When Joe Met Arthur

Can politicians ever just be friends, or will there always be more to the relationship? What was said between José and Artur when they took themselves off for a spot of lunch at Palma’s Bar Bosch? Did they pledge undying fraternal togetherness, and if so, what language did they use?

“When Harry Met Sally” posited the question about being friends. At one stage, disagreement as to the question and differing philosophies, following what Sally had taken as a pass by Harry (at an American diner take on Bar Bosch), led to them not seeing each other for several years.

José and Artur, respectively President Bauzá of the Balearics and President Mas of Catalonia, met in Palma the other day. They are more Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau than Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The odd couple. They share certain things in common, but they don’t quite fit.

There is the Catalan thing. They both speak it, though José would prefer not to call it Catalan and would prefer that they spoke Castilian. There are the politics. Both the Partido Popular and Artur’s Convergència i Unió occupy some similar political terrain, but the PP is further to the right than the CiU. And then there is the independence question. It is here that they have very different philosophies. Though the CiU manages to downplay its separationist tendency, Mas is all for Catalan self-government; Bauzá most definitely isn’t.

What everyone of course wanted to know was what Mas made of Bauzá’s attitude towards Catalan. Everyone wanted to know, which is why he sidestepped the issue, other than to say that Catalan is our “common language”. Common to whom exactly?

Bauza’s Catalan is one of dialect and his argument is one that is dialectic; he and Mas agree to disagree as, for Bauzá, Castilian is the common language and the dialects of Catalan are specific to the individual Balearic islands, but ne’er should enter the language of Catalanism and independence.

Mind you, they probably didn’t discuss the matter in quite such terms, as they bit into an austerity-correct Catalan bread roll at Bar Bosch. Yet they were able to agree that the cultures of the Balearics and the language, or should this be languages, will be jointly promoted through the Ramon Llull Institute, and lent their support to the exhibition of the artist Joan Miró, a native of Catalonia but a resident of Mallorca, as it travels next year to London and Washington.

Far more important was that both Mas and Bauzá had the opportunity to slag off their respective predecessors. None of any of the current mess is our fault; here was some common ground, along with the dirty great holes full of debt and deficit in the ground beneath the Balearic and Catalonian presidents.

There was a chance for a touch of celebration. The Spanish Government and the European Union had just announced that they are going to pump God knows how many millions or billions into the so-called Mediterranean Corridor, a new high-speed rail link to connect Algeciras with France. Not that it is entirely clear quite how beneficial this will be for the Balearics, despite Bauzá having been firmly in favour. He says it will mean a reduction in the cost of imports. Possibly, though he might also want to have a word with maritime operators.

Odd couple they may be, but they are similar in having similar concerns. And odd it may be if a Catalonian government, albeit one that is of a conservative political bent, should offer a model to both Bauzá and his commandants at Partido Popular central office. Catalonia’s health service, as broke as that of the Balearics, is undergoing what amounts to a partial privatisation, though Mas rejects a system of “co-payment”, one that Bauzá’s master, Mariano Rajoy, has been accused of planning to introduce (paying to see a national health doctor, for example).

Of course, one doesn’t really know what Rajoy plans because he either doesn’t have any plans or, more likely, he’s keeping them firmly under wraps before unleashing them on an electorate that will have willingly voted for the slaughter. One doesn’t really know the full extent of Bauzá’s plans either. He had been asked (pressurised) by central office not to announce the Balearics budget until after the national elections, but he now will – on Monday.

When Joe met Arthur was a pleasant diversion before the pain is delivered. It was friendly enough. Maybe they will remain friends, but they will never agree on Catalanism, and when Rajoy wins, what might this mean for Catalonia? Friendly for now, but disagreement will not be far away.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Kicking Off: Cuts, Catalan and Conflict

I know, I know. I should write about turquoise seas, dramatic mountain landscapes, quaint old Mallorcans acting traditionally. I should use the “beautiful” word. I should consult only my tourism brochure thesaurus, litter my every sentence with superlatives. I know, I know.

“What me? Write about politics?” “Yea, as if you don’t”. Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who’s interested. But then I know I am not, as I correspond with those who make it clear that I am not alone. “It’s all going to kick off.” “No, it won’t kick off.” I wish I could share such optimism. It was a pessimistic view that had made me suggest it would kick off. It had been half-joking, but only where one of the rescue agencies was concerned. “The Royal Navy and Ryanair repatriating us all.” Pull the short straw and there would be O’Leary kicking you back down the steps if you dared to bring on excess baggage, your dearest possessions stashed inside a hurriedly-packed old suitcase.

Will it kick off? When will it kick off? What will be the starting-point for it to kick off? Or perhaps it already has in an as yet quiet way.

