Pork Scratchings And Sardines: Carnival in Mallorca

“The Guardian”, bless ’em, can always be relied upon, along with the rest of the quality British press, to present “top ten” lists of places which will cost you a small fortune to visit on the pretext of a bit of culture. Want Carnival? Why not try Uruguay? Of course. Rio is just so last year.

You could always slum it somewhere a bit closer to home. Cadiz or Tenerife, for instance. The latter is making a bid for its Santa Cruz carnival to become a World Heritage Site. I’m not sure how a carnival can be a site, as somewhat by definition it doesn’t stay still, but be this as it may.

Or you could always opt for Mallorca. Well, you could, but it won’t cut much ice over the dinner table when Gideon and Clarissa produce their iPhone with videos of the Oruro Carnival in Bolivia. (And no, I’d never heard of it either, until I eagerly looked at the recommendations in “The Guardian”.)

Carnival in Mallorca is something of a Blue Peter make-do with your mum’s old sheets and some face-paint affair compared with the Lady Gaga-meets-Elton John during his diva phase extravagance of Tenerife. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t make the top ten.

The Mallorca carnival is carnival-lite. Which is not to say it doesn’t have something going for it, but it is small beer of a fiesta compared with the full barrel of others. It may have something to do with fiesta overload from December and January (though probably not) or with the one-time ban that was placed on carnival by old misery guts. Franco reckoned that it was all a bit too much like fun and that the wearing of masks was a disguise for a spot of villainy.

Nevertheless, most towns celebrate carnival in some way or other. Usefully, for once, there is even some advance warning. Alcúdia, for instance, has announced that the fifth and sixth of March will be days of “an explosion of colour”. Perhaps so, but there are explosions and then there are small bangs. Palma will be carnival-ing from 3 March (this year’s “Dijous Llarder” – la-di-da, it’s lardy day) to 9 March.

As with the small beer and the small bangs, there is also the small food fare on offer. Palma, so goes the blurb, will have the “famous ensaïmadas”; Alcúdia, the sobrassada. Sounds much like any other do, then. There is always the wacky tradition of burying a sardine, but the Mallorcans might for once take a leaf out of the slim volume that is British folk tradition and import the nearest thing there is in Britain to carnival, i.e. Pancake Day. Do they still do Pancake Day, by the way? Once upon a time, it was that big that it made the news on the telly; film of housewives with head scarves, curlers and pinnies racing through the mud with frying-pans. It was a time when news was much like Mallorca’s, as in there wasn’t any.

The Germans, strangely enough, could also teach the locals a thing or two when it comes to carnival. Being mad and having a sense of humour aren’t quite the same thing, but what the Germans may lack in the comedy department, they make up for by being totally off their heads. Unaware of the strength of carnival in Germany, I once switched on the telly and was confronted with what looked like some parliamentary session or other that was being staged by Coco the Clown. After some minutes I realised it was a parliamentary session being staged by Coco. Not that this would work in Mallorca. The local politicians dressed up as clowns. How would you notice the difference from any other day?

There is also the German carnival tradition of women rummaging around in the kitchen drawers for a pair of scissors and then heading off to the local pubs and cutting off men’s ties. I assume this to have some symbolism, though the precise symbol is not something I care to think too deeply about.

Though Mallorcan carnival may not be about to make top ten listings, it isn’t without its moments. The “Rua” parades can be colourful, if not explosively so. Alcúdia promises a “permissive and burlesque party”, a feature of which is the wearing of satirical masks representing well-known people, politicos in particular. It’s those clowns after all. And there is of course meant to be some religious meaning to the whole deal, the last days (“els darrers dies”) before Lent and the consequent abstinence from eating meat. Supposedly. So, along with the sobrassadas and the lardy ensaïmada, you can also tuck into the “coca de llardons”. Pork scratchings cake. You know, they really ought to consider the pancake.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Intangible Tourism: Sibil·la

Had you attended matins on Christmas Eve, you would have heard the chant of the Sybil – Sibil·la. The chant, together with the carrying of a sword and candles and the wearing of costumes of white or coloured tunics, was placed on Unesco’s list of practices described as “intangible cultural heritage of humanity”. It was done so on account of, inter alia, the chant giving the people of Mallorca “a strong feeling of identity and pride”.

The Sybil was one of many practices that Unesco chose to list in 2010. Two of the others were specifically Spanish – flamenco and human towers – and a further two were shared with other countries, falconry and the Mediterranean diet. Practices from elsewhere sound somewhat bizarre and obscure, such as the scissors dance of Peru, the Kirkpinar oil wrestling festival of Turkey and the hopping procession of Echternach in Luxembourg. What all have in common is folkloric and cultural tradition.

