Category Archives: Living la vida española

The Zapatero government (I’ll assume its members act in unison) has decided unilaterally to pull Spanish troops, operating under NATO mandate, out of Kosovo. The Spanish press has played up the fact that the Obama administration has voiced its dismay with the abrupt move, especially considering that ZP was looking forward to a new air of Spanish American relations after the tense Bush years.

But the Spanish press has gotten it all wrong. This has nothing to do with the U.S. at all, but with ZP’s total disregard for NATO and its allies. ZP’s justification for pulling out (in true Catholic style, your Papacy, it’s another ZP marcha atrás) was that Kosovo no longer needed the services of the Spanish peacekeepers. That assessment is, of course, directly opposed to NATO’s own present viewpoint. NATO has taken not such stance and continues to have troops stationed in Kosovo. Furthermore, the Spanish government never consulted with or sought approval from NATO prior to making the decision. Even Secretary General of the Council of the European Union Javier Solana – curiously also a former NATO Secretary General and a Foreign Minister of ZP’s own party (and former NATO opponent) – has expressed his frustration with the move.

Ironically back when ZP was running for president and opposing then president Aznar’s support for the War in Iraq, the bulk of ZP’s argument was based on the War’s unilateralism. ZP claimed Aznar was distancing Spain from Europe and the international community, and that any military action should be strictly limited to the confines of NATO and/or the United Nations. Yet here he seems to completely disregard NATO altogether. The message is clear, ZP knows better than NATO what is good for NATO in Kosovo, and if he says the mission is over, then it is over. Logically, then, the other NATO member states with soldiers there should follow suit, upon ZP’s order. Continue reading →

In 2007, the Spanish King and Queen traveled for the first time during their entire reign to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, located in Morocco. When Morocco officially expressed its discomfort with the visit, temporarily suspending diplomatic relations with Spain, the Spanish government and press fully and unapologetically defended the trip.

The Spanish press pulled out every argument in the book: Ceuta and Melilla were Spanish prior to the establishment of the modern Moroccan state and before the Alouite reign, were there a referendum in the two cities the citizens would overwhelming vote in favor of Spanish rule, etc. The government argued that as the cities were Spanish territories the royal family had every right and the obligation to visit their land and subjects; thus totally ignoring local sensitivities, as these lands have been regularly contested, sometimes violently, since the 15th Century. In yet another classic example of the Zapatero government’s verbal ineptitude (see the most recent), Spanish foreign minister Moratinos, against his government’s fundamental argument, repeatedly referred to King Juan Carlos’ trip to Morocco, not Spain.

Flash forward to today, and the shoe is on the other foot. This time it is Gibraltar and a member of the British royal family has traveled to that British rock in Spain. And guess who’s crying now? That’s right, the Spanish government has expressed its official discomfort with the visit, claiming that it was both unfortunate and offensive to the sensitivities of Spaniards. Sound familiar?

That is precisely the argument that the Moroccan government made to Spain — essentially a diplomatic appeal rather than a legal claim. Even though the Spanish press made it seem like Moroccans were protesting in mass numbers – which they were not — by permitting the Spanish King and Queen to travel to Ceuta and Melilla, the Moroccan government was put in a difficult domestic political bind, obliging it make a gesture that would at least mitigate any sense of injured nationalism. Nevertheless, the Spanish government completely ignored Morocco’s petition against the visit. So, should the British government be held to a different diplomatic standard in Gibraltar than the Spanish government in Ceuta and Melilla?

I suppose it is no surprise when mediocrity is rewarded with an Oscar. Nevertheless, I always feel a sense of dismay whenever a tearful actor or actress expresses gratitude to loved ones for some remarkably average performance in some remarkably average movie that deserves to be classified merely as a “show” rather than art.

Penelope Cruz’s Oscar award this year for Best Supporting Actress, therefore, should not have surprised me either. Yet instead of reinforcing mediocrity the Academy rewarded her total lack of credibility. Penelope Cruz’s performance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona was little more than  bilingual yelling. As a matter of fact, both her and Javier Bardem’s characters were two of the least plausible character portrayals I can recall. The fact of the matter is that after almost nine years of living in Spain and 20 years of traveling to Spain, neither character even remotely resembled any Spanish person I have ever dealt with. And Woody Allen deserves most of the blame. Continue reading →

A few months ago, I wrote a post asking Spanish president Zapatero to kindly mind his own business. Now it’s time to politely ask former Spanish president Jose Maria Aznar (or “Anzar” as George W. Bush used to mispronounce) to quiet himself.

According to El Mundo, Aznar has labeled Obama’s victory a “historic exoticism” (“un exotismo histórico”). Maybe he’s referring to the color of Obama’s skin, or maybe he’s thinking about how exotic it would be in Spain if Aznar’s Partido Populuar were to have open and transparent primary elections to decide its presidential candidate. Unlike in the U.S. where a virtually unknown candidate was able to topple his party’s embedded hierarchy (ie, Hillary), in Spain the parties choose their candidates by petit comité — the result being that popular and electable candidates like Gallardon and Aguirre are blockaded from the national scene by the prolific loser Mariano Rajoy. Maybe the lesson that Aznar should be taking from the exotic U.S. election is not that an African American can reaffirm the American dream, but that transparency and political accountability are what make a democracy strong.

A lesson that both Aznar and Zapatero should have learned is that friendly democracies like the Spanish and American ones don’t openly and publicly take sides in the other’s elections. It is silly and counter-productive for Aznar to portray himself as a Republican and even discuss the merits of the candidates. Frankly, having once put his feet up on Bush’s table does not qualify Aznar, for example, to opine about Sarah Palin’s future in politics. Likewise, ZP should cease openly supporting candidates in domestic European elections as he had done with Obama during the U.S. elections.

Finally, the vice-secretary general braintrust of the PSOE (Zapatero’s party and Aznar’s rival) Jose Blanco has called Aznar’s statements about Obama racist.  That may be so, but then Blanco should definitely criticize the similar commentary made regularly throughout the Spanish press. Just as an example, the section in El Mundo on the U.S. Elections is titled “A Black President for the White House“, highlighting the “changing color of history”. Get it? Obama is black, the White House is white. That’s not racism, it’s cleverly highlighting the exotic historic facts. Right?