You can’t blame Bauzá and his government for some of it. These government public companies, for example; what on earth were they all doing? Four or five of them with IT included in their titles. Was it possible that they were duplicating information technology effort? Very likely. The Balearics Tourism Agency is to be combined with the Foundation for Sustainable Development after all. What will become of the foundation’s Jorge Campos? He’ll probably be kept on. He and Bauzá are chums.

Ninety-two of these companies are to go, along with 800 jobs. Shame for the workers, but what was the point of them? The point seemed to be that it cost over 100 million euros a year to employ them.

The unions are making noises, but then unions always make noises. They are threatening “permanent conflict” if the government doesn’t back down on its promise to get rid of the full-time union worker representatives in public administration. It won’t back down. Permanent conflict. Will it come? Has it arrived? Has the kicking-off started?

The university hasn’t got money to pay salaries. Its financial situation, poor anyway, has got worse. It’s short of 20 million of government cash. Its budget had already been cut by 12%. How much more can it lose? Students, always students, gave Bauzá a hard time when he put in an appearance, not just about money but also about the attacks on the use of Catalan. The Obra Cultural Balear is going to take the attacks on Catalan to Europe. Cuts and the language thing. They are a powerful cocktail.

The cuts have only just begun though. There need to be more. Without them, the pharmacists, still owed millions, the constructors, still owed millions, will strike or close or do whatever it takes to get their money from a government with no money.

Because there isn’t any money. Well, there’s some. Some lurking somewhere. In the nick of time, Palma town hall has found some to put into the coffers of the city’s transport service operator, so that wages can be paid. There had been a delay in payment. The workers protested at the town hall, as they have every right to. But what’s to become of Palma town hall? It needs to find 42.6 million euros to pay banks by the end of December. If it doesn’t, what then? It’ll scrape by somehow, only to fight a losing battle later. And remember that thing about the Palacio de Congresos being a bottomless pit. When, if, it is finished next year and is meant to be under Palma’s administration, there won’t be any money in the bottom of the pit to maintain it.

Things are falling apart. The centre cannot hold. The centre holds only in that central office of the Partido Popular is instructing the Balearic Government. Former President Antich, remember him, and none of this is of course any of his doing, has described Bauzá as being on the radical right, and it’s not a compliment. He has also said that the regional government is a subsidiary of central office. What’s that? I think I’ve been saying this. For some time. Give me back my line, Antich.

Is that when it really kicks off? After the national elections? Or what about at the start of November? All those unemployment queues at the end of the season. All those people snaking along the street, demanding their winter payment from the government. From a government with no money. They should get a job. Where? All the hotels are closed. The airlines have stopped running. Does it all really kick off before Christmas? And what of Christmas? Will it be cancelled?

I know, I know. I should write about turquoise seas, dramatic mountain landscapes. Lose myself and lose you in a land where the sun always shines. It was nice while it lasted.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Invisible Station

I’m making an apology on behalf of “The Bulletin”. If you had gone along to the ferry terminal in Puerto Alcúdia on Sunday and had expected to find some free watersports activities which you could have enjoyed, you would have been disappointed.

I showed a short news item (from Thursday’s paper) to someone in Alcúdia who, how can I put this, is in the know. The jaw dropped, followed by an expression of understanding as to how the mistake had been made. I understood it as well, as it’s a mistake many people are making.

What happened on Sunday was that there were indeed free watersports activities, but they were nothing to do with the terminal or the commercial port. They were part of a promotion, in the form of a “fiesta”, for the estación náutica. And it is this which caused the mistake and causes other mistakes to be made.

The estación náutica doesn’t exist. It is not bricks, mortar, aluminium, glass or any material. It is a “station” without physical manifestation. It is an un-thing. But the concept, and that is all it is – a concept, begs an interpretation of the physical. Of course it does. A station is a thing not an abstraction; hence a not unreasonable confusion with the terminal.

Since the estación naútica concept was first raised in Alcúdia – at the start of 2009 – I have written about it on a few occasions, and I keep making the same point; it is not understandable. The concept is elusive, it doesn’t translate into anything sensible in English (even watersports centre doesn’t work because this can also imply something physical), and it doesn’t even mean much to the Spanish; they also expect to find an actual centre.

This is not Alcúdia’s fault as such. There are other such stations in Spain and in the Balearics. But the confusion that has existed in Alcúdia with regard to the concept makes you wonder if it hasn’t occurred elsewhere. It must have done, and the same mistakes and misinterpretations are surely being made there.

