If there were any SUR in English readers who didn’t know the word the Spanish use for beach bars and restaurants a few months ago, they certainly do now. ‘The chiringuitos must all come off the sand’, threatened one headline; ‘Government agrees to negotiate over chiringuitos’, promised another, followed by reports of the chiringuito owners threatening to protest in Madrid and eventually news of a respite until the end of the year.
Since March the whole affair has travelled full circle. (more…)
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However much the world is becoming globalised, however much we travel around and even settle in other countries, however integrated a foreigner may feel in a society, foreigners are still foreigners. Even adopting the nationality of your new home still makes you of foreign origin.
The news we read and hear every day only emphasises how the place where someone is born and the culture they were brought up in defines their identity. However different the citizens of a country appear to be from each other within that country, once on foreign soil they have much more in common than they thought.
Here on the Costa del Sol where people of different nationalities have been living together for years our countries of origin are still used to define our identities, however “Spanish” our lifestyles and customs have become. If that wasn’t the case “She’s French” or “He’s Argentinian” would not be the first thing we say when describing a new acquaintance.
So this brings me to the tragic death of the man - the British man - following a late night fight outside a bar in Cómpeta earlier this month. (more…)
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This Monday morning I have noticed that the news on surinenglish.com to have collected the most comments over the weekend is a short item about the Catholic church linking two current issues: child abuse in religious schools and abortion.
“Abortion worse than abuse, says Spanish Cardinal” reads the headline, whose correctness was disputed in one of the comments. What the Cardinal actually said, after apologising on behalf of the Church for the abuse suffered by 35,000 children in over 200 schools in Ireland, was that what might have happened in a few schools was “not comparable to the millions of lives destroyed by abortion”.
He’s right, the two situations cannot be compared. They are completely separate. So why bring them up in the same breath if it was not to say that physically and psychologically abusing children was nothing compared with having an abortion? And would he have brought the issue up at all if the abortion law reform bill was not currently being debated in Spain’s parliament? (more…)
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Two years ago I happened to be in England at the time of the Wimbledon final and I found myself passionately cheering on Spain’s Rafa Nadal in his match against Roger Federer. Yesterday, watching the final of the Madrid Open, I realised my loyalty had changed sides as I rooted for Federer and celebrated his victory.
The problem is that since that 2007 Wimbledon final, men’s tennis has started to get plain boring with Nadal winning everything left, right and centre.
(more…)
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First it was mad cow disease, then bird flu and now swine flu. If we human beings didn’t have enough health fears of our own, the animal kingdom comes along and provides a few more, reminding us yet again that when it comes to examining cells under a microscope we are all more or less the same.
The difference is that we clever human beings invented globalisation, intercontinental travel, high speed transport and massive social gatherings so when we catch one of these ‘flu variations we spread it around the world in no time at all. (more…)
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It’s been all change at the Junta de Andalucía this week. The departure of Manuel Chaves to Madrid has led to a complete shake-up of the regional government under the new President José Antonio Griñán, a man who has emerged from the shadow of Chaves as someone determined to make some changes, rather than simply keeping his old boss’s boat afloat until the next elections.
The decision that has caught everyone’s attention has been the one that has brought Rosa Aguilar, until this week the Izquierda Unida Mayor of Cordoba, into the Junta de Andalucía. In just a few hours Aguilar has broken away from her party and her City Hall to take over the reins of the Public Works Department in Seville. (more…)
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As anticipated Zapatero has announced his Cabinet reshuffle. New blood to bring new ideas or strategies aimed at getting us out of this deepening recession. After 19 years at the helm of the Junta de Andalucía granted by six electoral victories, Manuel Chaves has been summoned back to Madrid to become the third of three Deputy Prime Ministers with the specific post of Minister of Territorial Coordination. I’m still not sure of what exactly this job entails - something to do with making sure that all the regional authorities are content with their share of funds designated by Central Government - but what is certain is that Zapatero wants Chaves in his team, by his side, in Madrid.
The reshuffle has also seen the exit of the Minister of Development of the last five years, Malaga’s own Magdalena Álvarez. (more…)
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Semana Santa is upon us. With it comes the usual debate, at least among those of us who are not directly involved, about whether the Holy Week processions are pure religious devotion, folklore, culture or simple tradition.
What we do know is that this week’s celebrations have a pull powerful enough to make thousands of people, of all ages walk for hours wearing hoods with just two holes cut out for their eyes, or endure the pain, or at least discomfort, of carrying heavy images on their shoulders or backs way into the early hours of the morning - some with bare feet, others with their eyes blindfolded. Religious devotion perhaps but if all these thousands of people were regulars at mass the area’s churches would be overflowing. (more…)
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Marketing is something you would normally associate with the business world rather than the spiritual, but the Catholic Church seems to have got the hang of it. Last year the radio and the papers were full of appeals for funds - help the church help others, tick the Church box on your ‘declaración de la renta’, etc.
Now they seem to have raised so much money that they have enough to spend on another campaign, this time with a more political edge to it. The Government has announced the details of its long-awaited reform to the abortion law in Spain. The Church has reacted by coming up with an eye-catching poster in which we can see a baby crawling alongside a picture of an Iberian lynx. (more…)
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On Thursday one little machine could be seen slowly working away at a building in Marbella. Little by little it knocked away the bricks, cement and plaster, gradually turning 34 homes into a pile of rubble. Thirty-four homes that were never lived in, thresholds that no one was ever carried over, walls that never heard babies cry or lovers fight or elderly bones creak. In fact, 34 homes that should never have been there in the first place.
Demolition has started on the Golf Río Real development, which has received more publicity since it appeared at the top of the illegal construction black list than its promoters could ever have dreamed of when they drew up the plans. We ought to make the most of the scene because it is unlikely to be repeated very often - it looks like this is one of just two illegal developments built during the GIL regime that will end up being flattened. The rest promise to remain standing as resilient symbols of 15 years of abuse by local governments that made up the rules as they went along and, in the main, got away with it. (more…)
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