At Large
Spain Defiled
Her rulers and inhabitants have colluded with a Europe that has long disdained her.
(Page 2 of 2)
In a very different scenario from the brazen attack on the family and Judeo-Christian values mentioned above, at the beginning of this year an overwhelming majority of the Spanish parliament outlawed smoking in the 340,000 bars, cafes, cafeterias, restaurants and hotels in the country.
On the surface, it is undeniable that this is an assault on individual freedom of choice. The ensuing damage, however, is much more profound. One now watches sadly as Spain slowly metamorphosizes. In bars and restaurants, despondency and suppressed infuriation fill the air. The hardest hit are the old folk. Their lifelong pastime of a card game on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, or any afternoon for that matter, amidst cigarette smoke and the sweet scent of coffee and brandy, has been demolished overnight. The boisterous atmosphere in bars, so unique to the Spanish way of life, is rapidly disappearing. They no longer overflow with soccer fans watching the weekend game. Bars, cafes, cafeterias and restaurants are quieter; melancholy even — as though there were a sudden realization that a part of life has been swept away, never to return.
Thus, Spain now plods ahead day by day in a stupor, unrecognizable even to her own. Her rulers and her people continue to look only ahead like horses with blinders, unwilling to admit that under their care, Spain — now bereft of many of her religious and cultural traditions, has been trampled upon by her own doing.
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scott| 4.20.11 @ 8:02AM
A vivid portrait, especially to someone with little knowledge of Spain's history.
Yes, indeed--in Western civilization, the rigor of truly free existence has been traded in for the "security" of the state.
My, how I would fit in; afternoon siesta, dinner at 10, etc..
You forgot the finger-style guitarra.
Alert1201| 4.20.11 @ 9:16AM
My dad was in the Navy and in the late 70s he was transferred to Rota Spain where we lived for 3 years. I was only a teenager but I always remember the vibrancy of the place.
My parents did their best to expose us to as much as the Spanish culture as they could.
Two areas the author highlights I can distinctly remember. First, Spain was a country of the night. I can remember going to the fairs. After spending 4 or 5 hours there we would leave to return home at about 11 O’ Clock in the evening. As we were dragging our tired bodies out it would be against a steady flow of excited energetic people (with kids no less) just coming in. I always thought, “How can these people do this, and how late they were staying if they were only getting there as we were leaving.” I also remember the bars. They were not seen as the dark dismal places where iniquity took place as they are in our country. Rather they were social hubs where even teens (14-15 years old) my age were allowed to sit at the counter or a table and drink coffee, coke or even beer. We often went to school trips to Seville (pronounced Seveeyya) and as soon as we were finished with the necessary sight seeing and free to roam the city without our chaperones, the first place we went were the bars to drink cokes, eat Tapas and sit around and talk. It a wonderful thing and I am sorry to hear it has changed. The three years spend there were one of the highlights of my life.
JmsA| 4.20.11 @ 1:57PM
Nice post, Alert1201. I fondly relate to your recollections, for I also lived in Spain three years in the early seventies, when it was a conservative yet changing country. Of note, one of the pre-seminary schools I attended had an actual full bar from from 2 pm (when classes ended) to 9 pm, when the bartender closed shop and went home for dinner, no doubt to imbibe some more. I also attended summer school at the Monasterio de Santa María de la Rábida, in Palos de La Frontera, not too far from Rota, which I visited quite a few times. Thanks for the pleasant surprise post; it brought back quite a few, fond memories. All the best.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.20.11 @ 9:29AM
Well, Mr Bozell, it hsn't helped that they are broke due to the dumb "green energy" scams they have wallowed in.
WJ| 4.20.11 @ 9:32AM
As you note in your first sentence, the Spanish did this to themselves. Most countries of the West are self-destructing on their own.
PJ| 4.20.11 @ 9:44AM
You can not have siestas & dinner at 10 if one expects to become a rich country. One has to work like a dog which includes getting up early & going to bed early for work with maybe having free weekends. There is no time for afternoon naps. Spain, welcome to the real world!
