Lenox Napier¹
Editorial:
Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.
Herman Melville 1819-1891
‘26 million sons of bitches’
Perhaps a ‘nobody’ – a person who doesn’t run a company or have a high position or is not a teacher, a priest or an ‘influencer’ – can get away with making outrageous claims in public or on the Social Media, but can a retired Air-force general?
On the one side, we have two open letters sent to King Felipe VI by a number of senior retired members of the military (112 of them in all) complaining about the ‘social-communist’ government and the threat to national unity, on the other, there’s the WhatsApp chat of their circle which includes some over-the-top suggestions, like ‘executing 26 million Spaniards’ (i.e., those who support the current Government).
‘Spain’s Defence Minister, Margarita Robles, has sent prosecutors at the Madrid regional High Court information about the chat group that supports military uprisings and mass executions’ says El País in English in a story here. No doubt it’s all just a jocular and high-spirited discussion without any evil intent. The problem being that the subscribers are all senior military, retired perhaps, but certainly what we might understand as influencers.
While this might be a storm in a tea-cup, it has certainly attracted a lot of interest from the media.
The Guardian, commenting on Sunday’s Constitution Day celebrations, leads with ‘Spain marks 42 years since return of democracy as retired officers dissent’. The subheading says ‘…Some former armed forces members rue the demise of Franco dictatorship’.
Again, influencers, by their very nature, influence (especially those who naturally tend towards this kind of talk).
InfoLibre broke the WhatsApp story last week. Quotes from their article include the comment from an air-force general ‘There’s no alternative but to start shooting these 26 million sons of bitches’ and another says ‘I woke up this morning totally convinced. I don’t want these scoundrels to lose an election. No. I want them all and their descendents to die. That is what I want. Is it too much to ask?’ and another ‘Just give me the order… and that’s what I want to say to the king’ then there’s an audio from Santiago Abascal: ‘They tell me that it is mandatory to greet this group. A hug to all and Long live Spain!’
How about this: ‘I prefer the Republic because we would have more opportunities to repeat the manoeuvres of 1936’? Nostalgia for a Civil War.
The RTVE, leading with ‘The retired servicemen had called to «join forces with Abascal» against that «son of a bitch with pigtails» (Pablo Iglesias) and «that Sánchez bastard», has a video and more clips from the conversation here.
LaSer has a copy of a manifesto signed by 400 retired senior servicemen which begins ‘Declaration of Retired Military Figures Facing the Current Situation in Spain’.
It would seem that this is what happens when you unwisely move General Franco’s remains from the Valle de los Caídos (Wiki).
The first letter to the king – who hasn’t either answered or apparently reacted to date – warns of the annihilation of democracy. We must thank Okdiario for this explanation that ‘The latest government attacks on the pillars of Spanish democracy have mobilized a large group of soldiers in the reserve…’. Strange winds are blowing when a far-right revolt aims to restore democracy.
Something called Brave New Europe has an article titled: ‘Proud Fascists of the Spanish Army’s Officers Corp’. As one might expect from the headline, it pulls no punches.
El Español on the other hand, considers the events as ‘sabre rattling’ and without more importance (while introducing the general reader to two of the ringleaders). We read that ‘The Defence Minister Margarita Robles indicated this Friday that the members of these groups «are not active in the military, although it’s clear that they want to sow hatred and endanger the monarchy.»’. The Spanish Chief of Staff (JEMAD), General Miguel Ángel Villarroya, also spoke on Friday, saying «the opinions of these people cannot be considered representative of the military community».
A radio editorial from Àngels Barceló (LaSer) says that ‘They are not military nostalgics, they are supporters of the extreme right. There’s no joking with this. Neither with flirting with executions, bombings or military coups nor with encouraging these calls or identifying these soldiers as “our people”, as a Vox politician did’.
‘Pablo Casado: «The function of the king is a function of absolute impartiality as a symbol of the State and in the case of Don Felipe that impartiality has been absolutely scrupulous», says the leader of the PP’ here.
(El País in English again): ‘…Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias has played down the relevance of the statements. “What a few retired gentlemen might say in a chat group after too many drinks does not pose any kind of threat”, he said in a TV interview, adding that the letters put Felipe VI in “an absurdly uncomfortable situation” and that he will surely not even bother to read them’.
