Strange Town: The strange case of Porto Cristo’s name

The question as to the correct usage of local place names is rarely a case of being correct or incorrect, simply (simply!?) a case of Catalan versus Castellano. Hence, one has Port de Pollença versus Puerto (de) Pollensa and Port d’Alcúdia versus Puerto (de) Alcúdia. Oh, that the usage should be this straightforward. Consider, if you will, the case of a resort on the east coast of Mallorca. It is commonly called Porto Cristo. Indeed, this is how pretty much everyone knows it. However, the correct name of the resort has been open to debate for years, and still is.

“The Diario” yesterday pointed out that there are five possibilities: Porto Cristo, Portocristo (all one word), Port de Manacor, Cala Manacor or Colònia de Nostra Senyora del Carme. You can also toss in a hyphenated Porto-Cristo, if you are inclined to do so.

Apparently, the original name was the Colònia mouthful one, so we should probably be grateful that there aren’t many batting for it to be reinstated. This took its name, one assumes, from the church in Manacor, so was the “colony” of the church. The port or cala of Manacor are obvious, or will be to those who know that Porto Cristo is Manacor’s resort, in the same way that Puerto Pollensa is Pollensa’s. So why isn’t it Port de Manacor (or Puerto de Manacor, if you prefer the Spanish)? For some reason it just fell out of common use, but this doesn’t explain how it came to be Porto Cristo.

There are other “portos” in Mallorca, and it is a word that has confused me. It is neither a Spanish nor a Catalan word. I have assumed that it came either from Portuguese or Italian. According to a professor at the university in Palma, Portocristo – one word – is an imitation of other portos on the island and is a “false” adaptation from the language of the Mozarabés, the Christians who lived among the Muslims during their reign in Spain (there are now only some 2000 families said to be Mozarabés).

None of this, however, gives an answer as to how the name came to be adopted, other than one arrived at for religious reasons, and gives rise to the confusion as to what the place really should be called and to competing linguistic, cultural and political opinions as to what it should be. Twelve years ago, the matter received adjudication – in the Balearics Supreme Court, believe it or not. And it reckoned that it should be Porto Cristo, with two words and not Portocristo. Notwithstanding the court’s decision, the confusion still exists, as does the debate.

More toplessness
The arguments over women removing their tops on beaches seem pretty daft, but they risk becoming an absurd diversion when there are matters of rather greater importance to be considered. As alluded to yesterday, they can be seen within the context of a far wider clash between conservative, Catholic Spain and today’s liberalism. There is another organisation which is strident in its calls for women to cover up. This is a far-right group called “Hazte Oír” (which translates as make yourself heard). It has handed in a petition to the Balearic Government, calling for there to be a ban. The petition does not seem to be that strong; it’s nothing on the scale of the petition that led to the bullfighting ban in Catalonia: some 700 families support the proposal, according to the report in “Ultima Hora”.

If you go to its website (and it is quite an impressive one), you will find a whole load on the usual suspects of subjects, abortion for example, and there is a headline for something termed “Playas Familiares 2010”. In this, exactly the same words as used by the family policy institute can be read. These bodies, one has to conclude, are all part of the same thing – a movement of the Catholic far right. The toplessness argument is petty, but there is something altogether more serious lurking.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Shout To The Top (less)

There is a body called the “Instituto de Política Familiar” (institute of family policy). Family and policy – sounds like a euphemism for something of the right. And right is not wrong. This body is making a thing about the body. The female body. On the beach and by the pool. The president of the Balearics wing of the institute, Agustín Buades, would most unlikely be one to shout “get your tits out for the lads”. (And do excuse me for this lapse of taste.) Quite the contrary. He wants them covered up.

The institute reckons that topless sunbathing by women exceeds norms of decorum and that beaches and pools should be places for family use in conditions of “respect and protection of childhood”. The institute wants a ban on toplessness but is most unlikely to get its way. Thank God for that, albeit that God must surely play a role in its thinking. Not that it says it is a religious or indeed a politically-aligned body. Well, it would do.

Go for a trawl through Google and you will unearth a number of references to this institute. Unsurprisingly, the references crop up alongside themes such as homosexuality, abortion and the pill. It seems less than well-disposed to any of them. It may deny religious and political associations, but the words “Catholic” and “right” come swiftly to mind. Comments accompanying the article about the institute’s call for a ban in “The Diario” are revealing. They are invariably hostile and some invoke Opus Dei in connection with Buades.

Among the references in Google, you will come across one to an interview with the institute’s national president in a publication called “Arbil”, the name also of a pressure group for Catholic values, Spanishness and of course the family. The president says, in this interview, that he is in total agreement with the aims of the Arbil forum. On the home page of its website is a black bow under a photo of the dead president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski. Why would that be, do you suppose? Nothing to do with Kaczynski’s opposition to homosexuality presumably.

Topless sunbathing is commonplace. In the interests of research, I assessed the level of toplessness on the local beach yesterday afternoon. Commonplace but in the minority. What there was not was total kit-off. The institute may or may not be aware that, according to the Spanish naturist federation at any rate, kit-off is legal on any beach. (Not that I recommend you try putting this into practice.) I mention this, though, because some local councils have sought to outlaw nudism and have had to rescind any ban. Nudity, partial or total, is a question of personal liberty, a concept that doesn’t always sit easily with those of an outlook at the farther ends of the political spectrum – right and left.

The worry with this institute is that, as with other movements or politics that make the “family” its focus, the family is hijacked as a camouflage for an agenda that, while it may well be sincere in its promotion of family values (and there’s no reason to question this), may well have other aims. It, the institute, is clearly at odds with the liberalism of Spain under Zapatero, and bare breasts expose it – as it were – as being so. If it wants women to cover up, then maybe it should support the wearing of a burka. But it wouldn’t. You don’t get many burkas in Spanish families.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.