Mark30339| 4.20.11 @ 9:55AM
I spent a month in Spain 25 years ago. If that Spain is truly gone, as Mr. Bozell says, it's an enormous tragedy.
Raul Wassermann| 4.20.11 @ 9:58AM
The author forgets a few ugly moments in Spain's history. In 1492, the same year they beat Islam and discovered America, they also threw out all the Jews!!! Then the Inquisition!! Torture, burning of books and people ... the yellow Star of David that Hitler made Jews wear was not his invention ... it was the Spaniards!!! The Ham that hangs in all of Spain was the welcome that was made to all that walked into a Catholic Spanish household, that the Jews, afraid for their lives, had to eat, or be discovered!!
Old Soldier| 4.20.11 @ 10:59AM
Spain and Franco managed to save Europe from itself during WWII.
Hitler naturally wanted Gibraltar - the key to the Mediterranean. Franco managed to frustrate Hitler to no end and ultimately refused all invitations to join the Axis. But Franco never provoked Hitler enough to attack Spain in order to get to Gibraltar.
Instead Hitler blundered into Eastern Europe and North Africa with his southern flank totally exposed. Spain cost the Axis the war.
Michael| 4.20.11 @ 2:21PM
Mr. Wassermann, here is some more history you may not know about. How many Jews did the US save during the Holocaust? Approx. 1,000. How many did Franco save? Approx. 40,000. Where were the Allies? Also the Inquisition was the first "law and order" a town had other than a local prince yelling "Off with his head!" Most people tried before the Inquisition were found Not Guilty, and most of those given the death penalty had their sentences commuted.
Christopher Gamble| 12.5.11 @ 2:01PM
Well said....a ham is offensive to Mulims and Jews..Is this why it was hung? The irony with Spain is the Eoiro both made it and killed it. The debt to income ration at 39% was one of the 'best' in the Eurozone and labour was low and priduction high with good quality but they had to ruin it with the Spanish Gold mentality and instead of making good while the sun shines they poilfered the money through corruption that created a false construction boom that was simply non strategic and unsusatainAable. 'They did it to themsewlves'. Now where did all that EU money dissapear...into CORRUPT local councils and thieving politicians in the traditional individualist Spanish manner. And when push comes to shove, the Spanish will turn against foriegner and then themselves over again. Racism is inherrent and the Yellow Star point you make should be made louder.
flanoggin| 4.20.11 @ 10:02AM
Thank you Raul--you are quite correcgt. I don't think anyplace is the same as it was 25 years ago. I was in Spain last year for a few weeks---it was HEAVEN still.
Bayou Babe| 4.20.11 @ 10:56AM
I lived in Madrid, in the mid-‘50s, while my father helped begin the process of building US military bases there. I was a wee child, but remember it vividly. Throughout our stay of 3 ½ years, we lived and were treated like nobility. It was a glorious experience that truly defies description. Watching Spain’s decline has been heartbreaking.
Anommynous| 4.20.11 @ 11:02AM
"In historical terms, she recently underwent a fratricidal war resulting in half a million deaths, a struggle that was decisive in defending Christianity from atheism in the last century."
Ah, well there you have it, Mr. Bozell! For Europe at large decided to take the side of the atheists in the last century. It is little wonder that Spain would find herself at-odds. Alas, I fear that much of the Spanish youth have found themselves afflicted with that particular malady that has already plagued the rest of Europe.
Seek| 4.20.11 @ 1:20PM
You can torture history all you want, but facts are stubborn things: Franco's Falangists committed unspeakable atrocities against tens of thousands of "atheists" (as you call them) during and after the war. The "Spanish Civil War" is a misnomer. It was really a military coup, accompanied by Catholic triumphalism.
The "Christian" Falangists won. And in so doing, they did more to plunge the nation into darkness than the Loyalists ever could have.