Then, on Sunday, a third letter attacking the Government arrived at the Zarzuela Palace, this time sent by reservists from Mallorca…
Housing:
‘Brexit 90-day limit will hit British demand’. Spanish Property Insight warns of a serious property issue. It says ‘When the Brexit transition period ends at the end of the year, UK residents won’t be able to come and go as they please, which is bound to affect demand for second homes in Spain. As of the first of January 2021 Britons can only spend 90 days out of every 180 days in the EU without a visa. As the Gov.uk website explains “From 1 January 2021, you will be able to travel to other Schengen area countries for up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa for purposes such as tourism. This is a rolling 180-day period”. Many British residents with second homes in Spain like to spend just under half a year here, especially in the winter months. That will no longer be possible. Three months will be the longest you can stay…’.
Tourism:
From El País here (limited paywall): ‘This is how the tourism company operates that accumulates hundreds of complaints on the Internet from unsuspecting customers. Málaga based Ocio Hoteles uses a digital excuse not to refund the money to those affected who claim it’.
Hotels have reported low numbers over the recent puente – as bad as just 10% of rooms.
‘One of the planet’s largest tourism industry trade fairs has already set its dates for 2021, but not in the usual month – instead of being held around the third week in January, FITUR will take place in May…’. Item found at Think Spain here.
Seniors:
From La Marea here: ‘Five fundamental rights that continue to be abused in Spanish nursing homes thanks to the Covid-19, according to Amnesty International: these are essentially down to the control over visits and the transfer of patients to hospitals. AI lists the five as, the right to life; the right to health; the right to not suffer discrimination; the right to family assistance and the right to a dignified death. The published study from the group is called ‘Abandonas a su suerte. La desprotección y discriminación de las personas mayores en residencias durante la pandemia COVID-19 en España’, and can be found by following the link here.
Finance:
From El País in English here: ‘The Spanish Congress approves the new budget, ending years of gridlock. The victory brings added stability to the minority government and powers an ultra-expansive spending plan to deal with the coronavirus crisis’. The Corner says ‘Spain has a budget for 2021 at last’.
‘Spain’s stock market has experienced its best month in history, closing November with a record increase, according to market data. La Bolsa, as the national share price index is known in Spain, soared by 25% between November 1 and November 30, a rise never seen before. Rocketing share values have been largely driven by pharmaceutical laboratories as market speculators invest heavily in them ahead of the release of the imminent Covid-19 vaccines…’. More at Think Spain here.
Hospital costs: El Español says that ‘each day of admission by a patient costs the public health 700 euros. The average stay is a week, according to data from the Ministry of Health’.
An interesting argument as to why too much tourism is a bad thing. ‘The problem with Spain’, says an economist, ‘is that we often find an engineer is serving drinks’. El Economista interviews Alicia García Herrero (the chief economist for Asia-Pacific at French investment bank Natixis since June 2015) here.
Politics:
The ABC once again takes the biscuit with ‘Pablo Casado appeals to the unity of all moderates against the «enemies of the Nation»’, adding in a subtitle, ‘Iván Espinosa de los Monteros (the spokesman for Vox) warns that «the enemies of the Constitution are in the Government», which he sees as the worst in the history of Spain’.
In an article which worries about the retired military and their letters, declarations and phone-messages, an editorial at elDiario.es leads with this quote from Pablo Casado, president of the PP, December 1, 2020: «We have to defend freedom as the most precious asset that human beings have and for which they well deserve to risk their lives. That is what the brave Cuban and Venezuelan opponents have done, that is what the opposition will do in Spain». The news-site adds, ‘…For months the Spanish right has toyed with a dangerous idea: that the current government is illegitimate. A government against which anything goes, since it does not have democratic support; a «social communist» government that must be overthrown at any cost; a government that wants to break up Spain, and transform what remains of it into a dictatorship…’.
On Monday, a letter sent to the Minister of Defence and signed by 2,856 retired military personnel asked that those from the notorious Whatsapp chat should be stripped of their military privileges – such as unescorted entry to military buildings.
‘While Vox and PP rattle their sabres, the Crown is silent and Felipe VI loses a new opportunity to distance himself from those who try to make him the monarch of the right and claim his status as head of the military for their dreams of revolution’. eldiario.es here.
From Público here: ‘The retired general who wrote of shooting 26 million Spaniards feared that the Government would «outlaw Vox with its related judges». Francisco Beca Casanova supports the far-right party and he expressed his opinion in fear of the reform of the judiciary proposed by the PSOE and Unidas Podemos’. ‘The Government’, says an article in La Vanguardia here, ‘admits to some concern about the proclamations of retired servicemen and «the radicalized environment of the right»’. The article adds that ‘…the real problem that worries them is the scenario of political «tension and polarization» promoted by the Partido Popular and the extreme Vox party to try to delegitimize and destabilize the Executive of the coalition between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, despite being the result of democratic elections. Above all, they emphasize the «irresponsibility» of the PP…’.
