Gallowglass

Hi Henry,

I would ease up a bit on the Spanish situation if I were you. We are in a ‘pre-election period’ down here right now, which means that the volume of the rhetoric is turned up and up.

The current Spanish government isn’t seriously interested in ending ‘low level’ terrorism in my humble view, since fighting it wins them too many votes. Nor is it about to trample all over civil liberties, since being seen to do this openly would lose them an already difficult election.

Elections here are all about nationalism, the central nationalism of the Spanish state versus the local nationalism of what Kymlika calls historic minorities.

In the meantime diversity or ‘multiculturalism’ doesn’t get a look in. The case of the attitude to immigrants is another example, absolute hypocracy. Aznar himself threatens undocumented immigrants with immediate deportation if they commit a crime. From this you have to deduce that if they don’t commit any crime………

The thing is a farce from top to bottom. Meantime the powerful cliques who control the economic infrastructure (yes this is the home of clientelism) quietly import as many immigrants as they can (and good luck to them since otherwise the whole thing will go bust more quickly than it otherwise would!!). If you want some on-the-ground info of what is happening, check my post:

http://bonoboathome.blogspot.com/2003_04_27_bonoboathome_archive.html#200225600

If you really want to get into what is happening here start using Granovetter to look at webs of influence around the notorious ‘opus dei’ sect.

(Incidentally, if you look at my Bulgarian post, I am also taking G’s idea of weak links as the starting point for my research).

I would say that what is happening here right now is ‘mucho ruido y pocas nueces’. Things may well start to get really interesting if the euro folds and Spain’s pension funds collapse. Then I would start to look into what might be happening in those ‘army surplus’ hotels in Mayorca being used as holiday camps for old people.

You’re right in one thing. Democracy in Spain has little in common with the meaning that term has acquired in the Anglo-Saxon world.

By the way, is the Colin Crouch you work with one I would have known at the LSE in the late sixtees?

Hi Edward

The post is by my co-blogger Maria, so I can’t speak on her behalf - but I think that there’s something rather worrying happening both in Spain and in Italy (which last I’ve been following more closely; I speak and read Italian, but not Spanish). Even if a lot of this is pre-election rhetoric, it signals the reopening of some rather nasty divisions), and a right wing agenda of strengthening the state, not only against “historic minorities,” but against fairly innocuous leftists. And when Aznar’s government moves from rhetoric to concrete proposals to send protestors to jail, it’s time to start getting worried. I’m going to do another post on Italy in the next day or two; Berlusconi is now claiming that he is the only person who can save the state from Communism. Distressingly remiiscent of the “years of lead.”

Colin is almost certainly the Colin who you knew in LSE - a British economic sociologist. And an absolutely wonderful bloke to boot. He’s now a senior professor at the European University Institute in Florence (which is where I got to know him; I was his research assistant for a couple of years on a project looking at the development of local economies in four European countries.

Fine. Sorry about the mix-up, after an extremely miss-spent youth I’m now half blind. But as one blogger to another you might consider that your skin violates some of Nielsen’s useability criteria. I mean it looks good and cool to you both, but it may not be the easiest thing to read - I know I passed through the same phase myself playing with Blogskins).

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be worried, it’s simply the focus that I have a problem with. Haven’t you ever had the experience that when you read something about what’s happening at the bottom of your road, it seems starngely unreal. I had that experience, for eg, with a Garcia Marquez story set here in Gracia, Barcelona. It seemed to me to be about another planet, which started me wondering about Columbia……..

Now, my feeling is that in Italy things are much more serious, but this is again from a distance and may be completely mistaken. I read some very disturbing material in the French press about what happened in Genoa. I mean the co-operation between the neo-fascists and the police seemed to be very systematic there. I am trying to give more importance to Italy in my blog, since I think it is where the biggest economic crack in the plaster will occur in Europe.

I am also extremely concerned with what is happening on the immigration front in Italy, and with the activities of the Bossi’s of this world.

Spain is different. Ideology is less important here, and money more so. I’ve even heard people say that Aznar’s alliance with Bush can only be understood on the basis of a recognition that Spain can’t live with the euro (all the inflation, and now the east european competition) and that the Spanish Caciques are looking (perhaps via Villalonga et al in Miama) at a long lasting relationship with the US to gain access to the Spanish speaking population in the US itself, and of course the US as gateway to Latin America.

The difficulty, on the economic front, with both Spain and Italy is getting hold of good, reliable data. Even Solbes complains about the quality of the information he receives from Italy!!

So while the anglo-Saxon economists are full of angst over heuristic pricing, the information problem down here is more fundamental and more basic. It is perhaps this lack of information in these economies which makes their ‘periodic adjustments’ more pronounced and more dramatic.

