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Spanish lessons
Franklin Knight
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Some Spanish lessons have nothing to do with language or with syntax. Nor are they related to the innovative dictionary of the Castilian language invented by Antonio Nebrija in 1492. Some Spanish lessons are created by bold leaders with equal parts of imagination and equal parts of determination.
Franklin Knight
Between the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and the mid-1950s, Spain was a broken and broken-down country marginalised by the major international powers largely because of the political actions of the Spanish dictator, the self-promoted Generalísimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde. Born in the Galician port town of El Ferrol 1892 shortly before the Cuban-Spanish-American war, Franco joined the army and attended the academy at Toledo.
His distinguished military action against the Riff Republic in the early 1920s created the opportunity for Franco to become the youngest general in Europe in 1926. Forging a right-wing coalition of the Falange Party of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the old Carlists who had been fighting the Spanish administration on and off since the early 1840s and a fascist trio of Portugal's Antonio Salazar, Italy's Benito Mussolini and Germany's Adolf Hitler, Franco overthrew the Spanish Republic in 1939 and ruled Spain until his death in 1975.
Franco appropriated all the trappings of royalty and ruthlessly eliminated those whom he considered to be enemies of the state - trade unionists, intellectuals, ideologists, freemasons, and regional nationalists such as the Basques and Catalans. But Franco was also extremely lucky. By 1939 all his rivals on the Nationalist side had been captured or killed.
By 1945 his European patrons had been defeated, but technically as leader of a declared neutral state Franco avoided much of the post-war stigma of a Hitler or a Mussolini. General Juan Perón of Argentina and his political wife, Evita, showered Spain with food to mitigate the worse cases of general starvation in the 1940s. Finally, the Cold War emphasised the strategic geographical importance of Spain. Spain did not have to reach out to Western powers. They came calling.
In 1953 President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States paid an official visit to Spain. This was followed by a trade and military alliance and full acceptance into the United Nations in 1955. For the next 20 years Spain would undergo an economic revolution closely controlled by Franco and his small inner circle of supporters. When he died on November 20, 1975 Spain was a fully developed capitalist country whose impressive general gross domestic figures disguised a plethora of serious political and administrative problems.
Since 1975 Spain has demonstrated that prolonged political instability can be terminated. Spain became a truly democratic monarchy, something the Spanish had wished for since 1810. King Juan Carlos demonstrated a political maturity and astuteness that facilitated that transition to democracy. Franco's dictatorship was dismantled methodically, quietly, firmly and effectively.
The new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao
The military were sent back to their barracks and subordinated to civilian government. Spain, under a socialist government, joined the European community in 1986 and has outperformed most of the older states in economic matters.
The first Spanish lesson therefore is that past history does not necessarily constitute a reliable guide for the future. This should be consoling to the great majority of Caribbean governments. Wracked as most of them are by political malaise, economic under-performance, and domestic violence, a politically stable, self-sustaining economic system appears well beyond their reach. Nevertheless, with a strong will and determined, far-sighted leaders, the Rubicon can
be crossed. It is never too late to make ameliorative changes.
The second lesson from Spain has to do with perceived fragmentation.
Before Franco, Spain was never a consolidated state. All Spanish monarchs had a long list of titles that illustrated the ancient traditions and skilful compromises that had brought together some desperate Christian kingdoms and permitted the sort of pragmatic cooperation that resulted in the expulsion of the Moors and the creation of a type of envied European hegemony.
Franco created a united nation state when he declared himself "Caudillo of Spain and of the Crusade". He forbade the speaking of regional languages and sought to eradicate any manifestation of autonomous regional economic development.
Today, the 41 million Spanish citizens find themselves administratively divided into 50 provinces, partitioned into 17 autonomous communities, including two autonomous cities. Some of the autonomous regions are surprisingly small. La Rioja has just over 280,000 inhabitants.
Navarre and Cantabria each has slightly over half a million. There is a continuous delicate negotiation between central authority and regions over a range of issues, reflected in some manifest inequalities. Road tolls, for example, are higher in wealthier regions, generally those in the north than in those with a lower per capita income, mainly those in the south. Regions compete with one another to attract businesses.
Reactivated regionalism contributes to national multi-lingualism. Spain has four official languages: Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician. Road and other signs are often listed in at least two languages in Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque country. Languages can co-exist.
How did the Spanish accomplish so much in so short a time? Time, place and circumstances played important roles. Franco could not be isolated during the Cold War especially when he claimed that he had been fighting communism from the 1930s. Iberia gave the Allies a lot of free space to construct their military defences against the Soviet Union.
The European Community provided a windfall for building a modern infrastructure. At the national as well as at the municipal level, Spaniards rose to the occasion and took control of their destiny. As Mark Anthony noted, "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings."