Could Vox be going the way of Donald Trump and Matteo Salvini? Spanish Revolution makes a case here.
From VozPópuli here: ‘The Catholic Association of Propagandists (ACdP) launches an offensive against the plans that will regulate the right of people to request and receive aid to die known as euthanasia. The Government advances in the procedures while those against the initiative denounce that «the debate has been hijacked»’. A huge 500m2 poster has been raised on a building in Madrid by the group which says: ‘¿Eutanasia? Debate Secuestrado’ with the web address www.vividores.org . Facing them is the Federal Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (DMD). The euthanasia paper will be ready for a parliamentary vote just after Christmas.
From Europa Press here: ‘The Senate voted last week in favour of the agreement signed between Spain and the United Kingdom whereby Spaniards residing in the United Kingdom can continue voting in the British municipal elections after Brexit and, in return, the British residing in Spain will be able to continue to vote in municipal elections’. The Government’s official Website says ‘British citizens residing in Spain will be able to vote, as well as present their candidacy for municipal elections in Spain under similar conditions as they have been doing to date’. They (we) won’t be able to vote in the European elections, obviously. Will other non-EU nationals (Norwegians for instance, the full list here) seek legal advice of this? The next municipal elections will be held in 2023.
Catalonia:
The Supreme Court has reversed the ‘third grade’ for the Catalonian political rebels and has sent them back to full lock-down, saying that a condition of semi-liberty ‘is too soon’.
A political rally with Santiago Abascal and Vox in Barcelona this Sunday ended up with some members of the public bringing Nazi flags and singing Francoist songs. Amusingly, the party expressed itself keen to distance itself from the even more right wing FNI-PNSOE (here – uggh!) which had showed up in fine voice. The mayoress of the city Ada Colau says she has made a formal complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office of Hate Crimes. The Vox deputy Rocio Monasterio made these remarks in her speech: ‘Those of us with Vox are stoic, persevering and intrepid; Vox is the resistance. We are the resistance and we will be the resistance against those who want to attack our Constitution, against those who want to attack the king, against those who want to dismantle the Spanish nation».
You can see why everyone felt like a sing-along afterwards.
Ceuta and Melilla (and Gibraltar):
From El Español here ‘The Moroccan king Mohamed VI surrounds Ceuta and Melilla with major works to force co-sovereignty: the latest, a tram which would run from the international airport of Nador, to arrive at the Plaza de España in Melilla, and would bring tourists from luxurious facilities located in Moroccan territory’. The article says that Rabat has spent the last decade fine-tuning its nefarious plans to obtain co-sovereignty of the two cities with Spain. The Spanish themselves are very sensitive about Melilla and Ceuta’s Spanishness and do not compare the subject in any way whatsoever with the Peñon de Gibraltar (the US Library of Congress explains the issues in a paper from 1988 here. The Morocco World News in 2017 also attempted an explanation here). And then, the Western or ‘Spanish’ Sahara is back in the news as insurrection gathers pace there.
The main point for Madrid to consider in all this is that there are 34,000 Gibraltarians… and around 170,000 Spaniards between the two enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta. The best thing is to keep things calm rather than troubled as requited pride would come at a high price…
Europe:
An interesting essay at The Article here is titled ‘After Brexit, can we restore the right to live, work and retire in Europe?’ A quote: ‘…Before the coronavirus there were 73 million of us who used Ryanair or easyJet to visit European cities for short trips without having to worry about visa or health insurance. And instead of the foreign holiday being a once-a-year affair, there are now up to two million Brits who have a place in Europe – like a small time-share apartment in an urbanizacion on a Spanish costa or the Algarve…’.
Paraimigrantes says one can now take both the naturalisation exams for language and Spanish culture online. These are the two exams needed to prove one’s insertion into Spanish society.
From Europe Street here: ‘While the Brexit transition period is coming to an end, a number of legal cases on whether British nationals should maintain EU citizenship remain open at the Court of Justice of the European Union…’.
Information comes from Correos here regarding goods arriving by post from non-EU countries: «You should know that all shipments entering Spain from a country outside the European Union or coming from the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, will be subject to controls by Customs. Even goods bought over the Internet will be subject to this control process, as well as the payment of customs duties.
Remember that if you are going to receive an international shipment, you are obliged to inform yourself about the goods that are restricted or prohibited in Spain, as well as to present the necessary documents to allow their entry into the country.
Imported goods may be subject to different taxes and customs duties depending on their content, value and other legally considered factors. These amounts must be paid by the shipment’s recipient in order to collect the packages pending customs clearance.»