Bottom line, don’t believe all you read: leftists in Spain are not going to prison any time soon, (in fact one of them has just rung my doorbell so I have to go now) and the Spanish economy is not converging Samuelson-Balassa style to a European mean.

See ya

Maria,

The above mentioned leftist is more or less in agreement with me. He says the main danger comes from the recent ‘Ley de Partidos’, which in the name of the illegalisation of Batasuna could be interpreted as a threat to the freedom of expression in other parties, and this has produced a lot of discussion recently here in Spain.

It’s worth remembering that according to Aznar Spain has not participated recently in any armed confict - so it would be difficult to prosecute people for opposing one. I would also bear in mind that among the people ‘behind’ noalaguerra was the principal opposition party (PSOE) and it’s leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Hi Edward,

Thanks for your comments. For me, the bottom line is that Aznar’s government is taking advantage of the rhetoric of ‘fighting terrorism’ to quell political opposition. I thought the threats against the noalaguerra site were alarming precisely because it is run/supported by an opposition party.

We can only speculate about how serious Aznar’s government is about using the new powers it is creating. But once these laws are on the books, they tend to stay there forever and are ripe for use by successive administrations too. I agree with you that there is an element of grandstanding involved here - in the UK, for example, Blunkett just came out yesterday with proposed changes to the Criminal Justice Act which seem to combine equal parts playing to a frightened public, and manipulating the current ‘crisis’ to increase law enforcement’s reach. Writing the wrong thing on a driving licence application is now, in the UK, a ‘gateway offence’ to international terrorism and punishable with a prison sentence.

I think we’re entering a pretty dark period for European democracy, and I just cannot be sanguine about how these new powers will be used.

If you think this legislation will pass, and you resign yourself to that result, you would be guilty of “defeatism.” Don’t go to prison, hit the streets now and stop this from becoming law!

Henry, you wrote: “Berlusconi is now claiming that he is the only person who can save the state from Communism. Distressingly remiiscent of the “years of lead.”

I’ve lived here for 11 years now with my Italian wife of 10 years, and am wondering what alternate Italy you’re writing about.

As the story has been passed down to me by her, in-laws, neighbors, Italian TV, radio, etc. the “anni di piombo” referred to the political violence perpetrated by the Left (esp. the Red Brigades). And they’re not exactly becoming cute and lovable lately. Between the BGs’ killing of a cop in a shootout in March and the assasination of a labor official when Berlusca was trying to change Italy’s labor laws to make hiring easier, it’s no wonder he wants to rein in the Left. Frankly, I hope he succeeds.

Since you read and speak Italian, here are some suggestions:
1. Try reading something besides “La Repubblica” and watching something besides TG3.
2. Talk to some actual Italians.

You’re reading too much into this, I’m afraid. The information about the new Military Criminal Code was published as a ‘leak’ by a newspaper which is not precisely pro-Aznar. Just like when this happens with ‘leaks’ published on the Post or the Times, you have to wonder why this ‘leaks’ reach the press (see Slate’s famous taxonomy of leaks http://slate.msn.com/id/2074921/sidebar/2074924/)

It was immediately and categorically denied by the ministers involved, basically the Defense Minister. So while it could be argued that this was a sort of trial balloon though I’d rather say it was a clear case of ‘animus leak’; we’re in the middle of an aggressive election campaign, after all, it’s clear that this legislation doesn’t have the slightest possibility of being even discussed any longer, let alone seeing the light. Still, there’s who is still histerically reacting to it as if this was really going on.

As for Noalaguerra: you’re wrong when you say that it’s the PSOE socialists in opposition behind it. The website does have links with a political party, but it’s the Communists, not the Socialists. It’s been sued not because it’s against Aznar’s government, but because it’s publicly accusing Aznar of ‘murderer’ and ‘assassin’, literal words. I believe that in any democratic country accusing anyone of a crime with no evidence and in a public medium, instead of going to the judge to say ‘hey, this guy has killed someone’ which is the place to do it, is prosecutable. So, doing this is a crime, no matter if it’s done to Aznar, or to me. If there was a website calling me ‘assassin’ and ‘murderer’ I’d sue, and it would be preposterous to say that I’m trying to eliminate political opposition, since I’m a private citizen.

“Someguy” - I lived in Italy for three years, I keep in touch with friends there, I have a Ph.D. in politics with a focus on Italy. You may, quite reasonably, disagree with what I have to say - but contrary to your implication, I do have a fairly good idea of what I’m talking about. Your wife’s and in-laws’ memories of the “years of lead” may say one thing; but I’d suggest that you actually read something objective about the history of the period. The Red Brigades, Lotta Continua etc were responsible for murder and terrorism; but so were the forces of the right - e.g. the bombing of Bologna train station, the mysterious death of Giuseppe Pinelli in police custody etc. Not to mention the show trials of Sofri, Negri etc - not that I hold any brief for either of those guys, but there are minimum standards that should be observed by the courts in any properly-functioning democracy. These standards were flagrantly - and repeatedly - breached.

