Spain is different... Again.

Everybody knows the sentence "Spain is different" in the sense of how Spanish people often perform in a messy or inefficient way (lack of rigor, laziness,...) and also in the sense of having some sort of primitive behaviour (bullfighting, the believe of having the biggest balls in the world, ...). But Spain is also different in its way to understand democracy because Spain has another hateful tradition: to pursue the union of its territories by the force. Franco was the last of the Spanish dictators that attempted to unify all countries in Spain under a single national identity and language, by anihilating all other national identities and languages throughout what we know today as "Spain".

Now Spain has shown (again) that it is different to the rest of the developed countries in the world. Whereas many democratic countries chase and sue dictators and their right-hand men, Spain allows them to live until death with total impunity. Yesterday January 15th, Franco's minister Manuel Fraga Iribarne died at age 90. Fraga never regretted being the right-hand man of Franco to achieve the fascist dictator's goals. In Fraga's own words:

“One must say Spanish, not Castillian! Spanish is everybody's language. It has become Spain's language (...). I will always do my best to prevent the destruction of the national unity. Because Catalonia was conquered by Philip IV; Philip V defeated it; Catalonia was bombed by general Espartero, who was a great revolutionary; and we occupied it in 1939 and we are ready to occupy it as many times as needed, and so I am ready to pick up the rifle again.”

So everybody with just a little bit of democratic spirit can see that Fraga's way to achieve Spain's union is quite fascist.

Today, Fraga's legacy is the right-wing Spanish party Partido Popular (PP) a party that adopted Franco's principles of a unified Spain, although this union has NEVER been decided by people but by kings and dictators. United Kingdom has demonstrated to be a mature democratic country by allowing a referendum for Scotland's independence. As I could figure out from English media, citizens from UK may not like Scotland to leave UK, but they accept such decision if it is made by a democratic referendum. Talking about referendums for Catalonia's independence in Spain is a complete taboo... "Referendum" is such an advanced concept that is impossible to be understood by many Spaniards. They simply think "Catalonia is Spain, and that's it". Perhaps it is necessary to wait for 30 more years to let Franco's legacy to weaken in favour of a real, UK-like democracy.

Fraga's fascist salute	Recent picture of Fraga

Google...not so smart...

The tag "#gogglecat" has become the Twitter 'trending topic' in Spain after Google Map users in Catalonia noticed that the names of several streets throughout the Catalan country have been translated into Spanish in a such ridiculous way. To get an idea of such piece of nonsense, imagine that a person using Google Maps in France reads street names in English translated into French. For example: "Times Square" would be "La Place des Temps"; "Broadway" would be "Le chemin large"; "Wall Street" would be "La rue du Mur"; or the "Westminster Abbey" would become "L'abbaye du la Cathédrale du Ouest".

Yes. Google programmers are not infallible and they also make mistakes typical of beginners!!

An example of a stupid translation: "Ronda de Dalt" is translated into "Ronda de Arriba"

Two Spanish MEPs jeer at the Catalan MEP Ramon Tremosa for not speaking in Spanish

Strasbourgh.- Today Wednesday, two Spanish Members of the European Parliament have jeered at Ramon Tremosa, a Catalan MEP, for speaking in English instead of Spanish. As Tremosa explains in his tweet: I have defended an oral amendment in the plenary, in English as usual. Some people shouted "hablas mejor español! [you speak better Spanish!]". 2011 or 1939?

Tremosa asks himself "2011 or 1939?" regarding to the dark times of Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975), during which Catalan was forbidden in Spain. The behaviour of the Spanish MEPs is just another example of the intolerance that politicians in Spain have toward Catalan language and culture. The funny thing though is that Tremosa was speaking in English during the plenary, not in Catalan. That's simply pure arrogance for believing that Spanish should be the leading language in the world. After all, the mean level in English skills in Spain are reduced to know what does "motherfucker" and mean.

Ramon Tremosa - MEP

Bullfighting eventually forbidden in Catalonia

Finally the well-known world-wide barbarian Spanish tradition of bullfighting has come to its end in Catalonia. The Catalan Parliament banned the spectacle in  July 2010 after 180,000 signatures were collected for a petition. The law will take effect from January 2012, which means that today's "corridas" taken in Barcelona will be the last ones.

Whereas the majority of Catalans support this decision,  a minority claims for the right of freedom to torture bulls to death. Specially, the Spanish ultranationalist parties "Ciudadanos" and "Partido Popular" have tried to prevent the ban from being effective, arguing the ban is yet another attempt of Catalan nationalist parties to remove any trace of the Spanish culture out from the Catalan society.

Bullfighting in Catalonia has been a declining interest during the last 30 years. This is not true for the rest of Spain though, where bullfighting is very active (specially in the south region of Andalusia) and where this tradition has its own TV programs as well.

As a Catalan, I am happy with this ban because I have never identified myself with this old-age tradition in which men dressed up as Christmas trees and with cocky behaviour slowly torture a bull that eventually dies drowned in its own blood. Bullfighting supporters try to defend this abhorrent show by saying that many animals are killed in slaughterhouses everyday... Well, of course we need killing animals for food, but a bull in a bullfighting show is tortured for about 20-30 minutes before dying: the "torero" sticks "banderillas" (some sort of colorfully sharpen sticks) to the bull's back; one after another. While the bull bleeds, it tries to attack the "torero" who dodges the bull. This is repeated several times until the bull is completely exhausted. Then, the "torero" sinks a long sword into the bull's back cutting its lungs and finally sticks some sort of knife to the bull's cervical zone, which paralizes it completely while still being alive.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen... "Toreros" and the Spanish ultranationalist parties "Ciudadanos" and "Partido Popular" claim for people's freedom to practice this "beautiful" tradition. They even say that personalities like Goya and Picasso supported this practice as if it were an argument in favor of it. Goya and Picasso lived in past times, not in the 21st century.

Anyway I'm glad because, hopefully, no more bulls will be tortured to death in my country from now on.

Spanish bullfighting banned in Catalonia.

Catalonia calls the World

We are not better than France.
We are not better than UK.
We are not better than Ireland.
We are not better than Italy.
We are not better than Greece.
We are not better than Belgium.
We are not better than Denmark.
We are not better than Germany.
We are not better than Portugal.
We are not better than Spain.
We are not better than anyone.

We simply want to be what the countries above are: a free nation of Europe; a free nation of the World.

This is a Catalonia calling to the World. Do you want to pick up the phone? Listen, then:

Spanish firemen boo and insult Catalan firemen during WPFG 2011

The World Police and Fire Games 2011 contest celebrated in New York has turned to be the scenario of a  scuffle broken up between the Spanish and Catalan police and firemen. During an exhibition, the Catalan team performed a human tower that was crowned at the top by a member waving a Catalan independentist flag which led the Spanish team to start insulting and mocking the former. Teams from other countries also performed their corresponding presentation without being mocked nor insulted. During soccer matches in Spain, Catalan and Spanish hooligans often insult one each other, but this may be considered "normal", as happens in other countries and sports. However, watching the Spanish police and firemen shouting "fuera!" (get out!) and "hijos de puta!" (sons of bitch!) in a foreign country and during a world-wide event has been really shameful.

The video below shows the moment the Catalan flag is raised while the Spanish team booes and insults the Catalan team.

Catalan music: Beth

This may be an outdated post, but this blog was born more ore less a year later than Beth's last album was released in 2010. This album is titled "Segueix-me el fil", which may be literally translated as "Follow my thread" (got the love message?). I must admit that Beth has never got my attention in a musical sense, although I've always thought she's got a nice voice. However there are a couple of songs from this new album that have really caught my soul, due to their lyrics, music and, of course, Beth's voice.
Beth's fame started after the Spanish TV show "Operación Triunfo" (aka OT) , some sort of reality show consisting on a music academy where unknown people were instructed to become a pop star or something like that. I really hated that show: it was stupid, childish and there was everything but good music there. However there were people having good voices, and among them, there was Beth.


You can access to my favourite songs from "Segueix-me el fil" below.

Song #1: "Tots els botons" (All buttons)

Song #2: "Terra trencada" (Broken land)

Hope you enjoy them!!!

P.S.: if you want a translation of either songs into English, please tell me and I will post it.