In Alcúdia, however, to make matters less clear, there is a website for this station. It doesn’t work. For a time at the weekend it didn’t even load. Yet, there it was, proudly mentioned on the publicity, assuming it was seen. There was another website, for the “Fiesta del Mar” which is what occurred on Sunday and which was one of a series arranged by the estación náutica people in their different resorts, but it was in Spanish only. At least it worked though.

As part of this fiesta, there was also an evening event. The “orange fiesta”. Nice poster, shame about the language. Catalan only. I had an exchange on Facebook about this. Catalan is an official language and the fiesta was directed at locals. Well yes, up to a point, but Puerto Alcúdia is a tourist resort and why was the tourist office emailing the poster to those, such as myself, who have a stake in the local tourism industry? Moreover, the estación náutica concept is meant to be a way of attracting more tourists, of the so-called quality type.

But Catalan-only material appears all the time. In all sorts of resorts. The estación náutica concept, the publicity in Catalan are different types of example that raise the same question: what thought process lies behind any of this? Is there one?

I had a chat with a tourist about this. Is it stubbornness that results in the Catalan-only publicity? I don’t know that it is. It’s more likely a case that no one stops to really think who they are meant to be marketing to and what they are marketing. But who makes these decisions?

Alcúdia is a tourist resort with a highly diverse market. It would be impractical to put out material in all the languages necessary. But at a minimum it should be in English and German; more so than even Spanish, where tourists are concerned, as the level of Spanish tourism in Alcúdia is well below that of either the UK or Germany.

The counter argument is that Catalan (and Spanish) are the local languages and so this is how it should be. Sorry, but it isn’t much of an argument. Not if the market doesn’t understand either language.

Poor marketing occurs because the starting-point is the wrong way round. It should be the consumer, the intended market or markets, and it is this fundamental thought process that seems to be lacking.

I don’t know that there should be an apology for the mistake in “The Bulletin”. The apology should be coming from somewhere else. The trouble is you don’t where that somewhere else is.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Street Fighting Men: Balearic independence

The new year in Mallorca coincides with the celebration of the conquest of the island by Jaume I in 1229. On 31 December of that year, Jaume took what was then called Madina Mayurqa (Palma, as it is better known). It is a hugely symbolic date, and it is why it has been hi-jacked in the name of independence and by the arguments of language and the relationship with the Spanish nation.

The night of 30 December has become an annual event in which different sides of the arguments turn up in Palma to celebrate the conquest and in order to trade insults. This year things turned nasty. A pensioner and two police officers were injured when violence flared. There had been an indication of things to come. The building in Palma that houses the offices of the Fundación Nacional Círculo Balear, an organisation that, among other things, protests against the “imposition” of Catalan, had been daubed with graffiti. The organisation is now but one calling for political condemnation of independence activists who, during the demonstration, attempted to burn the Spanish flag.

The Círculo Balear’s offices were targeted because it had said that it would participate in this year’s Jaume celebrations. This was a red rag to the bull of its opponents who took none too kindly to the foundation’s claim that the celebrations were being “Catalanised” and to a further claim that there is a growth in “nationalist violence”.

The Círculo Balear was probably right when it came to denouncing violence, as this is what it got. As to the Catalanisation, there is a slight illogic to the argument. Jaume, though not from Catalonia, was instrumental in the introduction and promotion of the Catalan language. A Catalanised Jaume celebration seems entirely reasonable. Otherwise, though, reason seemed to be chucked out the window, or at least chucked across a square together with chairs from a café.

The demonstrators, the pro-Catalanists that is, combined behind the slogan “som una nació” (we are a nation), by which they mean the Balearics. Their ranks were swelled by the usual suspects of the nationalist-inclined left of local politics and groups such as the Maulets, an independence- and revolutionary-minded organisation. Their cause, in 2010, had been fuelled by the Spanish Supreme Court’s denial of Catalonian nationhood and the rumpus inspired by the language policy of the Partido Popular in the Balearics.

Does the call for Balearic independence have any real substance? In terms of popular support, you would have to think that it doesn’t. The prevailing mindset in Mallorca is conservative. There was little evidence of support, other than political, for Catalonia when the Supreme Court made its decision back in the summer which made it clear that Catalonia could not be a “state”.

Nevertheless, there does appear to be a growing radicalisation. It is one that the Círculo Balear has drawn attention to, and a target of its concerns is the Obra Cultural Balear. The OCB, says Círculo Balear, has received over four million euros in grants from regional and central government during the past three years. Grants, it claims, with which the OCB “gives cover to the violent”.

The president of the OCB, in a recent interview, said that he believed a Balearic state would be something from which much could be gained, not least from keeping  all the “riches” that accrue from tourism and from having its own voice within a group of independent Catalan states. He is probably right when he also says that politically there is a bias towards the notion of independence. Only two parties, the Partido Popular and the Unión Progreso y Democracia, would be dead against it.

