From Russia Without Love

At the end of the last century a mere 8,000 or so Russian tourists came to the Balearics. By 2010 the number had climbed to over 34,000. This year the total (taking in also visitors from the Ukraine) has been projected to rise to 90,000. It is still not an enormous number, but such growth has implications for all manner of reasons, not least for the demographic melting-pot that is the holidaymaking collective in Mallorca.

There are other implications, such as what the heck the Mallorcans will make of attempting to put everything into Cyrillic script and inevitably getting it wrong. And they are surely bound to get it wrong.

The Russians, as a rule, don’t speak Spanish and they’re not much better when it comes to English. And no one speaks Russian. Communication is going to be a big challenge, but not the biggest; and this brings you to the melting-pot, one that might just have the potential to boil over.

Let’s cut to the chase. The Russians are not exactly well liked. Years of antagonism between different nationalities on holiday will draw to a close as a united, western European front is formed against the Russian invasion. Remarkably, the British are likely to be brought into a grand holidaymaker alliance, with their old foes the Germans calling on their one-time enemy to join in a whole new battle of the sunbeds.

The Germans have a deep-rooted dislike of the Russians, and the feeling is entirely mutual; Stalingrad and all that. Russian paranoia, a national trait and the one that for centuries has caused the Russians to be constantly seeking ways of repelling enemies, imagined or real, is now being reinforced by treatment that the Russian tourist receives.

Tensions with the Germanic peoples, and let us not forget that a certain German was actually born in Austria, has been evident in the Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel, which decided to limit the number of Russian visitors to 10% of the whole. The decision was taken because of the Russians’ loud and brash behaviour.

Anti-Russian feeling is certainly not limited to the Germans and Austrians. The British have been taking as hard a line, as can be seen in some comments emanating from Trip Advisor. Take these two for a hotel in Marmaris in Turkey. “Ignorant Russians can spoil the mood.” “If you want to punch a Russian clap your hands.” On another internet forum, someone wrote: “The problem is that they are not ordinary, decent Russians but crooks and apparatchiks who have come into money without doing an honest day’s work.”

The Dutch have a dislike of the Russians almost as strong as an historic loathing of the Germans, so much so that following huge numbers of complaints from Dutch tourists there is now such a thing as “tours without Russians” being promoted.

The mixing of cultures in Mallorca’s resorts has not always gone smoothly, but for the most part there has been a tolerance bred from familiarity. Brits and Germans may have their differences but they have reached an accommodation over the years. They might even actually like each other now, and one would hope so. On the principle that travel broadens the mind, then going on holiday should break down the stereoptyping and the antagonisms. Which ultimately will be the case with the Russians, but for now, in addition to accusations of rudeness and ignorance, there is more than a suggestion that much of the negativity towards the Russians comes from resentment; that they have acquired wealth where they previously didn’t have it and are not shy in flaunting it, especially the women.

The generalisation as to how this wealth has come about gives rise to the type of comment quoted above and to jibes of mafia and oligarchs. Put Russians together with Germans in Arenal, and the Germans will not like it not just because they simply can’t stand the Russians but also because they know that an Abramovich could, were he minded to, come along and buy Arenal. It is the shifting of Europe’s economic tectonic plates, however the money has been acquired, that lies behind the resentment.

The widening of Mallorca’s tourism base should be welcomed by everyone, but such a development adds to the peculiar social phenomenon associated with holidays, that of nationalism and territorialism. The “old world” of western Europe’s tourism – the Brits, the Dutch, the Germans and so on – have, grudgingly in many instances, come to accept each other, but acceptance of the “new world” of eastern Europe and of Russia in particular is going to take some doing. Mallorca’s tourism industry should understand what it’s letting itself in for.

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.

No Particular Place – The Unió Mallorquina’s internal strife

Politically, the English “ite” is a Spanish “ista”. For Blairite or Thatcherite, read, within the warring ranks of the nationalist party in Mallorca, “Nadalistas” or “Munaristas” or indeed “istas” of no particular name. The no-particular-istas have won the battle if not necessarily the war, that of the heart and soul of the Unió Mallorquina party. They have got their man – Josep Melià – who has been confirmed as the new president of the party; the fourth in less than four years, following Mother Munar and two Micks, Nadal and Flaquer, all three of them implicated in corruption cases. Melià has hardly won a ringing endorsement; the vote in his favour was close. He has, as has his rival, one of the former tourism ministers Buils, made the right sort of noises regarding a new phase and stability for the party, but it is unlikely to be anything of the sort. The UM is ripping itself apart on the rocks of internecine strife and the fall-out from the corruption charges.