While the likes of flamenco are known globally, the Sibil·la is not. It is performed in places other than Mallorca, but its association is firmly with Mallorca, even if its origins are not. The identity and pride referred to by Unesco have been evident from the reporting of the listing of the Sybil, but should it be something to be exploited or should it remain on the island for the islanders?

This question has been addressed by a leading local musicologist, Francesc Vicens. He worries that things shouldn’t get out of hand, that Mallorca doesn’t have a record of cultural symbolism, such as the Sybil, being subjected to pressures of a more global style, i.e. from outside the island. At the same time, however, he is aware that it would be a contradiction that, having been granted recognition, the Sybil should not be limited to the island alone.

What all this is about is the degree to which the Sybil will become or should become a form of promotion.

Are these concerns, however, not being slightly overstated? As I say, most of the practices listed by Unesco are fairly obscure. Does recognition mean, for example, that people will be rushing off to join in with the hopping in Echternach? Maybe they will. But so long as the Sybil remains true to itself, a further issue raised by Vicens, what really is the problem? That it might be promoted as an aspect of cultural heritage, as given the seal of Unesco approval, and might lead to tourists wishing to come to Mallorca to witness and hear it, then this can only be a positive. Is it not?

To be fair to Vicens, he is not against the Sybil being presented alongside the likes of Rafael Nadal in promoting Mallorca. Rather, what he does express concern about is how well tourism, and therefore the tourism industry and organisations, handle culture. He actually believes that it would be “fantastic” were the Sybil to be used as a way of getting tourists to know more about Mallorca. But he also believes that the tourism industry has little interest in cultural issues, which may come as a surprise to some of those in the industry, especially in the promotion agencies. However, he could well be right. And his words cut right to the bone of the discussion about cultural tourism. He says that “much is spoken about cultural tourism, but I believe that the term has been used a great deal but without planning or a strategy … for promoting the island”.

The words of the musicologist are music to my ears and to others who have been saying much the same thing. Where I would tend to disagree, however, is with the idea that the Sybil would be that strong a symbol, were the planning or strategy for its inclusion in promotion done well or not.

Pressures of a more global style, as he sees coming from what is unprecedented for Mallorca in having such a recognition for an aspect of its culture, might not actually come about. In a way, he is falling into the same trap as the tourism agencies, that of believing this culture has resonance in a wider market, when in fact it might not have. It is a trap laid by essentially insular thinking made global. It is thinking that goes along the lines of because it’s important to us (Mallorcans), then it will be for others. I may be wrong, but I don’t know that it will be.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

These Words: The Pope and Spanish secularism

The Pope’s favourite two words. Aggressive and secularism. Combined, they come out like a knocking-copy comparative advertising slogan. Marketing people know of the dangers of knocking the competition. The Pope should know of the dangers as well.

The Pope levelled the aggressive secularism charge against Britain. He has now done so as well in Spain. It’s one that carries more weight in a Catholic country, more so than it did in Britain where it should have been shrugged off with a so-what.

The charge carries weight and danger because it is an overtly political statement, one that is explicit in its criticism of the socially liberal, anti-Church policies of the current Zapatero government. The danger is immense. While it may be a reassuring message for a moderate Catholic right, there exist more extreme elements. The added danger of the Pope’s words can be seen in the context of his expression of contemporary secularism. He compared this to the “strong and aggressive (that word again) anti-clericalism” of the 1930s.

Playing the ’30s card resonates with all manner of alarm bells. The anti-clericalism of that time was just one factor that contributed to the rise of Nationalism and of Franco. And strict Catholic orthodoxy was to become an important strand of Francoism.

The Pope is referring to the efforts of the Second Republic from 1931 to undermine the privileged position of the Catholic Church and to introduce reforms such as secular education. The circumstances are nowadays quite different, with regard especially to education. They also differ dramatically in another way. The Republic attempted to address social problems and issues in the first part of the 1930s, but did so against a background of what was a shaky political structure. This is not the case today.

It was the apparent persecution of the Church by Republican constitutional change that was to become a theme of the political and then military struggles of the 1930s. To draw a comparison with anti-clericalism and secularism then and now is not completely without foundation, given the emergence of policies related to abortion, divorce and homosexuality. But the dynamics are very different, as indeed are the issues.

A generation or more has grown up knowing both increased secularism and democratic stability. The Church’s influence has been reduced significantly in a country where only around a seventh of the population now attends mass regularly. And education, one of the battlegrounds of the ’30s, is a further factor in a society that now enjoys better standards of education than before. The Pope might reflect on the fact that the reinstatement of the Jesuits under the Nationalists, alongside the Falange’s control of universities, did not contribute to making a population that much better educated than it was in the ’30s. It certainly did nothing for anything that might have approximated to a liberal educational tradition. Which was really the point of the Church’s opposition to anti-clericalism under the Republicans. And remains so today.