But you come back to the question as to whether there is sympathy within the public at large. The OCB is now rolling out a new campaign to try and generate such sympathy. Entitled “Mallorca m’agrada” (I like Mallorca), this is intended to create a “collective self-esteem” in promoting elements of identity that characterise the Mallorcan people. It remains to be seen what impact this might have.

While the notion of a Balearic state as part of a group of Catalan states may not be an issue that excites that many Mallorcans, there is another matter which just might. And that is the whole question to do with language. This spring’s local elections could see the Partido Popular coming into power under its leader José Ramón Bauzá, someone who has so far proved to be capable of dividing not just the general public but also his own party where it comes to the Catalan-Castilian debate.

What Bauzá might do is to turn back decades of linguistic policy. It is potentially highly dangerous in terms of what it would represent symbolically. It is this issue that has the power to give the OCB, the Jaume I demonstrators and the independence activists the ammunition they need. For this reason, the local elections in May could prove to be highly significant. What occurred on the night of 30 December might, just might, be a precursor of what else could occur.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

United We Speak: Catalan or Mallorquín?

When is a language a dialect, and when is a dialect a language? Opinion as to the distinction between the two is one on which you will find a lack of unanimity. Linguists themselves can’t agree.

If you are inclined to do so, you can go back far enough with most “languages” and argue that they are in fact dialects. It all depends where you want to start. But for current-day purposes, there are languages which are undeniably languages, one of them being Catalan. Or is it? A definition of a language is that it should be that of a “state”. You may have noticed that there is no Catalan “state”.

Alternatively, a language is a language if there exists a “standard” form, which is the case with Catalan. Except, of course, that there are variants. Nevertheless, the language has its own “code” in that dictionaries determine the standard form. The fact of there being variants does not negate a claim to being a language. Were it to, then English would fail the test. In the case of English, standard codes of language as set out by dictionaries, most obviously the Oxford English Dictionary, are important as there is no body which arbitrates on what is or isn’t standard English, as is the case with Spanish (Castilian) or French.

The problem with these variants, however, is the vagueness as to the language-dialect distinction. Let’s take Mallorquín. Is it a language? There is no Mallorcan state and there isn’t a specific language code, or at least as far as I am aware. Where it appears, in dictionary form, is in the work of Antoni Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll who included Balearic languages (or are they dialects) in an all-embracing Catalan dictionary.

Greater unanimity of opinion surrounds the political dimension as to whether a language is a language or a dialect. Think what you will of the politicisation of the language debate in Mallorca, but to deny the importance of politics would be to completely fail to understand the debate, and it is a debate that has been sparked into ever more controversial life by the leader of the Partido Popular (PP), José Ramón Bauzá, who has said he will reform the so-called law on linguistic normalisation if his party wins power in May next year. This would have the effect of relegating Catalan in favour of Castilian and the languages of the individual islands.

What Bauzá argues is that there is no such thing as a “unity of Catalan”. He seems to believe that Mallorquín and the other languages of the Balearics are that – languages, and not therefore dialects of Catalan. Why does he think this? The reasoning is political. If Mallorquín is distinct, then so is Mallorca from Catalonia. The political motive lies with his alliance with the Spanish state and not the aspirations of a Catalan state, language and all.

Bauzá has attempted to prove linguistically that Mallorquín is not a dialect by mentioning certain Catalan words that are not used in Mallorca or the Balearics. He has come unstuck, his theory being disproved by teachers at the institute in Inca from where a protest of schools in Mallorca is being planned against him. Moreover, even if they weren’t used, this wouldn’t prove anything. Dialects do tend to change words. Indeed Bauzá’s whole linguistic argument is preposterous. The Catalan lineage from the time of the conquest of the thirteenth century is indisputable, except by a few who claim that a brand of Catalan was imported directly from southern France. Mallorquín has fundamental differences to Catalan, such as with the definite articles “es” and “sa” (and even these aren’t used in all instances), but the differences are not so great as to suggest some sort of separate development or major divergence that might qualify it as a distinct language.

Town halls in Mallorca have responded to Bauzá by approving Catalan as Mallorca’s “own language”. Manacor has just followed the likes of Sa Pobla, Pollensa and Inca in doing so. Why should they do this? Apart from the political aspect, the town halls are their own local repositories of culture, and language is indivisible from culture. In Manacor, there is an additional political flavour. The mayor is Antoni Pastor, a member of the PP who does not see eye to eye with Bauzá.

