Huibert-Aalbers.com

One nice thing about traveling to a country every year or two is that you can better appreciate what is happening there (or not) and measure the pace of change. Now that I am back from my recent trip to Spain I can confidently state that from a politics standpoint nothing hasn’t changed much over the last twenty years or so. That country is Spain. After the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the country went to an accelerated democratization process that culminated with the election in 1982 of Felipe Gonzalez as the first socialist prime minister after forty years of fascism. That, in addition to over three decades of prosperity, shoul have put an end to a dark chapter of Spanish history. It did not.

It turns out that democracy and prosperity were unable to heal the deep scars that still divide the Spanish society today. Political tensions are currently running at an extremely unusual level for a country that is witnessing economic growth and slowly decreasing unemployment. On one hand, the right wing party (Partido Popular) simply does not stand being in the opposition and violently criticizes any decision taken by the government, trying to polarize society over any issue in order to regain power. The situation, is in many ways similar to what happened back in the thirties when the right believed that the country could not survive a socialist government and therefore started the civil war. This is, by the way, a common lie spread by politicians, as history has demonstrated that, in democratic countries that obey the rule of law, elected government really do not have the capability to cause irreparable harm during their term. On the other hand, separatist parties in Euskadi and Catalonia keep their fight to become more independent, or simply, independent. They claim that they want to separate from Spain because they are different from the rest of the Spaniards, however, what they really mean is that they are better than the rest. This isn’t new either.

This ridiculous belief that people in a region can be better than their neighbours, is a direct result of the industrialization process that occured during the 19th century. There are many countries where this can be clearly witnessed. In Italy for example, the industrious North has had many temptations to separate from the agricultural South. In Mexico, Northerners tend to feel superior to Southerners, because industry has made them richer. This is specially ridiculous because these regions did not prosper because their inhabitants were particularly smart or worked harder, it was simply because it was where natural resources were located. In some countries, that ill-gotten pride disappeared when the industrial model started to collapse in Western countries (this for example happened clearly in England during the second half of the XXth century). In other parts of the world, though, in industrial regions that were able to maintain their leading economic status, this transition never happened and this superiority complex that has been living in the collective unconsciousness is being used by politicians for their personal gain.

What really strikes me is how such an open society can still be fighting over the same battles that have caused so much pain in the past. The will to be right is definitively winning over the search for truth and peace. This is absolutely ridiculous. We live in a globalized world and the population is rapidly growing. We cannot keep paying attention to old quarrels when facing new global challenges such as global warming. The solution, from my point of view, is talking about issues that really affect the quality of living of the people. Providing free health care to everyone is such an issue. Creating new countries in large economic block such as the EU in order to issue new passports is not.

We keep telling adolescents that there are many dangerous things that they must avoid (alcohol, drugs, unprotected sex and now the Wii), even if it means not being able to belong to a group they want to be part of. I would argue that nationalism as well as radical ideologies are at least as dangerous for the adults, who are usually responsible for having their children fighting their own battles. Education is the main vehicle for passing hatred and misinformation from one generation to the next. As parents we have an obligation to maintain an open mind and try to understand all the perspectives. As human beings we have the obligation to always try to be objective, irrespective of what may have been taught to us. Truth shall make us free, but truth is sometimes hard to find. Keeping an open mind as well as always trying to be objective is probably an easier goal to reach.