The Spanish Labyrinth

 

On April 7, 2004, just a few months after my daughter was born, on what I vaguely recall was a balmy night in a Madrid suburb, I watched Deportivo La Coruña mount an epic comeback to defeat AC Milan 4-0 in the return leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal after having lost the first match 4-1.

It was 3-0 at half time after goals by Pandiani, Valerón and Luque and I felt an amazing turnaround by Super Depor was on the cards. But as the solitary foreigner in the neighbourhood bar it seemed to me that I was the only person interested in the match.

When Fran scored what turned out to be the winning goal in the 76th minute I excitedly alerted other people to the fact, only to be met with indifference. That struck me as curious at the time, but I did not give too much thought to it.

As a Scotsman, I follow the progress (I use the word ironically) of any Scottish team that manages to make it to the European football arena, even though I am not from Glasgow, support neither Rangers or Celtic, and feel strong antipathy to the Protestant-Catholic divide. It seems to me this innate, often unquestioning, support for things Scottish forms part of the national psyche, which at times is taken to extremes. Last summer in a raucous bar in a fishing village in the northeast of Scotland I watched the locals, some wearing the German colors, vociferously cheer on Germany as it humiliated England in the last 16 of the very same World Cup won by Spain.

Yet when Iniesta scored the winning goal for Spain against Holland in the final of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, sealing victory for a national side with a wealth of talent that for years had seriously underperformed, everybody all of a sudden felt very Spanish, with many proudly donning tops proclaiming the fact.

The motive behind this train of thought (I again use the word ironically) was an off-the-cuff comment by a neighbor, a decidedly left-leaning Madrileño, as we walked our children to the local school. He told me he was reading the Anglo-Irish writer and Hispanophile Gerald Brenan’s work The Spanish Labyrinth, which he said made him question what it meant to be Spanish. “What a country! What a country!,” he lamented. In his seminal work, Brenan remarks: “Regional variations have led to the growth of strong local patriotisms, which whenever the power of the central government is relaxed, come to a head.” Brenan, who supported the Republicans in the Civil War, perhaps would be writhing in his grave to know his comments place him firmly on the side of the Popular Party, with its appeal for national unity against the power of the regions.

But surely one’s sense of national identity is intricately linked to one’s sense of history. And there is a growing debate on this in Spain. On the one side there is the argument that the Reconquest by Ferdinand and Isabel was to wrest back Spain’s Catholic heritage from foreigners. On the other, there are historians that argue that what took place was a civil war that set Spaniard against Spaniard with the aim of establishing a nation state that belied the reality of what at the time was the only truly multicultural country in Europe, with those of Jewish and Muslim faith the neighbors of Christians. In an interview a few years ago eminent Spanish historian Francisco Márquez Villanueva remarked: “It still bothers people if you say that Boabdil (the last King of Granada) was as Spanish as Isabel of Castille.”

 

It strikes me that Spaniards national identity comes strongly to the fore only at times of adversity when there is a common foreign enemy such as Napoleon or Holland as in the case of the World Cup. The rest of the time those “regional patriotisms” Brenan refers tend to hold sway. Although they also live in countries with strong regional differences, the Germans and Italians seem to have a stronger sense of national identity than the Spanish despite the fact Spain established a nation state long before Germany and Italy did.

While the Transition may have rightly answered the historical vindications of Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarre, Andalusia and Galicia it seems to me it also created a jigsaw puzzle that at times seems unsolvable. At a time when the central government is trying to rein in the spending of regional governments to convince the markets of the country’s solvency, the question of the ultimate shape the territorial map of Spain takes is perhaps a key political debate that awaits resolution.

That might mean moving from a de facto self-federal system to one more aligned to the German lander overseen by a Senate that is finally given some real political teeth. The idea of Catalonia separating from Spain seems untenable to me. In the meanwhile, for as long as I live here the maze that is Spain will never cease to amaze me.

Comments

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[Publicado por: Louise]

As a Scot, I take offense when people suggest that Scotland is no different - culturally, historically, etc - to England. We may be a part of Britain, but the national camaraderie that someone from Andalucia and someone from Castilla-la-Mancha might feel when they are both in a foreign country is totally absent when a Scot and and an English person are in the same situation. Otherwise, I agree with Andrew on a feeling of Spanish identity not being very common among Spaniards in Spain. Probably has to do with Franco's manic 'Espana UNA, Libre y Grande' efforts.

[Publicado por: il gatopando]

I agree with Isidoro. The journalist talks of Scotland as a country. But we all know that Scotland, perhaps unfortunately, is not an independent nation. Maybe his ambivalent view towards Britain may help to understand the stance of a Basque or a Catalonian towards Spain.

[Publicado por: Carlos]

Anyway, the jigsaw puzzle can be understood regarding the last 80 years of our history and how we are still recovering from all the division and horror created for the Civil War and the Dictatorship.
We decided to let our injuries to be cured by themselves instead of applying any drug so the process is going to be very slow, with a lot of risks of falling apart.

[Publicado por: Maltés]

Isidoro, probably the puzzlement is about how similar (and yet how different) both countries are at being at odds between regions.
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There's room enough as to be amazed I think.
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Very interesting point too about the pre-Catholic, multicultural Spain, didn't think of it this way until now.
Good articles, keep'em coming!

[Publicado por: Skippy]

Teapot ... kettle ... black. Use your irony to fill in the gaps, mate.

[Publicado por: Isidoro]

It's funny how this blogger claims to be amazed at the Spaniards while describing the exact same situation in his country: British citizens (as he certanily is) don't like each other (the Scots don't care for the English team, as he makes abundantly clear). The same thing happens in Spain. What's the puzzlement about?

[Publicado por: Lucía P.]

Totally agre with the jigsaw puzzle

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