But what makes this all the more curious is that claims for a Mallorquín language are therefore being denied by those who oppose Bauzá, be they from his own party or from the left of the political spectrum. So Mallorquín is a dialect, and to say it isn’t would be to deny the supremacy of Catalan. It is a somewhat bizarre argument when you consider nationalist pretensions to the existence of a Mallorquín language, though perhaps it isn’t so bizarre when you consider that in a different Catalan-speaking part of Spain, Valencia, the far-right has supported the notion of a separate language to the extent of calling for linguistic secession from Catalan.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter whether you call Mallorquín a dialect or a language. What does matter is where you stand on the issue politically. And that, it would appear, is all that matters.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mind Your Language: Catalan and the Guardia

A Moroccan interpreter, Saïda Saddouki, has been found guilty of defaming a Guardia Civil officer and been fined a total of 1500 euros. The Saddouki case is the first of two to go to court in Mallorca, along with one in Gerona on the mainland earlier this year, which all have as their theme the speaking of Catalan to Guardia officers.

In August 2007 Saïda Saddouki went to the Guardia’s command headquarters in Palma in order to translate from Arabic. She spoke to a captain in Catalan. At a later press conference, she alleged that the captain racially abused her by referring to her as “una mora catalanista” (literally a Catalan dark-skinned woman). The court found in favour of the captain who denied that he had said what Saddouki had alleged.

The case has become something of a cause célèbre, thanks in no small part to the role of the Obra Cultural Balear, an organisation which this year celebrates its fiftieth anniversary as one that promotes Catalan in the Balearics. The OCB was with Saddouki at that press conference. Since the court’s decision it has said that it believes her account of what happened and not the captain’s. It has also referred to discrimination in matters of language, has brought the Saddouki case to the attention of Amnesty International and has called for international observers and journalists to attend a future court case.

In March this year a woman called Àngels Monera was fined 180 euros for showing a lack of respect to Guardia officers at Gerona airport. Her version of events was that officers, to whom she did speak in Catalan, showed “contempt” for the language, and detained her long enough for her to miss her flight. She then made complaints to the media and ultimately found herself in court as a defendant. The Guardia version was that she had spoken aggressively and had called them “Francoists”. The officers insisted that they had asked her to speak Castilian not because they sought to “impose” a language but because they didn’t understand Catalan.

The future court case to which the OCB has invited observers from the European Union, and which has also been raised with the European Parliament, concerns one Iván Cortés. On 7 August last year Cortés was allegedly given a beating by Guardia officers who had asked him to produce his papers at Palma airport security and to whom he spoke in Catalan. He was allowed to make his flight – to London – where a doctor seemingly confirmed his injuries. The OCB took up his case and publicised it widely in the media. The court case is the trial of one of those officers.

What are we to make of these cases? Setting aside the rights or wrongs of what has happened or may have happened, they point to one thing – a ratcheting up of the whole Catalan issue. Appealing to Amnesty International and international observers and media takes it to a new level, and one that, on the face of it, seems somewhat extreme.

By doing so, the OCB, which had its own brush with the Guardia when a leading member was detained during the “Acampallengua” (language camp) in Sa Pobla last year, is further politicising an already political issue and also elevating it, via Amnesty, into the realms of human rights abuse.

The Spanish constitution recognises, through the exercise of human rights, the cultures, traditions and languages of all the peoples of Spain. Yet there is a dichotomy in that the defenders of the state, in the form of the Guardia, are officially only Castilian speaking. It is a dichotomy that needs addressing. Whether witting or unwitting, the Guardia should not be pushed into being a defender of language as well; it’s not their job. But as things stand, the Guardia, placed in an invidious position, are an institutional target for those with a Catalanist agenda. Which is not to say that they can’t potentially be brought to book, as will happen with the Cortés case.

The Saddouki case would probably be quickly forgotten about were it not for the Cortés trial. It is the alleged violence, together with the Catalan connection, that will, in all likelihood, make it more of a cause célèbre than Saddouki. And it probably will attract international attention. Moreover, it is likely to ask some awkward questions, ones that go to the heart of the constitution and of institutions.

For many of you, the Catalan issue might seem pretty arcane, but the depth of feeling that surrounds it is of great significance and is one that colours much of the local political discourse, as shown with the debate over language in education. Yes it’s political, but then it’s been a political issue for centuries, and an incident at Palma airport is about to make it more so.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

By The Left: PSM and nationalism

I guess I have always been a bit of a leftie. Not that I have ever taken it particularly seriously. At university it was more a case of playing. I haven’t drifted as far though as a friend from those days who was a card-carrying Trot and nowadays reads “The Telegraph” and is some banking and economics expert. University is the playground of politics. Ultimately it doesn’t really mean anything, other than as a launch-pad to a political career.

