The Death Threats and the Madrid Elections

Spain is reeling from the political events in Madrid as the regional campaign for the election on May 4th approaches the final days. The Vox poster comparing Granny’s modest pension to the money lavished on the foreign immigrant kids had stirred up feelings which (probably) helped one, ah, ‘patriot’ to mail on Thursday bullets and threatening notes to the Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Pablo Iglesias (UP) and María Gámez, the director of the Guardia Civil. 

This Monday, a copy-cat package with a return address written on it, containing a bloodied knife, was discovered, addressed to the Minister for Tourism Reyes Maroto. It was found to be ‘the work of a schizophrenic’ who was later identified as an eccentric relative of Vox spokesperson Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, the husband of Rocío Monasterio. 

Following the light relief, on Tuesday packages with bullets for the regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso (here) and again for Iglesias (here) were found by Correos. On Wednesday, it was the turn of ex-President Rodríguez Zapatero.

Maybe, as the far-right Sueldos Publicos suggests, it’s because they all get paid too much.

A radio debate on La Ser between the five main candidates (the PP’s Isabel Díaz Ayuso was a non-show) on Friday rapidly went pear-shaped after the Vox candidate refused to sympathise with Pablo Iglesias’ surprise package and, this created so much offence that Iglesias marched out of the live radio program, followed shortly after by the PSOE candidate Ángel Gabilondo and Mónica García (Más Madrid) – leaving just Rocío Monasterio (Vox) and a slightly harassed looking Edmundo Bal (Ciudadanos). The program was cut short and another live debate planned for LaSexta was promptly cancelled.

Did Iglesias do right to walk out following the provocation from Monasterio? Readers of the left-wing press think so, yes (El Huff Post 81%); readers of the right-wing press think not, no (ECD 77%). The middle-of-the-road 20Minutos readers voted yes 46%, no 49% here.

Now there are those who say the bullets were a stunt, and those, like Hugo Silva, who noted on Twitter that when ETA used to do this, it was known as ‘terrorism’. But it is becoming tense. 

The joke-photomontage appearing on the cover of El Jueves shows a picture of an indignant Abascal waving a book that someone had sent him in a package – ‘They want to end our ignorance, but they never will!’ says the caption.

Since the PP can’t govern without Vox and the remains of the Ciudadanos party, nor indeed can the PSOE without Más Madrid and Unidas Podemos, we are faced, say the pundits, with two choices, depending on how they swing:

It’s either ‘Freedom against Communism’ (here) – or ‘Democracy versus Fascism’ (here).

So, it’s back to a two-party system, only in this case not a very happy one.

English as She is Spoke

A thoroughly modern entity like the European Union should have its own official language. Currently, we have the agreed number of ‘24 languages as "official and working": Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish’ (Wiki). Since few of us can speak all these, plus the many other tongues preferred in various bits of the union (including Catalonian, Valencian, Basque, Galician and around another ninety palavers and a further fifteen major immigrant languages), we generally settle for English, French, German and (to a degree) Spanish. Everybody, hopefully, speaks at least one of these.

EU rules – designed not to offend – mean that products have to carry the local language on their merchandise, which is why Kleenex for example says tissue, mouchoir, pañuelo and, er, Papiertaschentuch and so on in 24 languages. The main reason, I think, that the EU can’t grow any more is that there isn’t any more room on our boxes.

That’s also why there are three labels of closely-worded text on the inside of one’s trousers saying ‘Do not Bleach’ in a veritable Babel of lingos.

Europeans are generally unfazed by foreign languages (many readers of the Business over Tapas - my weekly news-buletin - have English as a second language). Although this may not be entirely true of the British who always view learning languages at school as a rather futile exercise rather than something which may one day prove useful.

Probably because they started us off on Latin (some of us). Still, we have our pride.

From Connections France this week comes the slightly silly ‘Expat campaigners: Help us bust myth of boozy Brits abroad’. We read there that ‘Britons abroad are not all wealthy boozers who speak no foreign languages…’.

Actually, and take it from me, some of the Brits here in Spain not only don’t speak a word of Spanish, they can barely speak their own language. 

Even when they're sober.

Seriously though, despite the UK no longer being a member of the EU, English remains the first language of use, says Forbes here. It says ‘As of 2012, a majority of EU citizens (51%) could speak English, either as a first or second language. It was the only language that could realistically be used as a mode of communication, given that only 32% can speak German and 26% can speak French’. As we wait for newer statistics, they estimate that around 50% of Europeans can speak English ‘as a second language’ today.

I believe that the language of culture, maybe thanks to Hollywood, is English. Who wants to see Humphrey Bogart in translation, or listen to Frank Sinatra without understanding the words?

But can you have English as the de facto language of 446 million people following Brexit?

There are no countries currently within the EU who use English as an official first language, although we might be splitting hairs here (Ireland has Gaelic and Malta has Maltese as their ‘official languages for EU purposes’). Within the Schengen Area, and we must again tweak the facts, only Gibraltar speaks English as its first language. Maybe one day we shall be obliged by the pedants to say that ‘in Europe, we speak Gibraltarian’.

In reality, of course, we speak American. Just don’t tell Shakespeare.