Walking the Camino

by Tony Kevin

  The Republic, by contrast, never had a strongly charismatic or skilful leader. It lacked a Churchill or Cromwell or Lincoln or Napoleon to mobilise the people and throw back the nationalist insurgents. The Republic had weak, often vain, populist leaders, who fell increasingly under the clandestine control of ruthless and disciplined communists, who worked quietly throughout the war to expand their power base in Popular Front governments. The Spanish centre did not hold. The Republic, to a large extent, destroyed itself from within by disastrous factionalism — in particular, the disruptive purge-and-control strategies of the communists.

  The initially popular but politically naïve anarchists questioned the legitimacy and authority of the government from the beginning. The communists, always mistrusted and initially very weak, grew stronger as the democrats and anarchists weakened. As the war’s end neared, the communists were effectively running the government, while secretly taking orders from Stalin. They were always more interested in purging opponents than winning the war. Only at the last moment, far too late, were they expelled from the despairing and failing Republican government. Their treacherous conduct had played into Franco’s hands, lending some credibility to his claim to be fighting for Spain and for Spanish values against an international communist conspiracy. The loss of a strong democratic centre in the end destroyed the Republic, even as its soldiers were heroically dying to defend it against better-armed and increasingly numerous Nationalist forces.

  International intervention, or the lack of it, played a key role in influencing the course of the war. The Western democracies were always shamefully deaf to the Republic’s urgent appeals for help, proclaiming the war was an internal matter and maintaining official neutrality; though they knew full well that Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin had no such inhibitions about giving massive military aid to their preferred allies in Spain. For Nazi Germany and Italy, the war was an ideal training area for their growing armed forces and testing ground for their latest weapons and war-fighting strategies. Superior German and Italian airpower and artillery played a crucial role in breaking more heavily manned but poorly armed Republican frontlines. The West imposed an arms embargo on both sides, which they knew the fascist and communist powers were ignoring. Major British and American corporations secretly dealt profitably with the Nationalists, having correctly forecast that they would win this civil war. Looking back, one reflects sadly on the cowardice, hypocrisy, and short-sightedness of the Western democracies.

  Stalin played a shrewdly cynical double game. He kept the Republic weak, so that they would have to rely on the Soviet Union more and more, thereby increasing the leverage of the Spanish communists. Arms were supplied parsimoniously and with conditions. The Spanish gold reserves were sent to Moscow ‘for safety’ soon after the war began: Spain never saw them again. It is doubtful if Stalin ever wanted the Republicans to win. His interest was to keep the war going, building the Spanish communists’ power in the Republican government, and using the Civil War to try to stimulate an anti-fascist European military coalition with the Western democracies against the Axis powers. In this, he failed — the democracies remained cravenly set on isolationism and appeasement of fascism. In 1938, Stalin gave up this strategy: he made his own separate peace with Hitler, the Nazi-Soviet Treaty which partitioned Poland. With that treaty, the Republican cause in Spain was doomed.

  The Nationalists were never interested in a negotiated peace: their agenda was always unconditional surrender. A large reason why the Republican armies fought on so resolutely to the end, despairing of Western help that they knew would never come, was because they knew that nothing awaited them but death in reprisal killings — it was better to die with a gun in your hand than to be slaughtered like an animal.

  The war attracted huge international emotion, and changed the thinking and lives of a whole generation of young Europeans in the 1930s. It broke the spell of post-World War I pacifism, and its tragic course steeled the European democracies’ nerve to finally confront Hitler’s aggression in 1939 — almost, but fortunately not quite, too late to save Europe. It radicalised some of the best and brightest in the British upper class, who went off to Spain as international volunteer fighters for the Republic. Think of Orwell and Auden and, from the USA, Hemingway; think also of the Burgess, Philby, and Maclean ‘nest of traitors’, a ring of undercover British communist agents that originated in Kim Philby’s bitter disillusionment as a war correspondent in Spain, seeing the West’s betrayal of the Spanish Republic. I don’t know if Graham Greene went to Spain in this period, but his Civil War-based novel, The Confidential Agent (1939), wonderfully evokes the moral desperation and cynicism of the time.

  I was thinking about what main conclusions modern-day Spaniards might draw from their experience of the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. Domestically, I think, they would have drawn three lessons.

  First, Spain has developed a firm commitment to democratic pluralism, to respecting the rights of minorities: people of other religions or no religion, homosexual people, immigrants and temporary immigrants, refugees. Spain no longer aspires to political, religious, or racial homogeneity. It celebrates and protects diversity.

  Second, Spain now places a high value on procedural correctness in political life: on respect for democratic institutions and constitutional forms, and a scrupulously civil language of politics. Spaniards have learned that the use of dishonest political manoeuvres, and the resort to extremist and abusive public language as an intimidatory tactic, break down the moral inhibitions to physical violence. Also, they know that once constitutionality and respect for the law and its institutions are abandoned, for whatever reason, it is very hard to restore them.