However, had I grown up in Mallorca, had I grown up in the past three decades in Mallorca, and had I gone to university, I can well believe that I would now be a Mallorcan leftie, suspicious of and antagonistic towards tourism, wedded to the beardie fringe of the environment, speaking only a Mallorquín Catalan and practising my Mallorcan bagpipes to the annoyance of the neighbours. I am actually full of admiration for those with ideals, even those that seem somewhat nuts.

There was this interview on Sunday in “The Bulletin”. Chances are it won’t appear on the paper’s website or if it does it will soon disappear from cyberspace, given a less-than-rigorous approach to archiving. (It hasn’t appeared.) Shame, it was not without interest. The subject of the interview was one Lucy Jane Collyer, British-born but Mallorcan-grown, so to speak. She is 27, became politically active at university and is now a member of the PSM Mallorcan socialists. I can, you might find this hard to believe, connect with what she has to say, the PSM standing for social justice, the preservation of the environment and the protection of the (Catalan) language and culture. I can also agree with what she says about tourism, inasmuch as she refers to the need for “sustainable development and the development of new and alternative industries to tourism on which we have become so dependent”. I also agree with her when she dismisses the idea of President Antich calling an early election, even if there might be a touch of party self-interest here, given that the PSM has secured itself a couple of healthy ministries since the Unió Mallorquina (UM) were shown the door.

All of this is fine. Where I start to have problems though are with the fact that certain issues are simply not explored. Take this one. The PSM is a member of the European Free Alliance, a European grouping comprising some credible parties such as the Scottish National Party and others that are crackpots. Lucy is to present a motion to the alliance on something called “regional insularity”. What on earth is this? Insularity, by definition, means inward-looking or narrow-minded. Is this what is actually meant? It seems to imply, and there is a later reference to the support for local produce and farmers and the like, something of a back-to-the-future autarky – self-sufficiency if you prefer. It is hard to know because the subject hasn’t been explored. Raise the “insularity” flag and someone should be asking some tough questions.

Then take the issue of nationalism. Behind a photo of Lucy is the party’s banner “PSM Entesa Nacionalista”. The PSM is a nationalist party. All we get though is that nationalism doesn’t mean what it means to the English (the BNP presumably) and that it is different to the nationalism of the PSM’s great rivals, the UM. To the English, the nationalism of the lunatic far right is quite different to the sensible left-of-centre SNP. But there is still confusion. What actually is nationalism? And in the Mallorcan context, what does it mean? In one respect, it makes no sense. How can an island – an island, mind – with no sense of or aspirations to nationhood spawn not one but two “nationalist” parties? Or maybe there is such an aspiration. Who knows?

In the article, Lucy says that the PSM wants “to include all members of society … regardless of there (sic) origins”. In other words it is open to all. Great. But it is not good enough to declare this openness by pointing out that a Briton, albeit one brought up in Mallorca, enjoys a prominent position in the party or that the UM once spoke about Mallorca being for Mallorcans. The Catalan issue, for example, is one that can and does alienate and deter those who might have sympathy for the PSM’s nationalism, whatever this is. Protecting the language, fine, but go to the PSM’s website and it is all in Catalan. No nod in the direction of Castilian or English or German. Like so many other bodies, town halls for example, who might profess inclusiveness, the PSM fails on account of its linguistic dogma. And one keeps coming back to what is meant by its brand of nationalism. The interview missed a golden opportunity to explore this and its implications for those from other countries.

The PSM and the UM are far more interesting political phenomena than the national parties, the Partido Popular and the PSOE. Far more interesting because of trying to understand what they stand for (and in the case of the UM because it’s currently up to its neck in the brown stuff of corruption) and because they have a mutual hostility in seeking to claim the nationalist ground. But it’s still hard to really say what either of them truly represents. And what either of them means by nationalism. Regional insularity, anyone? Worrying. Or it might be if we knew what the hell it meant.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Columbus Industry

This is the thing about Columbus that appeared in “Talk Of The North” this week, the piece to which I referred on 16 October (Chris and Yasmin). I was thinking of reproducing another thing that went into TOTN – about the Ternelles carry-on – as it had, what I thought, a pretty good gag in the final paragraph which mysteriously didn’t appear. But as I’ve done enough on that subject already, you’ll never know the gag.

