The day José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s dream ended was not even marked by a speech from the unlikely new champion of glum realism. As Congress in Madrid debated in late May cutbacks effectively imposed by Frankfurt and Brussels, the Spanish prime minister, who had tended his very personal flame of optimism with so many smiling words, saw his political future turn to ashes without even taking the stand. The Socialist who had vowed to bring the benefits of economically successful Spain to the disadvantaged now looked on as Catalan nationalist Antoni Duran i Lleida announced that his bloc would save the government in the vote to cut public workers’ wages and freeze pensions, but declared that … [Read more...] about Ideology is first casualty of Spain’s economic crisis
Archives for August 2010
It’s Real Mourinho vs. Spain FC as La Liga begins
Nobody can accuse Spain’s top teams of lacking stars. Real Madrid has Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Iker Casillas and now Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira. Barcelona, meanwhile, has eight players from Spain’s World Cup-winning squad, including Xavi Hernández, David Villa and Pedro Rodríguez. And yet, as the Spanish league season gets underway, the eye is drawn not to midfielder Andrés Iniesta, a football genius in an accountant’s body, or the stepovers and hair gel of Ronaldo, but rather the two sharply dressed men overseeing these players at the side of the pitch. This season, perhaps more than any other, is a battle between two managerial auteurs: Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola and Madrid’s José … [Read more...] about It’s Real Mourinho vs. Spain FC as La Liga begins
Melilla spat with Morocco reveals uncomfortable truths
Blockades stopping fresh food from entering Melilla by a Moroccan group in mid-August were highly inconvenient for the inhabitants of this North African enclave belonging to Spain. However, the protest itself –against allegedly abusive and racist behaviour by Spanish police on the border between the city and Morocco– paled in comparison to the political repercussions of the episode and hinted at the complex and sensitive nature of the relationship between these two countries. The two short blockades, which stopped trucks carrying perishable foodstuffs from entering the city, each lasted little more than a day and the issue appears to have been closed following a meeting between Spanish … [Read more...] about Melilla spat with Morocco reveals uncomfortable truths
Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz: compare and contrast
Having appeared in several films together dating back to the beginnings of their careers in the early 1990s, and being the first Spanish actors to be nominated for Oscars, then the first to win the coveted statuette, there seemed a certain inevitability about Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz’s announcement in July that they had finally got married. Needless to say, the media made great play of two Academy Award winners tying the knot: as more than one story trumpeted, it’s a “marriage made in Oscar heaven.” For the domestic press this was yet another example of Spain’s international success, —somewhat overshadowed by the World Cup, it has to be said— while for the rest of the world there … [Read more...] about Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz: compare and contrast
Spanish athletes drop the baton ahead of 2012
For any athlete, the unequivocal backing of the head of a national body charged with overseeing the sport to which you have dedicated your life is one of those things surely taken for granted: when King Canute had a hard time of it holding back the waves, a spin doctor with the gyrating power of the planets would have been required to assure the monarch’s subjects that all would come good in the return leg - perhaps a rematch staged under floodlights. It must then have come as some surprise to Spain’s athletes when the country’s Athletics Federation (RFEA) president, José María Odriozola, laid into his charges who had competed at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona. Odriozola’s … [Read more...] about Spanish athletes drop the baton ahead of 2012
Silly season divides Spanish and English-speaking media
It’s August: the silly season. The month when newspapers and the media in general have little real news to cover, so they pay even more attention to B-list celebrity love triangles, local politicians’ sex-changes and garbage collectors’ concerns about being suspected of being paedophiles. That’s in Britain, at least (all those stories featured in The Sun on August 11). For the summer months illustrate better than any other the gulf dividing the Spanish media and its English-speaking counterparts. The summer holiday period is observed by Spain perhaps more assiduously than any other European country. Many bars, shops and other businesses shut down for most of August as ordinary … [Read more...] about Silly season divides Spanish and English-speaking media
Opposing Spain’s abortion law: don’t blame the Church
On July 5, Spain introduced legislation bringing the country’s abortion laws into line with those across northern Europe. In essence, the new law allows the procedure without restrictions up to 14 weeks and gives 16-year-olds the right to have abortions without parental consent. Until now abortion had been illegal unless the woman could prove that she was raped, that the foetus was malformed, or that the pregnancy endangered her physical or mental health. In practice, the latter reason was used across a network of private clinics, which perform around 100,000 abortions a year. The issue has been reported in the international media as a battle between the secular Socialist Party … [Read more...] about Opposing Spain’s abortion law: don’t blame the Church