We have just concluded this terms municipal elections, and as we have seen, the left-wing socialist party PSOE have taken a beating for their national financial policies. “Okay, so they have had their terms in office and it didn’t work. Now we need to see if the PP [ed. right-wing opposition] will do better”, said one young Spaniard in Madrid.
The local elections all over the country, and even in the areas where there lives more foreigners than Spaniards, were also afflicted by this right-turn in politics and the want for change. In comparison to the 2007 municipal elections, the PSOE have lost 10% points, while the PP have increased ever so slightly. This, of course, has resulted in town halls and mayors changing tie colour from red to blue, unless they have managed to settle themselves in unlikely coalitions.
Desperate times calls for desperate measures
With an official national unemployment rate of 21% and an average monthly salary of less than 1000 euros, it might be considered strange that the majority of Spaniards have chosen to topple the party that, for most people, is synonymous with workers rights and a decrease in unemployment. On the other hand, just on the other side of the pond the Arabs are removing their rulers for having performed significantly better financially. Egypt, for example, only had around 10% unemployment and their relative average salaries were similar to the Spanish ones.
The Arab Spring and the change from red ties to blue ties in Spain are both examples of the same human trait. Desperation. In this part of the world, the financial crisis is more than something you see on tv or read about in the newspapers. The Mediterranean is bordered by countries on the brink of or in the process of collapsing and Spain is no exception. In fact Spain is the country in the EU that is most worrisome – mainly because the Spanish are so many, that the north European countries (and Germany in particular) will not be able to bail them out. In fact, when Spain crashes it will be felt all over the European Union.
So will Spain crash? Or will this right-turn prove the saviour of them? We can’t be sure, and as a matter of fact, most of us living here would not be influenced in a negative way. In particular on the Costa Blanca, where the average expat is a pensioner that has retired there after living and working a full life outside of Spain. His monthly pension will probably reach significantly longer if Spain dropped out of the euro zone and reintroduced their good old pesetas.
We are all Spanish
And that is the actual point of this article. We might say we are in Spain, and if we are lucky we will actually hear people speaking Spanish when we go to the super market – though where I live they speak just as much Alicantino as Castellano – but this is not Spain. In fact you could argue that there is no real Spain. Spain is a construct held together by the Holy Catholic Church and their Catholic Majesty. With the demise of the influence of both, the glue that made the nation state is being dissolved. King Juan Carlos I swore on his mentors death bed that he would keep Spain as one united state after the death of Franco in 1975, and so far the central government in Madrid has done just that.
Fortunately the value of a nation state is losing its meaning and significance just as rapidly as the value of Church and King, and we are left with the Google Generation and the Facebook Revolutions being the new things to relate yourself to.
In San Fulgencio in Alicante, where I have lived for the last 5 years, 5600 people are registered to vote. Out of these 5600 people the majority of 2471 are native English speakers and close to 60% would probably prefer to communicate in English as opposed to Spanish. Apart from the 5600 registered voters, the 2008 census showed that a total of 11,594 people were signed up as living here (empadronado) and that more than 75% of them were foreigners.
In this calculation we are not even including the thousand of people that never were registered here, and who just stay to themselves with their house, the sun and a beer.
After the dust settled on the “new” town hall team, we see that less than 25% of the councillors are in fact representing the 75% of the public!
Drowned in gold, not democracy
The image of San Fulgencio is the same as in many other parts of the Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol and in fact along the Spanish Mediterranean. Since the northern European invasion of the Spanish sun shine started and got up in gear in the 1980s, the local farmers and fishermen have experienced a rapid increase in their wealth fuelled by the steady flow of UK pounds, Deutschmarks and Kroner. Life was good, and with corruption and nepotism deep in the Mediterranean “governance soul”, billions of pesetas were made off of unsuspecting guiris [ed. Spanish nick name for wealthy, slightly dim foreigners].
When the bubble burst in 2007/8 and the flow of foreign gold was stifled as abruptly as it was when the English captured the Spanish gold ships returning from the New World 400 years ago and caused similar political unrest in Spain, the world came to an end in a proper catholic rapture. At least if you were in power.
Spain is in severe need of help and we have let her down. We have also let down the Spanish people by drowning them in “unconditional gold”. Coming from countries with long political and democratic histories and with low or no corruption, we should have involved us more deeply in the political scene. Not to take over and turn the Spanish Mediterranean into a “Little Britain”, but to work within the general framework of the rights we have as residents and taxpayers in Spain. We have forgotten that Spain is a young country and an even younger democracy.
A new alliance
They need to be reminded of the democratic responsibility and the contract between the people and the state. We need to show them how to improve their government and how it is possible to achieve true political change for the better, and not for the worse. We need to form a new alliance between the people living in this area. An alliance that is not based on money, but based on ideals and dreams for our common future by the Mediterranean. We need to do better and we need to unite.
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