 

Anyway, here’s the Columbus industry:

 

Christopher Columbus, Cristóbal Colón, Cristofol Colom, Cristoforo Colombo – take your pick. There is a Columbus industry in Spain, one dedicated to proving that the discoverer of the Americas did not come from Genoa. There is also a lot riding on Columbus not being Italian. So synonymous is he with Spain that the “Día de la Hispanidad” coincides with the day on which he made landfall at what he called San Salvador on 12 October, 1492. In the variants of his name, he is celebrated by streets, such as Cristofol Colom in Alcúdia old town; in Porto Colom he has been claimed as one of their own. DNA tests on those with the Colom or Colón surname have sought to prove his Spanishness or maybe his Catalan or even Mallorcan origins.

 

The traditional historical view of Columbus is that he came from Genoa, but there has long been sufficient mystery as to his background that his birthplace has been the subject of fierce and patriotic debate, and no more so than in Spain where the patronage of the Catholic Kings resulted in his discovery of the New World and heralded Spain’s Golden Age. National pride, akin to Spain winning the Euros, would flow from it actually being proven that C.C. was a Spaniard all along, or you might think it would were it not for his tarnished image or that he was in fact Catalan.

 

Nevertheless, Genoa is usually accepted as being his place of birth, and the Genoese were merchant traders and familiar to the Spanish court of the late fifteenth century. In itself, it would have been no surprise had he, from Genoa, been hanging around in the general area of Isabel and Ferdinand. But the Columbus mystery remains and has largely centred on how he spoke and on how he wrote. The only real agreement is that his language has been hard to pinpoint. One argument is that he learnt a corrupted form of Castilian while in Lisbon some years before his first voyage. (His wife, indisputably, was Portuguese.) That he appeared never to write in Italian may have been due to the fact that his Genoese dialect, if this was indeed his “native” tongue, was a spoken and not a written language. 

 

In seeking to resolve the Columbus mystery, a new book by Estelle Irizarry, emeritus professor of Spanish literature at the University of Georgetown in Washington, argues that Columbus was in fact of Catalan origin and that he spoke Catalan before he could speak Castilian. In “The DNA Of The Writings Of Columbus”, Irizarry places Columbus as having come from Catalan-speaking Aragon, itself of symbolic importance to Mallorcans as this was the kingdom of the “conquistador”, Jaume I.

 

Intriguingly, Irizarry has identified characteristics of linguistic use which point to Columbus possibly having been descended from the Jewish-Spanish race persecuted from the fourteenth century. The language of the Sephardic Jews in Spain was Ladino, a mix of primarily Hebrew and Spanish. Though Irizarry has identified use of Ladino by Columbus, she implies that there was also a variant – Ladino-Catalan – and that this usage indicates a Catalan origin. Sephardic Jews were to be found across Spain, but they were certainly prominent in Aragon and Catalonia, and even in Palma.

 

Claims of Jewish or Catalan lineage or birth are nothing new in the Columbus mystery. But if Irizarry has indeed managed, via a study of linguistics, to unravel the mystery and to establish a Catalan origin, how well would this all sit with Columbus and the Día de la Hispanidad? Not very well where more radical Catalan voices might be concerned, one would imagine. The Columbus industry, moreover, has scarred the reputation of the discoverer, which might make those who would claim “ownership” of him pause and consider him in terms of current-day political correctness. Not only was he a lousy administrator, he has been blamed for the wiping-out of the indigenous Taino indians. The Tainos may have bequeathed us certain words – hammock, hurricane, barbecue, for example – but they survived as a separate race for only a short period once Columbus had colonised La Española.

 

Yet for all this, how does it square with the fact that Columbus did have Genoese connections? With the fact this brothers came from Genoa to join him on voyages? Or with the generally held view that his father, Domenico, is meant to have originated from the village of Moconesi near to Genoa? Or that he himself once clearly stated that he was born in Genoa, despite his frequently being attributed with having said that he came from nothing?

 

Columbus, it is said, sought to hide his origins because they were humble. His father, if indeed Domenico was his father, was a mere weaver. It might be construed that he was ambiguous as to his background because of a possible Jewishness, even if it was not unknown for “conversos” from the Jewish faith to rise to positions of importance at the time of his voyages. But it is not inconceivable that he acquired what was a polyglot tongue. His time in Lisbon may be more significant than previously thought, as Portugal, prior to expelling Jews at the very end of the fifteenth century, had become something of a refuge for Sephardic Jews leaving Spain in the years before the final expulsion order of 1492. If it is true that Columbus acquired his Castilian in Lisbon, then might it be that this was influenced by Ladino? Columbus was clearly exposed to the Jewish community in Lisbon. In his will, he referred to the Jew who guarded the gate to the Jewish quarter. This all said, it is the Catalan element in Professor Irizarry’s findings that is the wild card.

 

The Columbus mystery and the Columbus industry will continue. There’s too much riding on them for his origins to be finally and irrefutably laid to rest. 