  Third, there is firm support for efforts to devolve and decentralise government power, to institutionalise a separation of powers, making it harder for any politicians whose instincts may be to seek to abuse the agencies of a highly centralised state to expand personal power. Spain has the recent memory of twenty-five years of such a state, and does not want to return there again. I do not see this changing quickly, because Spaniards know now that in a highly decentralised and layered system of governance, coups are harder to engineer. Thus, the economic efficiency or political cohesion arguments for centralisation of power that we are so accustomed to hearing in Anglophone countries cut little ice in Spain — now a resilient, regionally based, and pluralist democracy. To Spaniards, centralism is the enemy of democracy.

  Internationally, I think the unspoken lesson (I did not hear it said, because the Spanish are a polite people and would not wish to offend an Anglophone guest) would be to trust no foreign government with Spain’s national security. In particular, they are determined not to become captive to Anglosphere-led international agendas, because Spain knows from experience that ‘perfidious Albion’ in the end will put its own interests first. Thus, there is a prudent determination to stay out of foreign wars and entanglements that do not serve Spanish national interests. The best example of this was the Spanish electorate’s dramatic decision, after the Islamist terrorist train bombings in March 2004 in Madrid, to throw out the conservative-populist pro-US government of the PP (Partido Popular, the People’s Party). In a large swing, they voted in the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, the Spanish Socialist Worker Party), led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which was committed to withdrawing Spanish forces from Iraq.

  The surprising thing, in terms of Spain’s recent history, was not so much the new PSOE government’s withdrawing the troops, as its predecessor government’s initial eagerness to supply them. For, ever since the loss of their American continental empire, and more recently their rich island colonies, Cuba and the Philippines, to the USA, Spaniards have mistrusted Imperialismo Yanqui. There is perhaps more residual respect in Spain for Britain, and Tony Blair’s enthusiastic participation in the Iraq invasion might have helped convince the former prime minister, José María Aznar, to offer Spanish troops
for the occupying coalition forces in Iraq in 2003.

  Zapatero is at pains to emphasise his government’s continuing support for the European Union, including its new defence community, and for NATO. That is why Spanish troops were still, at the time of writing, in Afghanistan as part of the NATO presence there.

  The young soldiers I saw on convoy into Cerro Muriano were spic-and-span, with excellent modern equipment, and obviously proud to wear their uniform. Spanish people are proud of their army now. If there are any Civil War resentments still there, I could not see them. The last attempted military coup in Spain was in 1981, six years after Franco’s death, when an obscure lieutenant-colonel at the head of 220 Civil Guards occupied the National Assembly for a few hours. The army did not support him, and Colonel Tejero’s coup attempt fortunately ended in farcical failure. It is hard to see a military coup ever being attempted here again. Parliamentary institutions are stronger and more resilient now. Power has been decentralised, and Spain is firmly locked into the democratic culture of the European Union, which it joined in 1986. The country has moved on, and Spanish fascism is no more than bad memories.

  As I walked around Alcaracejos that Sunday, I wrestled with another paradox: how can a country that was so unstable and brutal to itself just three generations ago, be so stable and civil now? But maybe it was not such a paradox: countries seem to recover from serious trauma more quickly than individuals and families can. Think of the United States as it was three generations after the Civil War — by 1914, already a strong and confident democratic nation. Or think of Germany three generations after the 12-year Nazi nightmare, today a firm liberal democracy. Individuals and families can suffer bitter memories of civil war through many generations. States, it seems, are much better at pragmatically leaving painful histories behind. That is probably a good thing.

  ***

  I had now crossed the Sierra Morena, leaving the Guadalquivir River valley behind me, and entered the large catchment of the Río Guadiana, which flows westwards through Mérida and Badajoz into Portugal. After Alcaracejos, the country had levelled out into gently rolling plains, though there were still ranges of low, blue hills on every horizon. It was not as rich as the country between Granada and Córdoba, and it was getting drier and browning off already, though it was still May. There was wheat and other cereal croplands, and pastureland dotted with holm oak. This useful tree is a hardy evergreen, native to the dry Mediterranean lands. Its Spanish name, encina, derives from the Late Latin word for oak, ilicina. Spanish colonists took it to America, and it is known in the US as Live Oak. Spanish farmers value these trees highly. Once established, they are pretty well indestructible. They provide shade and shelter in all weathers for grazing animals, and the fallen acorns are fed to grazing black pigs in the autumn, giving Spanish free-range pork products, such as jamón serrano or chorizo, their special flavour. The grasslands between the trees are regularly ploughed, fertilised, and re-seeded, and cropped for winter hay. I was to see much of this mixed wheat and encina grassland country throughout the Spanish dry plains and tablelands all the way to Galicia.

  It made for nice walking country, as long as it was not too hot. There were often cool breezes, and it was good to watch the ripening grainstalks rippling in the wind. The hills were never too steep for walking comfort, but there were enough for variety, and for curiosity as to what lay over the next hill to spur me on. People I met in small farms on the way — pig farmers, sheepherders, agriculturalists — were friendly and conversations were easy. But I still seemed to be the only pilgrim doing the Vía Mozárabe, as confirmed by the absence, in places where the track was soft and sandy, of any sign whatsoever of footprints or bicycle tracks. I did see a cross that someone had rubbed into lichen growing on an old waystone. But still, the yellow arrows were there whenever I needed them, and the guidebook worked. I ploughed on.