The Coronavirus:
‘Spain records lowest number of weekend coronavirus cases since mid-August. According to Monday’s report, the national incidence rate continues to fall and now stands at 215 infections per 100,000 inhabitants’. An item from El País in English here.
‘A bulk purchase of 52 million doses of three different types of Covid vaccine has been authorised by Spain’s national government. As well as the Moderna inoculation, developed in the USA and set to be packaged for distribution in Spain once it gets the European Union’s seal of approval – expected to be on January 12 at the latest – those created by laboratories Janssen and CureVac have been bought ‘off-plan’. Source: Think Spain here.
All the coronavirus tests and vaccines will be charged at 0% IVA says Hacienda here.
El Español has a map of the do’s and don’ts over the Christmas period by region, although this appears to get fine-tuned daily. Andalucía, for example, warns that is could announce the tightening of the rules this Thursday, rules which currently include ‘Andalucía will prohibit relatives and friends from dining together on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. The Junta de Andalucía says that it will only allow (immediate) family reunification during the holidays’ (El País here).
Think Spain has the calendar here for vaccinations against the Covid-19. elDiario.es says that ‘Pre-Covid normalcy will return by the end of next summer at the earliest, provided the vaccination works. It takes 70% of the population immunized against the virus for outbreaks to decrease significantly, but (alarmingly) almost half of the population is reluctant to be vaccinated’.
Corruption:
El Confidencial tells the story of how the husband of the woman who ran the National Anti-fraud Agency (ONIF) under Mariano Rajoy was responsible for laundering and evading funds for Spanish companies and citizens with at least 500 wealthy clients. The customers include, says the article, ‘politicians, businessmen, athletes, doctors, architects, builders, artists and even drug traffickers’. The group, Venture Finanzas, was nicknamed la Trama Charisma by investigators and was in operation between 2005 until 2016. Alejandro Pérez Calzada allegedly controlled similar companies in Switzerland: Gestione du Patrimoine du Rhône SA (GPR), plus Sunset Investment SA in Luxembourg and Sibeliova Holding in Cyprus. The Audiencia Nacional is aware of – to date – 1,769 million euros being laundered through the company.
Media:
One doesn’t shoot humans, but what about animals? Could one step on a spider without any qualms? How about, if the spider is a political enemy? Where are we going with this? Next thing you know, they’ll be defending killing the 26 million…
Ecology:
‘Loved and feared: Spain’s complicated relationship with wolves. We talk to a Swedish sociologist who has been travelling across a country that is a perfect case study in the difficulties of coexistence between humans and these carnivores in Europe’. Article found at El País in English here.
Various:
El Yunque is a secret fraternity of ultra-Catholic activists. It was founded seventy years ago in Mexico and appears to be moving behind the scenes in Spain. According to La Moncloa, the sect has infiltrated Vox, the Abogados Cristianos and Hazte Oir, all busy making mischief for the Spanish Government. The Catholic Church, says the article, has publicly positioned itself against El Yunque. An interesting article from elDiario.es from 2016 says that the powerful Opus Dei is also not connected to the secretive group.
There’s money in them thar dunes. Several major Spanish companies are heavily invested in the Western Sahara (with Moroccan consent). elDiario.es says that ‘The situation in this territory, where Morocco controls the abundant natural resources of the Saharawi population with an iron fist, is highly profitable for many Spanish companies with interests in the area’.
The full documentary of Ocupación S.A (BoT featured a trailer for the show last week), is on Vimeo. ‘Occupation S.A. is the portrait of a betrayal. With a meticulous approach using new material, the documentary exposes the names of Spanish businessmen and politicians involved in the economic exploitation of Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa and one of the most violent, militarized and censored territories in the world…’.
A deputy from Vox defends the policies of ‘social economic inequality’, as well he might, says La Pandereta here. Francisco José Contreras Peláez, a deputy from Seville, declares ownership of seventeen homes and nine garages. It appears from the article that they came to him as an inheritance.
The Lista Robinson is a service which allows the subscriber to be removed from any and all advertising lists. ‘It is easy to join and free of charge, it avoids advertising from companies to which you have not given your consent to send you proposals. It works for advertising by phone, post, email and SMS / MMS’. How does it work? See here. (Lenox has just put his details in, so will see how it goes).
The PP has often built ‘Pharaonic’ constructions, with all that implies says Público here. We look at some of the failed ones.
Spanish joke: the Royal grandchildren, who have been found to be using ‘black credit cards’, refer to their abuelo as el VISAbuelo.