Chris And Yasmin

The history of the Jewish people in Spain has largely reflected their treatment in many other countries. Though the Jews were generally accommodated by the Muslims during the period of the caliphate, persecutions in the form of pogroms emerged from the eleventh century, and in the fifteenth century Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism, to go into exile or be subjected to the inquisition. Spanish history, from mediaeval times, has partly been one of persecution of two peoples – the Jews and the Catalans. All the more ironic, therefore, that a new book should suggest that the iconic figure of Christopher Columbus was not only Catalan but that he also spoke Ladino, the Judaeo-Spanish language of the Sephardic Jews of Spain. 

 

The Columbus angle I won’t go into here; it is likely to be covered elsewhere – in “Talk Of The North”. But if the book, by a Professor Irizarry of the University of Georgetown, has indeed resolved the mystery surrounding Columbus’s origins, it will shatter a number of illusions. 

 

While Catalan persecution was essentially one of proscription, and not just by Franco – Philip V banned Catalan under the “Nueva Planta” decrees of the early eighteenth century (this was in fact dramatised as part of Alcúdia’s “Via Fora” programme during the summer) – Jewish persecution was more extreme. By the later nineteenth century, though there were few Jews left in Spain, they were still singled out as being responsible for the ruin of Spain during a period of newly assertive arch-Catholicism that was to endure and to find expression in Franco’s nationalism. It is another irony, though, that Franco did not share Hitler’s hatred of the Jews. Indeed Spain was something of a safe haven for Jews, which was just one of the reasons why Hitler mistrusted Franco. 

 

Just as Catalan culture has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance, so also has the Sephardic Jewish tradition and its culture begun to flourish under a liberal democracy. It was perhaps no coincidence that during the summer the Sephardic music group Yardem performed in Pollensa, a town which bears its Catalan cultural credentials more strongly than most others in Mallorca. Within the new Catalan tradition, there is arguably more support of other cultures that had been threatened with extinction or had been banished.

 

Ladino and Sephardism have now also shot to prominence through the work of Yasmin Levy. The daughter of Isaac Levy, himself a hugely significant figure in Ladino culture, has released an astonishing album – “Sentir” – which takes Ladino and has combined it, to the annoyance of some purists, with elements of flamenco; it is produced by the influential Spanish flamenco artist and producer, Javier Limón.

 

It is a coincidence that, just as Levy is bringing back the music of a culture that was effectively kicked out of Spain in the late fifteenth century, so also is that culture being given additional exposure through, of all people, Christopher Columbus, whose discovery of the Americas on 12 October 1492 is celebrated annually as part of the “Día de la Hispanidad” (Spanish day) celebrations. How very, very ironic.

 

 

LINK

Here is a documentary thing about Yasmin Levy. There are further links from this to songs from her album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_HN5R6f5Uk.

 

Suspicious Minds

Right, let’s get back to something resembling normality – after a fashion. Or maybe not. The tension post-Palmanova was reflected on Saturday by the closure of roads around the Lago Menor in Puerto Alcúdia when a “suspicious package” was discovered. Nothing came of it of course. As ever after incidents anything looks like it might be packed with explosives. A problem is that there are any number of things that might qualify as suspicious – bags of rubbish discarded or all the stuff that just gets left out either for rubbish collection or for people to help themselves to. You could fill a house with what gets plonked on the street. Fridges, televisions, stereos, paintings, doors, drawers, entire patio suites of furniture (in need of restoration), old boilers in cardboard boxes. You name it, you can find it if you drive around long enough. And some of it could well fall into the “suspicious” category, especially suitcases. As for an old boiler, God knows what you could pack into that – a nuclear warhead probably. Reacting to a potentially suspicious bag or some such in the street does rather suggest too heightened a level of paranoia. If someone were of a mind to plant something, there are fairly obvious places to put them – like all the different rubbish containers.

 

And if not suspicious packages, then try the suspicious looking people. One review I read referred to someone that the reviewer thought he or she had seen on “Crimewatch”. Let’s face it, there are some on the loose who should be. Anyway, now we are being told that the ETA terrorists may have had contacts with radical, pro-Catalan youth groups on Mallorca. Indeed the police have in fact previously intercepted correspondence. There is no particular evidence that such a connection existed in respect of Palmanova, but it is one that naturally the police and Guardia are interested in examining, especially as they try to make sense of how a cell might have been able to exist on Mallorca for several weeks and to reconnoitre its targets. It might come as a surprise to learn that there are such groups. Mallorca is hardly a hotbed of revolutionary fervour, but there is a growing Catalan radicalisation. Any such association that may be proved would not help the cause of legitimate and honourable Catalan promotion.