  From Alcaracejos it was thirty-five kilometres to the Río Zújar, a river marking the boundary between the Andalucia and Extremadura autonomous regions, and between the provinces of Córdoba and Mérida. I had one more overnight stay in Andalucia, in Hinojosa del Duque, population 7000, a handsome rangelands town with many ham factories, an impressive church known locally as the Catedral de la Sierra, an equally lovely convent church nearby, and a bizarre structure, which I first saw from about fifteen kilometres away, which looked like a very high, double-nave church towering over the rest of the town. I was curious to see this building close-up. When I got into the town, I found it was a huge pair of grain silos with two decorative, faux church-like architectural follies built on the top, so that views of the town from the distance would not be spoiled — a charmingly contradictory example of Spanish urban aesthetics. Hinojosa, for me, had something of the feel of a large Australian country town, a friendly no-frills place, perhaps a bit rough on a weekend night. I went to Mass in the convent church, with the nuns behind a grille — another closed order — and I dined on good rangeland steak back at my hotel on the highway.

  My trail took me through or close to many small farms and feedlots. I saw and smelled the Spanish black pig at close quarters, in pens and enclosures along the way: not an attractive animal, with the personal hygiene habits that one expects of penned pigs. But these sturdy black pigs were very different from the flabby, obese pink pigs that we are used to in our factory farms. If you met one of these large black pigs in the bush, you could be forgiven for thinking it a wild boar, and I suspect that if these pigs went feral, their offspring very soon would become just that. I could see where the huge difference in taste between Spanish pork products and our bland offerings comes from: these Spanish pigs are real free-range animals.

  Pork products are very important in the Spanish cuisine and everyday diet. Beef is seen more as a luxury, because historically — before the petro-economy revolutionised traditional agriculture — beef cattle were more expensive to raise than pigs in the dry Spanish climate. Now the cultural preference for pork is well-ingrained. Pork fillet (lomo) and chips is the Spanish equivalent of steak and chips; it is on every café–bar menu.

  I saw a lot of sheep too, the same breed as we are used to seeing in Australia — the merino — which is not surprising, because Australian merino sheep were originally brought out from Spain to thrive in the similarly dry environments of inland Australia.

  There were many herds of cows: mostly our familiar dual-purpose beef–dairy breeds, but a few creamy Brahmin types as well, bred for drylands and hot weather. Goats came in all shapes and sizes, from the usual grey-white goats to big, handsome, multicoloured mountain goats with long curved horns. There were also horses — lots of them — Spanish thoroughbreds, Barbs, knockabout utility horses, draught horses, which were always good company on the road. They usually came over to the fence to say hello to me, and to have a sniff of my hand and sometimes a quiet nuzzle.

  And there were many farm dogs — everything from British border collie or Scots kelpie types to huge St Bernard-type mountain shepherd dogs, dangerous-looking guard dogs of the German Shepherd or mastiff type, and small, yappy dogs of every kind. Fortunately, the guard dogs were mostly penned or on chains — I suspect because they did not take kindly to pilgrim passers-by.

  ***

  I had had a few days now to get used to my walking staff, which had been my silent but loyal companion on the journey since Córdoba. How quickly had I come to depend on this sturdy wooden staff! I loved its historical associations with the medieval pilgrimage, its firm warm grip in my hand, its reassuring weight and solidity, its hand-hewn sinewy knobbliness that gave it character. Now it hangs on my study wall. It is remarkable how an inanimate piece of wood became so important to me on the long journey to Santiago.

  My wife Sina and I had put some effort into making it. We had chosen the straightest upward-growing branch we could find, about 4 centimetres in diameter, from an old plum tree in our garden that I had pruned heavily a few years before and that
had re-sprouted vigorous new wood since that time. This is a good way to get hard fruitwood poles that make great staffs, if you can plan your pilgrimage enough years ahead. I cut a length about 150 centimtres long (that is, level with my shoulder), with a little forked stub near the top, handy for resting a hand or hanging bags from when stopped, propped against a tree or wall. Sina had de-barked it and rubbed it to a white satiny smoothness with a kitchen knife, and then I wiped in a generous dressing of olive oil that gradually darkened it under the Spanish sun. I took it to a metal workshop to hammer on a protective steel ring at the base, to stop the staff wearing and splitting. I screwed on a brass name plaque, and finally whipped a leather boating-moccasin lace, boy-scout style, around the top to serve as a good handgrip. It finished up a handsome, powerful staff that Santiago himself would have been proud to use.

  I know some people prefer the modern lightweight aluminium, adjustable-length ski-pole staff — easily packed, no problems getting it through suspicious airport security checks — but such a staff leaves me cold. My traditional pilgrim’s staff was actually highly functional. It was a kind of third leg, an additional source of spring and energy and balance. Having walked the first 150 kilometres of my pilgrimage on my own two legs without the help and companionship of a staff, I could now see the difference a staff made. With this staff in my hand, I felt we could together make it to Santiago.