You say that it’s no wonder that Berlusconi wants to rein in the Left, given that the BR are still carrying out the occasional assassination (nb that they killed a figure in the last left-wing government too; Massimo d’Antona). Do you really mean to suggest that Berlusconi’s attacks on Prodi etc are motivated by his desire to save Italy from terrorism? Frankly, this analysis seems quite bizarre. Not least because it lumps together Prodi, Rutelli and others with the Red Brigades as members of some vast amorphous left-wing conspiracy. Presumably, all of them are working together with “The Economist,” which you may remember, was dubbed a Communist newspaper last year for suggesting that Berlusconi was unfit to hold public office.

Franco - I’ll leave it to Maria to respond more fully to your main point. Two subsidiary points though. First, it wasn’t Maria who said that PSOE was behind Noalaguerra; it was one of our commenters (you quite likely realise this already, but it’s rather unclear in your post). Second, calling the prime minister a murderer isn’t nice, nor even in this case especially fair, but it seems to me to clearly fall under the category of free political speech. This isn’t literally accusing Aznar of a crime; it’s using inflated rhetoric to make a political point.There are lots of countries out there with specific laws against “defaming the president/prime minister/head honcho” - they tend not to be countries characterised by thriving political debate. I’d hate to see Spain starting to go down that path.

Henry:

“Second, calling the prime minister a murderer isn’t nice, nor even in this case especially fair, but it seems to me to clearly fall under the category of free political speech. This isn’t literally accusing Aznar of a crime; it’s using inflated rhetoric to make a political point”.

I don’t think it’s as clear as you see it, and I’d bet there would be very serious legal scholars who could make a strong case against your opinion, particularly if you consider the context. I think that accusing anyone (honcho or not) of a major crime with no evidence whatsover is more than political speech, and would lead to suing in most democratic countries. They key here is that in democratic countries, the courts are independent, so if this is political speech or not let the judges decide.

I don’t mean you’re necessarily wrong, just that suing is not as far-fetched as the hysterical reaction suggests, because after all there’s due process from now on, and it’s not like the guys at Noalaguerra have been thrown in a dungeon or something. They’ll still have the chance to argue their position in court.

Finally, you write: “There are lots of countries out there with specific laws against “defaming the president/prime minister/head honcho” - they tend not to be countries characterised by thriving political debate. I’d hate to see Spain starting to go down that path.” I’d hate that too, believe me, and not only because I live there, but as a matter of principle.

But you made the key distinction yourself: the danger is when there are specific laws forbidding to defame the top rulers which don’t apply to the normal citizen, meaning there are separate protections for the top rulers and for the populace. But that’s not the case: Aznar is using the same law that would allow you, or me, to sue someone who accused us publicly and without evidence of a major crime like assassination or muerder (I think they are more loaded than you see them) instead of going to the judge / police, which is the place to go when you know someone’s committed a crime).

I agree that the head honchos in democratic countries have almost the democratic duty to support more things than the regular guy would, in the name of free speech and such. But I think that when there’s not a isolated incident, but a wholly orchestrated campaign (which, besides crime accusations, includes boycotting all public speeches, throwing eggs, rocks, even molotiv cocktails with the result of several Popular Party officials in hospital and several party offices destroyed or burnt, in more than 300 instances since the beginning of the year, all documented and sometimes with the attendance of member of the opposition parties in which the accusations of “murderers” and “assassins” are repeated over and over again) the picture is much different and would lead to prosecution in any democratic country. Basically, because accepting this is how totalitarian systems usualy begin: you try to win on the streets even with violence what you couldn’t win in the ballot box. Precisely in Spain we have relatively recent memories of being in a totalitarian regime (under Franco until 1975), so we don’t want that to be repeated. This is why I believe in the law protecting everyone… even the PM.

PS: sorry for my english :-)

Aznar did opt to participate, in a minor way, to a war. And a war is organised killing: murder. Now sometimes there is no option to wage war, but this war was not one of them.
Aznar wanted to get the USA to agree to help him, not Spain, in his personal revenge against ETA (They barely failed to kill him with a bomb a few years before he got elected), so he agreed to the whims of Bush to kill people that had not done him any harm to forward his plans.

By the way, one of the reasons he was elected was that he accused insistently the PSOE government to have organised the killings of some members of ETA, some of Gonzalez’s ministers got condemned, even if the proofs were not all that clear, and such kind of murders had happened previously to the access of socialists to Spain government (the police had not been purged from the time of Franco), on the ground that the socialists had to conform to law, now he agrees that the USA are exempt from such conformance to law…

DSW

Just because there’s a pattern doesn’t mean there’s a purpose.