Kenya. Cholmondeley is one of the white people who sit on vast tracts of land that once belonged to the indigenous population, land that was acquired through murder and maintained through violence and enforced poverty. Ever since they arrived – and apparently this is just as true now as ever – these landowners have killed anyone who has strayed onto their land and expected the justice system to absolve them of any wrong-doing.
In fact, Cholmondeley himself had a murder case against him dismissed for lack of evidence after shooting dead another alleged intruder on his land the year before the shooting for which he has just been convicted.
From afar we sit in judgement of the actions of others without pausing to consider what the local system of morals or ethics would allow or proscribe. In some places it is perfectly acceptable to shoot somebody who has trespassed on to your property or who appears to pose a physical threat to you. However, nowhere is it acceptable to attempt to maintain a status quo from colonial times, and it is obvious in this case that it is another example of a powerful landowner killing one of the indigenous people and expecting to be acquitted.
Cholmondeley was found guilty according to the current laws of the country he lives in, and if anything this conviction is a sign that in Africa, the white aristocratic landowner has more than outstayed his welcome.
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