One of the great ironies of Spain and of all the problems it faced from the nineteenth century until Franco died is that Spain gave the world the concept of liberalism. It has taken an enormously long time from its inception as an ideal in the early 1800s for it to have finally taken hold in Spain. The word and the concept have come to be wrongly abused, hijacked by a right wing that has misappropriated it through – further irony – its own politically correct dogma. In today’s Spain liberalism is portrayed, by the Catholic right, as the creation of what it sees as social evils. But this is a stance unshared by and rejected by a majority of the population.

For the Pope, there is more history. It is that of Spain at the end of the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth, when Spain was the perfect example of a Catholic “state” and, moreover, was crucial to Catholic imperialism. For the Vatican, there is much riding on Spain’s ongoing Catholicism, but much which is historical symbolism. The danger in what the Pope has said lies in stirring up that symbolism and giving it political succour. Whether aggressive or not, secularism – and liberalism – have come to define Spanish society. That of today. And it’s only taken a couple of hundred years for it to get there.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Matters Of Life And Death

The anti-abortion rally that took place in Madrid on Saturday attracted, depending on whose figures you believe, anything between a quarter of a million and a million and a half demonstrators. The rally, as much as it was a pro-life proclamation, was also a direct attack against the liberal social policies of the Zapatero government. Since taking office, Sr. Zapatero’s socialist administration has sought to slacken the shackles of conservative Catholicism by, for example, legalising gay marriage and now seeking to introduce abortion on demand and, moreover, abortion for 16 and 17-year old girls without their having to gain parental consent. Until now, abortion has been sanctioned only in extenuating circumstances, but it has also not been unknown, under these circumstances, for termination to be performed as late as eight months. The most usual justification has been the psychological or physical risk to the mother. The government wishes to see abortion on demand up to 14 weeks and no later than 22 weeks in certain instances.

 

As ever, this is a tough issue. The conservatism of the Catholic right makes it an even tougher one in Spain. The Zapatero government has sought to take on this conservatism – it is, perhaps, the single most important socio-political question that the country faces. Yet the power of the church has waned. Less than 20 per cent of the population now attends church on a regular basis. There are those who will quite openly denounce the obstructiveness of the church, while there are also those with memories of the church’s role in the Franco era. 

 

Nevertheless, abortion is a subject that goes beyond either religion or politics. It is, or should be, a moral issue, divorced from religious doctrine or political dogma. Personally, I struggle with it. Like, I would imagine, most people, I abhor the notion of abortion, but the moral argument goes further than the rights of the unborn child. Also like many people, I have had experience of abortion, if not directly but through the experiences of friends, such as one who terminated her pregnancy because the baby would have been born with Down’s Syndrome. I also know people with Down’s children, but was she wrong to have terminated? I don’t believe she was. And one edges into the quality-of-life question. It is tough, and no-one can say that it isn’t.

 

If abortion is a morally tough call, there is less agonising when it comes to assisted suicide. Or, put it this way, I do not have a moral struggle with it. This is also something that the Spanish are toying with. But it has been nuanced as a political issue, quite inappropriately in my opinion. In September last year, the health minister stated that a decision to opt for assisted suicide was in line with socialist ideology. The argument is laughable. The avoidance of “unnecessary suffering”, the more humane justification that the ministry has proposed, is the key and not dogma.

 

I know someone who has a highly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis**. I will not name her, but there are many in Alcúdia and around who will know who she is. The disease has progressed rapidly; total incapacity and loss of control of functions are inevitable. There is no cure of course. Let me stress that I am not for one moment suggesting that assisted suicide is a solution that has been mentioned in her case. But it should surely be an option were she, or anyone else with such an awful condition to consider it, just as Debbie Purdy – also an MS sufferer – has fought for it to be in the UK. Any change to Spanish law to permit assisted suicide has yet to be agreed, but it is on the table. They should do it. 

 

Inevitably, as with abortion, the assisted suicide argument runs up against the same opposition – that of the Catholic right. However much one may find repugnant or support abortion and assisted suicide, the decisions do ultimately reside with secular politicians. And it is this that traditional Catholic conservatism cannot accept. Politicians may make the winning of the arguments more difficult by styling them in terms of a particular political philosophy, but it is they who are the moral arbiters and not the church. Both issues will continue to arouse the passions of the traditionalists but, rather like Margaret Thatcher embarked on a change in British culture through her confrontations with the unions, so Zapatero has made this traditionalism his battlefield in advancing the cause of a socially liberal Spain and neutering the conservatism that historically has been the state’s undoing. But there’s a difference: cultural change in Spain is a matter of life and death.

 

No-one said this was easy.

 

** Multiple sclerosis is relatively uncommon in Mallorca, which may support a view that lower doses of sunlight can be influential in its development. In the case above, the person concerned is not originally from Mallorca and also has a condition against prolonged exposure to sun.