Michael| 4.20.11 @ 2:27PM
Seek, half of the Catholic clergy were murdered by the atheist Communists before and during the war. All in the name of Amendments 3 and 26 of their constitution, advocating "seperation of church and state". The communists that were killed by the Nationalists after the war were tried and found guilty of war crimes, and were only a fraction of the earlier number of people killed by the communists.
JmsA| 4.20.11 @ 5:47PM
Franco, it goes without saying, was no saint; though quite a few believe he was because he saved Spain not only from the commies (republicans/loyalists), but also from kept Spain out of WWII). I, for one, lived, studied and traveled quite extensively throughout every region of Spain for a few years, both before and after the death of Franco. After Franco's death in 1975, came "La Movida", or the move towards more commonality with the rest of Europe. Such it seemed, not only entailed nearly everyone becoming a smoker, but also the shedding the church and God in a mad rush to become more european. The socialists growing in influence and power, and as such continuously gnawing on the fabric of tradional Spanish society, the latter began to unravel through not only granting of autonomy to various enthnic regional groups, which I don't altogether disagree with (as I disagree with Franco's suppression of regional identities, language, etc.), but also increasing legal and illegal immigration from the third world. Such bringing with it ever increasing social benefits costs and in turn increasing taxation and deficits , there is also a lack of investment following a nearly uncontrolled period of borrowing and building, further exacerbated by the recent world banking crisis, and a mostly non-productive green sector. All of this, and the ever increasing islamization of Spain hand in hand with an increasingly low Spanish birthrate, make it easy to foresee the disaster in the making that is Spain.
Don't tell me what the loyalists/communists would or would not have done. I've seen first hand what they've done elsewhere, and they're just as bloodsthirsty as Franco was or you purport him to have been. Franco, by the way, was not a Falangista; he used them, but he was not one. Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, arrested, jailed and shot by a republican/loyalist firing squad for illegal possession of weapons in 1936, founded La Falange, not Franco, who at heart was monarchist, albeit for some time a very tyrannical one, and in the end a Caudillo in the Spanish tradition.
Oh, by the way, in case you didn't know, the loyalists, republicans, anarchists were all in league with Stalin, who in exchange for whatever help he provided during the civil war, drained the Spanish treasury of all its gold reserves, and even abducted hundreds, if not thousands of Spanish children for communist indoctrination in the Soviet Union.
Don't take my word for it, check this very site's previous offering regarding, no less than George Orwell's own feelings and opinions about those you so vehemently defend:
http://spectator.org/archives/.....epublicans
Christopher Gamble| 12.5.11 @ 2:03PM
The Nazis were Catholics 18m deaths there
Joe D.| 4.20.11 @ 11:44AM
Let me cry that no smoking killed there culture. Just stop smoking which would be better for everyone not just the smoker. How difficult?
What about that Muslim aggression (Ottoman Muslim empire). You mean that Spain stopped the peaceful religion of islam from conquering Europe. But we were told by Bush and the idiot in the White House that it is a great peaceful religion.
ABNCP| 4.20.11 @ 12:25PM
I spent some time in Spain during the 70's and 80's and always had a great time. It looks likeJoe D. and the rest of the anti-smoking nazis in the world have screwed up another country. Yeah, yeah we all know smoking, among a zillion other things, is not good for some people. So what. In a free world people get to make choices. Not so much in the world we seem to be creating. And please don't bring up the secondary smoke myth it is complete B.S. Listen to Dennis Prager on the subject, he destroyed the whole concept of secondary smoke being any problem for anyone.
I plan on going to Spain this fall and of all the countrys in Europe, my opinion is Spain is the only one worth visiting anymore.
JmsA| 4.21.11 @ 10:32AM
Oh my! The smokies got their panties in a twist . Hey guys, I was just trying to illustrate with a turn of phrase part of something I directly witnessed. And guess what? I smoked when I was there, tending Bar as I worked my way through college. The only difference, I brought my smoking habit over from the States. I no longer smoke because it doesn't agree with my health. If you guys want to smoke, knock yourselves out, but don't infer, either directly or indirectly, that I'm a anti-smoking nazi, ok?