There is an ideological battle being waged within the UM, one that goes back to the succession process when Mother moved over to become speaker of parliament. It is one of Palma-ism versus the regions, one of right versus centre, one of old ways versus new and one of support for discredited politicians versus those not implicated by scandal. One has, of course, to be fair. No-one has been found guilty, but mud sticks, and the right of the party, identifiable with Nadal and Munar, is setting itself up for discredit by association by maintaining support for Nadal and Munar and for a political mindset that the “new way” wishes to sweep away.

It is never as simple as it might seem, given that the party’s Palma-ism garners its own support in the regions, but the northern UM faction – that of former Alcúdia mayor Ferrer and his successor and of Pollensa’s mayor Cerdà – represents a more modern form of Mallorcan nationalism, one of the centre and liberalism, that failed to win support when Munar stepped down, but that has now come to the fore. Ferrer, it should be recalled, was Nadal’s opponent in the Munar succession fight. Nadal, a Palma councillor, had Munar’s backing, as did Buils in the latest vote.

The “Diario” journalist Matías Vallés savaged Nadal and Munar in the paper yesterday. He described Nadal as “ineffable” and compared Munar to Gloria Swanson, hankering for a time when justice was “voiceless” in Mallorca and presiding over her own political funeral. Both have been charged with egoism by their opponents of the new way. It is hard to fathom quite how they can have been seen to have been taking active roles in the latest leadership election, given the ongoing cases against them. It is hard also to fathom the thinking of their supporters, who might be better advised to create some clear blue water. But there is always “innocent until proven guilty” as well as there are enduring motivations of power struggles that any political party is subject to.

Does the fighting have any real relevance though? The UM, though well represented at mayoral level across the island, only finds itself in the governmental spotlight because of the need for coalition. It does have a role to play, therefore. As tourism minister, Ferrer, it might be said, holds the second most important post in the regional government, after the president. But set against the two big parties – the PSOE and Partido Popular (which, some in the UM idiotically claim, have conspired to bring about the corruption charges) – the UM is something of a sideshow. The party has never truly succeeded in making itself a force, partly because it is has not always been clear what it stands for. There is more than a slight sense that it is a sort of flag of convenience for politicians disinclined to ally with the two main parties, especially with the PP which occupies similar political territory in certain respects; a flag of convenience that might be the springboard to satisfy political ambition that might otherwise not be available in a bigger party.

It is the striving for some clarity that is the political debate within the party, one overshadowed by the corruption cases, and the “big thing” informing this debate is to try and shape the UM in the mould of the CiU or PNV, i.e. the centrist and liberal nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque country. It is this, perhaps more than anything, that the no-particular-istas want to achieve. Though neither of these parties is militant, they do, nevertheless, herald from regions with a long history of nationalist sentiment; indeed the two regions most clearly associated with historical opposition to a unified Spain. This is not, for one moment, to suggest anything sinister, but it is to suggest that the UM may be willing upon itself a more assertive nationalist posture, albeit one moderated with the humanist tendencies of, for example, the PNV. But unlike Catalonia and the Basque country, there is not and never has been anything of a true nationalist desire in Mallorca. Despite the rise of Catalanism, Mallorca remains an essentially conservative and passive society. Moreover, when I asked Alcúdia’s new mayor about “nationalism”, he was quick to point out that it wasn’t some kind of Little Mallorquínism. The ambition, though, to be something akin to the PNV is almost certainly far-fetched. The PNV is not only the second oldest political party in Spain, it has also been the dominant force in Basque politics.

In seeking a “new way”, the UM appears to be embarking on the local road to Damascus in attempting a definition, but one of an abstract political ideology of questionable relevance to the majority of Mallorcans. Far more important is that it distances itself from its recent and current travails, those being played out in the courts in Palma, and ensures that it is not tainted by the Nadalista and Munarista associations. In this respect, it has taken the first step.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.