Two Spains; Two Books
Mar. 11th, 2018 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Ghosts of Spain - Travels through a country's hidden past, by Giles Tremlett
I picked this up a few months ago from the book-swap shelf at work, primarily for the possibility of insight into the Franco regime and its aftermath, but in subsequent months, also for potential insight into the Catalan position. The first four chapters or so of the book deal quite well with the first of these areas, covering the division that erupted (but did not start) in Spain in the 1930s and contending it has never really gone away; in particular, that Spaniards have dealt with the dictatorship years primarily by forgetting about it since, but that familial, communal and political feuds simmer under the surface and periodically re-emerge. There's a useful discussion about the history of Valle de los Caídos and other Franco-era symbols and rituals that persist in some form to the present day. Sometimes it does feel like reading through a Louis Theroux documentary with interviews of dubious personalities giving uncomfortably frank and unrepentant answers.
The remaining two-thirds of the book are a bit of a disappointment, however, drifting through what might be broadly grouped as non-Castilian communities (Gypsies, Moors, Basques, Catalans and Galicians) without really constructing any coherent theme beyond varying degrees of corruption at all levels of government. There is some useful analysis of the domestic politics surrounding the 11 March 2004 attack in Madrid, in which the governing party determinedly and persistently attached blame to ETA despite an initial lack of evidence, and in the following days in the face of rapidly collating evidence that the perpetrators were Islamic terrorists. But there's no convincing insight into the Catalan independence movement. The recent referendum would seem farcical were it not for the heavy-handed violence with which protests were closed down, and the behaviour of the Catalan leadership since has made it a laughing stock, at least in my view. Tremlett contrasts the Basque and Catalan positions with that of the Galicians, where there is no significant separatist feeling. The final chapter returns to the theme of dealing with the past in Spain - essentially by forgetting it, demolishing it and building over it.
I picked this up a few months ago from the book-swap shelf at work, primarily for the possibility of insight into the Franco regime and its aftermath, but in subsequent months, also for potential insight into the Catalan position. The first four chapters or so of the book deal quite well with the first of these areas, covering the division that erupted (but did not start) in Spain in the 1930s and contending it has never really gone away; in particular, that Spaniards have dealt with the dictatorship years primarily by forgetting about it since, but that familial, communal and political feuds simmer under the surface and periodically re-emerge. There's a useful discussion about the history of Valle de los Caídos and other Franco-era symbols and rituals that persist in some form to the present day. Sometimes it does feel like reading through a Louis Theroux documentary with interviews of dubious personalities giving uncomfortably frank and unrepentant answers.
The remaining two-thirds of the book are a bit of a disappointment, however, drifting through what might be broadly grouped as non-Castilian communities (Gypsies, Moors, Basques, Catalans and Galicians) without really constructing any coherent theme beyond varying degrees of corruption at all levels of government. There is some useful analysis of the domestic politics surrounding the 11 March 2004 attack in Madrid, in which the governing party determinedly and persistently attached blame to ETA despite an initial lack of evidence, and in the following days in the face of rapidly collating evidence that the perpetrators were Islamic terrorists. But there's no convincing insight into the Catalan independence movement. The recent referendum would seem farcical were it not for the heavy-handed violence with which protests were closed down, and the behaviour of the Catalan leadership since has made it a laughing stock, at least in my view. Tremlett contrasts the Basque and Catalan positions with that of the Galicians, where there is no significant separatist feeling. The final chapter returns to the theme of dealing with the past in Spain - essentially by forgetting it, demolishing it and building over it.