SugartownSuper| 4.20.11 @ 1:11PM
I do not mean to nit-pick, but when Mr Bozell asks "Where did the first resistance of Christianity to the onslaught of a foreign culture and religion take place?" The correct answer is Tours, France in AD 732. Had he asked "Where was the long battle fought to resist the onslaught..." Spain would be a better answer although the 800 year long Romano-Byzantine resistance in the East bears mentioning as well . That said, Spain's history of preserving Catholicism is somewhat less glorious to those of us of the Protestant persuasion, much less to our Jewish brethren. The Amerindian peoples might, had they much survived the relationship, be somewhat less enthused too. I very much doubt also that the large majority of people living in Western Europe between say 1450 and 1750 would have considered Spain as an "outsider" either. I have spent a great deal of time in Spain over the past 35 years and I do share Mr Bozell's nostalgia for the passing of that unique Spanish social culture, but the Old Spain that produced it is best gone, but not forgotten.
Redstateboy| 4.20.11 @ 3:48PM
another sad casualty to the disgusting brave new world of Liber-ulism
Marc Jeric| 4.20.11 @ 6:10PM
All said above is true - but even more destructive of the Spain's spirit is the socialist sickness, with communists and eco-nazis in almost total power.
Quartermaster| 4.20.11 @ 7:56PM
I lived in Germany for 6 years before the electoral victory of Kiesinger and the socialist coalition. The Germany I knew and loved is gone. I later visited Spain during the early 70s when I was in the Navy while Franco was still on his throne. It was much like Germany with friendly outgoing people.
Most people that hate Franco were, and are, communists. He was no angel, but Spain did not suffer greatly under the man and benefitted in many ways. When Franco passed, socialists managed to take over and have since drubbed the country. Spain would not have become what it was in the late 70s and early 80s without the momentum that had built under Franco in the 60s.
Sadly, Toynbee has pointed out that civilization are not murdered, they suicide. France, Germany, Great Britain, Canada and ourselves are once more proving Toynbee correct. Socialism is a blight wherever it lands.
Dacron Mather| 4.21.11 @ 12:29AM
When will an army of Spain's faithful smokers march against the UN to begin the reconquista of the tapas bars?
AliceL.| 4.21.11 @ 9:15AM
Sorry, but Spain has a very violent and anti-Semitic past. I lived in Spain and loved the country, language, and music, but facts are stubborn things. Spanish Catholicism is very bigoted and intolerant.
Michael| 4.21.11 @ 3:19PM
Franco and Spain still saved 40,000 Jews. Where was FDR?
UmGajoQualquer| 4.21.11 @ 11:13AM
I know it's petty, but i couldn't resist: Charles V did not rule over Portugal.. It's son, Phillip II did, starting in 1580 (a date still living in infamy for us :)..
Otherwise a very interesting and heartfelt article, although I believe this convergence is more organic than politically imposed... As the World globalizes and becomes "smaller", more and more people in different countries of Western Europe are self-identifying as Europeans, and this tends to drive political developments..
felice| 4.21.11 @ 11:35AM
Italy too has the siesta (riposo they call it).
For a thorough cultural view of spain and europe we might mention the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Theodosius each in their own right
considered amongst the top five roman emperors.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:04PM
is good
Christopher Gamble| 12.5.11 @ 1:52PM
What a loasd of old coswobble....Spain the frontier iof Muslim empire suggests some kind of inherrent racist conservatism..and the Ottoman Empire...Oh my goodness....Truth is Spain raped and pilaged iuts way across the Americas building nothing and taking everything. The Conquest werrd bloody murder amnd discoveries driven by greed endorsed by Catholicism...not much different to the greedy tribalism that has created the nightnmare which is the Spanish economy today. Individualsm is Spain...in spite of all the sociaslising...families killed families and brother killed brothers and a good business deal is in how much the customer was robbed.