‘Spain is a country of waiters? Not any more, now Spain is a country of civil servants. The coronavirus crisis has broken a trend in the Spanish labour market that was consolidating in recent years. The public sector and the tourism sector were both registering growth in employment in recent years, the pair of them reaching figures of around 2.6 million workers apiece in 2019…’. From VozPópuli here – ‘Spain is now a country of funcionarios’.
Mercadona’s reputation faltered a bit this year after putting its prices up during the peaks in the Covid-19 crisis, unlike other supermarkets says Yahoo! Finance here. It’s the first time that it has ever lost market-share. To compensate (!), it has dropped the price on its disposable face-masks from 6€ to 1.5€ for a pack of ten.
ECD here looks at the depressed cava business in 2020, this year even without any extra ‘boycott’ from the public for its catalonianism (if such a word exists).
A fire in the Níjar (Almería) migrant shacks – 50 or 60 plastic and cardboard hovels used by around 200 people went up in flames in just a few minutes – shows once again that it’s not all milk and honey. elDiario.es says: ‘Labourers living in shacks in Almería: a fire in Níjar once again shows the «shameful reality» in «Europe’s orchard». Associations and individuals denounce the passivity of administrations in the face of a chronic problem: «When there is no alternative but to live in a slum, a fire is the most normal thing to happen»’.
The Vikings made it as far south as Spain, where they raided coastal settlements in a number of attacks from around 844 (including Cádiz and Algeciras) to 859 (at least 62 ships attacked the coast of Galicia and some of them later penetrated into the Mediterranean) and even later, attacking the coastal settlements of Murcia. A second wave between 951 and 971 concentrated on Galicia. El Español has the story and a map here.
Detrás de las Cámeras has some great photos of locations (and actors) for some of the Hollywood classics shot in Spain during the sixties here.
Un gato is – among other meanings – slang for a madrileño. Una gata, needless to say, would be a madrileña. The reason for this comes from a soldier who climbed the walls of a castle ‘like a cat’ in the siege of Magarit in 1085. The description became a nickname, and later the soldier and his family adopted the name as theirs. Later still, people from Madrid came to be known as Gatos.
See Spain:
‘A small temple has attracted much greater attention than its size for centuries. Santa María de Eunate is a place largely tied to its mystery. Lying barely two kilometres away from the junction of the Camino de Santiago via Roncesvalles and the Aragonese Way, the temple is geographically almost in the very centre of the province of Navarre. Its plan, very similar to that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, ties it by romance to the Knights Templar. Folklore has assigned it a position of magical convergence that sometimes shadows the great work of art that it truly is…’. España Fascinante has the story.
An article at Bloomberg critiques photographer Francois Prost’s ‘Discoteca’ series featured in last week’s BoT. It begins ‘In another ten years, the Spanish bars, clubs and strip joints featured in French photographer Francois Prost’s new photo series “Discoteca” may no longer exist. Located on the intensely developed tourist beaches of the country’s east coast, these nightspots saw their regular crowds evaporated by the coronavirus pandemic this summer and fall. But, as Prost’s images reveal, their faded splendour does not suggest a bright future after the virus recedes…’.
Letters:
Dear Lenox,
Very disappointed with last week’s Covid editorial.
You do know asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic people do not spread this «virus»
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w
You do know that the PCR tests they are using are based on very bad science
https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/
You do know that children don’t catch or spread Covid in significant numbers
You do know masks are very bad and do not protect you from this «virus»
You do know that nanotechnology is a major component to the vaccine
You do know about «The Great Reset», Event 201, Agenda 2030
No, of course you don’t, because you probably only listen to the main-stream media.
I could send a lot more links backing all of these things up, but, you probably will brush them off as conspiracy theory, even though, they are not theories.
Seeking the truth about what is going on and hoping we all survive,
Ann
Hi Ann, I’ve run your letter as your right to reply. However, I’ll stick to the mainstream (particularly regarding the last one).
Lenox
Finally:
‘President von der Leyen speaking on the occasion of the Schengen Forum’: a video at YouTube. She says, ‘…First, an area without internal borders needs a fully secure external border. No one shall pass the border undetected, and any security risks must be identified. This applies to EU and non-EU citizens alike…’. She later notes ‘…as we develop Schengen, we cannot compromise on the fundamentals’.
A comment from a subscriber to Brexpats in Spain says ‘I always argued the fact that how on earth could/would or should Spain implement a third system purely for Brits when they have a perfectly adequate non-EU system. I cannot tell you how many people told me that their lawyers told them (presumably whilst buying properties) that of course Spain would need to adopt a special set of rules for the Brits’.