Franklin Knight
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Some Spanish lessons have nothing to do with language or with syntax. Nor are they related to the innovative dictionary of the Castilian language invented by Antonio Nebrija in 1492. Some Spanish lessons are created by bold leaders with equal parts of imagination and equal parts of determination.
Franklin KnightBetween the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and the mid-1950s, Spain was a broken and broken-down country marginalised by the major international powers largely because of the political actions of the Spanish dictator, the self-promoted Generalísimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde. Born in the Galician port town of El Ferrol 1892 shortly before the Cuban-Spanish-American war, Franco joined the army and attended the academy at Toledo.
His distinguished military action against the Riff Republic in the early 1920s created the opportunity for Franco to become the youngest general in Europe in 1926. Forging a right-wing coalition of the Falange Party of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the old Carlists who had been fighting the Spanish administration on and off since the early 1840s and a fascist trio of Portugal's Antonio Salazar, Italy's Benito Mussolini and Germany's Adolf Hitler, Franco overthrew the Spanish Republic in 1939 and ruled Spain until his death in 1975.
Franco appropriated all the trappings of royalty and ruthlessly eliminated those whom he considered to be enemies of the state - trade unionists, intellectuals, ideologists, freemasons, and regional nationalists such as the Basques and Catalans. But Franco was also extremely lucky. By 1939 all his rivals on the Nationalist side had been captured or killed.
By 1945 his European patrons had been defeated, but technically as leader of a declared neutral state Franco avoided much of the post-war stigma of a Hitler or a Mussolini. General Juan Perón of Argentina and his political wife, Evita, showered Spain with food to mitigate the worse cases of general starvation in the 1940s. Finally, the Cold War emphasised the strategic geographical importance of Spain. Spain did not have to reach out to Western powers. They came calling.
In 1953 President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States paid an official visit to Spain. This was followed by a trade and military alliance and full acceptance into the United Nations in 1955. For the next 20 years Spain would undergo an economic revolution closely controlled by Franco and his small inner circle of supporters. When he died on November 20, 1975 Spain was a fully developed capitalist country whose impressive general gross domestic figures disguised a plethora of serious political and administrative problems.
Since 1975 Spain has demonstrated that prolonged political instability can be terminated. Spain became a truly democratic monarchy, something the Spanish had wished for since 1810. King Juan Carlos demonstrated a political maturity and astuteness that facilitated that transition to democracy. Franco's dictatorship was dismantled methodically, quietly, firmly and effectively.
The new Guggenheim Museum in BilbaoThe military were sent back to their barracks and subordinated to civilian government. Spain, under a socialist government, joined the European community in 1986 and has outperformed most of the older states in economic matters.
The first Spanish lesson therefore is that past history does not necessarily constitute a reliable guide for the future. This should be consoling to the great majority of Caribbean governments. Wracked as most of them are by political malaise, economic under-performance, and domestic violence, a politically stable, self-sustaining economic system appears well beyond their reach. Nevertheless, with a strong will and determined, far-sighted leaders, the Rubicon can
be crossed. It is never too late to make ameliorative changes.
The second lesson from Spain has to do with perceived fragmentation.
Before Franco, Spain was never a consolidated state. All Spanish monarchs had a long list of titles that illustrated the ancient traditions and skilful compromises that had brought together some desperate Christian kingdoms and permitted the sort of pragmatic cooperation that resulted in the expulsion of the Moors and the creation of a type of envied European hegemony.
Franco created a united nation state when he declared himself "Caudillo of Spain and of the Crusade". He forbade the speaking of regional languages and sought to eradicate any manifestation of autonomous regional economic development.
Today, the 41 million Spanish citizens find themselves administratively divided into 50 provinces, partitioned into 17 autonomous communities, including two autonomous cities. Some of the autonomous regions are surprisingly small. La Rioja has just over 280,000 inhabitants.
Navarre and Cantabria each has slightly over half a million. There is a continuous delicate negotiation between central authority and regions over a range of issues, reflected in some manifest inequalities. Road tolls, for example, are higher in wealthier regions, generally those in the north than in those with a lower per capita income, mainly those in the south. Regions compete with one another to attract businesses.
Reactivated regionalism contributes to national multi-lingualism. Spain has four official languages: Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician. Road and other signs are often listed in at least two languages in Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque country. Languages can co-exist.
How did the Spanish accomplish so much in so short a time? Time, place and circumstances played important roles. Franco could not be isolated during the Cold War especially when he claimed that he had been fighting communism from the 1930s. Iberia gave the Allies a lot of free space to construct their military defences against the Soviet Union.
The European Community provided a windfall for building a modern infrastructure. At the national as well as at the municipal level, Spaniards rose to the occasion and took control of their destiny. As Mark Anthony noted, "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings."