On The Street Where You Live

Courtesy of “The Diario”, here’s a strange little story, though it isn’t all that strange for Mallorca. It concerns a street in Palma that used to be called Capitán Salom. That was its name until June of this year when it was changed to Alfons el Magnànim, who apparently was the king of Mallorca from 1396 to 1458 (an explanation that appears under the new street sign). That sign has been defaced and the old name has been written in above the new one.

The change in name has to do with the law on historic memory, the one that is concerned with eliminating references to and symbols of the Franco era. Capitán Salom was, presumably, associated with Franco. Palma town hall had identified a number of streets that needed a name change, in accordance with this law. 

One day in June, along came the town hall workers and put up a new sign, that of Alfons. It was then that things started to get interesting. The residents say that they were not notified as to the change, though the town hall and the post office say otherwise. But since June, there have been problems with post, letters being returned no known address (for Capitán Salom), cheques for payments being returned, and so on. The paper spoke to a number of businesses, and they all say the same thing – that they had not been told of the name change and that they were all suffering because of non-receipt of mail. Moreover, if one googles these two street names, it is the captain’s that comes up, meaning all that information is out of date. So who’s right? The businesses and residents of the street or the town hall and the post office?

The answer is probably that neither is right and neither is wrong. The greater issue lies with the law itself. It is one thing for the government to wish to eradicate Francoist symbols, quite another when it is likely to cause practical problems, and the Capitán Salom case would appear to be one such practical problem. Perhaps the Captain was a well-known Franco thug. Then, well, one could understand the name change. But if he was just any other Franco follower, does it really matter? How many people might know who he was, in any event? It’s a street name, not a statue to the glorious nationalist revolution and the repression of republicans and others.

But they do this sort of thing – changing street names – even when there is no law on historic memory to influence the change; it’s just done, as has been the case in Can Picafort – a street name disappears to be replaced by one of a street a couple of streets down, which in turn is replaced by another one. Or that is how it seems, because street maps don’t keep up with the changes and were wrong in the first place. Even the one being issued by Can Picafort tourist office was out of date for a year or so. And how well town hall and post office communicate is anyone’s guess. 

The postal service can be somewhat haphazard, but it’s not altogether surprising. Post codes are subject to change (which occurred when parts of Alcúdia were re-coded), while not everyone knows what their code is. It should be very simple. Unlike the complicated post-code system of the UK, in Mallorca there is a five-digit code per town or per area of a town. It should be simple, but isn’t, because of a lack of clarity and communication. There’s an example. Playa de Muro’s post code is? Well, maybe it’s the same as for Muro town, maybe it has its own, or maybe it’s the same as for Can Picafort because the local post office for Playa de Muro, though it is in Playa de Muro, actually falls under Can Picafort. 

Confusion reigns, post doesn’t always get delivered, and then, on top of everything else, they go and change the street names. Fortunately, not everywhere has a Capitán Salom or even an Alfons el Magnànim.

Remember My Name

If you cross the main road from the Soller station to the Plaça Espanyol in Palma, you are walking on a symbol of Franco. The road is the Avenida Joan March. The association for historic memory is demanding that Palma town hall changes the name of the road, together with seven others. Why?

 

March is sometimes referred to as having been Franco’s banker. The Banca March of current day takes its name from him. I once suggested, partly in jest, that they would have to change the name of the bank. Maybe it should have been in seriousness. If they can call for a change to the name of a road, then the bank should, logically, also be re-named; it is surely more symbolic than a stretch of tarmac, especially given March’s banking association with the dictator. Indeed it would be hypocritical to not do so; hypocritical, that is, if the intentions to rid Spain and therefore Mallorca of symbols of Francoism are to be pursued fully.

 

Of the other seven roads deemed symbolic, three have names of countries – Alemania, Portugal and Argentina, each of which supported Franco in some form or another. This is ridiculous. That the names may have been granted during the dictator’s regime and that Germany in particular was highly important to Franco during the Civil War does not mean they should now be changed. How many would have been aware of this connection had the historic memory association not chosen to cite them? It is not as if Germany is not now unimportant to Mallorca for entirely different reasons. There are many Argentinians now living in Mallorca. Portugal is a neighbour. There are other towns that have streets which bear the names of these countries, Alcúdia for example. And you can chuck in Italy as well; the Italians were hardly neutral when it came to matters nationalist during the Civil War. 

 

Ok, change Avenida Joan March, but then make the bank change its name as well, or the demand to change the road name will smack of choosing an easy target. As for the countries, just leave them alone. 

 

 

Smashing pumpkins

Do you like pumpkin? Pretty good I reckon. Normally you expect the pumpkin to be of the circular variety with eyes and mouth gouged into the skin and the fruit scooped out to allow for Hallowe’en lanterns. They can grow in a different way, such as … Well, you should see for yourselves. My mate Diego Qüerio has taken a photo of a pumpkin that is over a metre long. It has been cultivated by a chap in Pollensa. You can see him in the photo as well. I leave you to offer your own captions. There are, I fancy, some rather obvious ones. Go here:

 

http://www.diariodemallorca.es/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2009071800_3_485513__Part-Forana-calabaza-mide-metros

The Grateful Dead

Were you aware that in the grounds of the aerodrome and military base in Puerto Pollensa there is a stone plinth that lists, in tribute, the names of members of the Condor Legion who died during the Civil War? The Condor Legion, lest it has been forgotten, consisted of German Luftwaffe pilots and personnel who came to the aid of Franco’s Nationalists: Guernica was razed thanks to the bombs of the Condor.

 

Does it matter that this plaque is still in the military base? Pollensa’s mayor Cerdà thinks so and took the opportunity of the arrival of military personnel for their annual vacations at the holiday camp that is the military base to reiterate a demand for its removal. Damn right he should. It contravenves, allegedly, the law on historic memory that is designed to rid Spain of symbols of the Franco era. The “monolith” carries the legend “they fell for the liberty of Spain in the battle against the Bolsheviks” (reporting from “The Diario”). It does more than that; it contravenes all sense of morality.

 

The law on historic memory, applied in its strictest way, might be considered to be excessive, if only for practical reasons, such as the re-naming of streets with Francoist connotations. But in the case of the military base roll of honour, its observance should apply; the monolith should go. There might be a sense of unease were the monolith to be destroyed; unease in respect of the sensitivities of the families of those pilots who died. But the Condor dead go beyond a mere Spanish issue. It was the bombing of Guernica that finally alerted the Allies to what would lie in wait if Nazi Germany went to war – and did lie in wait. The Condor was the export of Nazi militaristic ideology, and the Puerto Pollensa monolith has as much a European dimension as it does a Spanish. 

 

Germany has not sought to erase all memory of Nazism. Anyone who has been to Dachau can testify to that. Preserving the obscenities of the Nazis remains a way of educating and countering a re-emergence (“never again”). The Condor memorial is on a totally different scale, of course, and it is of a different type, but it is still stone engraved from the same wretched quarry of inhumanity. (It should be noted that it is now more than ten years since the Germans legislated to remove the names of members of the Condor from military bases.) Moreover, it is a reminder as to how close Europe might have got to following a different course of history. Franco may have been grateful for German assistance in his fight against the Republicans, but his personal dislike and mistrust of Hitler (and the feeling was mutual) was a strong factor in Spain staying out of the Second World War. 

 

The continuing presence of such a memorial in what is essentially a non-military military base, one frequented by personnel from Spain and other countries and used as a holiday camp, is anachronistic and offensive. For the plinth to still exist within the grounds of a base for holidaying militaries that serve current-day democracies is frankly a disgrace. There may be a vague moral issue attached to its removal, that relating to the families of the dead, but the greater morality lies in the wider context of what that memorial represents. They should get rid of it.