What Every American Should Know About Europe

by Melissa L. Rossi

  Religion: 94% Roman Catholic; 6% other

  Language: Almost all speak Castilian Spanish. Regional languages: 17% Catalan; 7% Galician; 2% Basque

  Literacy: 98% (2003 estimate)

  Famous Exports: Opus Dei, singer Manu Chao, tapas

  Economic Big Boy: Repsol (gas and oil); 2004 total sales: $2.54 billion1

  Per Capita GDP: $25,200 (2005 estimate)

  Unemployment: 8% (January 2006 Eurostat figure)

  EU Status: Founding member (EEC member since 1986)

  Currency: Euro

  Quick Tour

  For a place that took a siesta through most of the twentieth century, España—the European Union’s second-largest country by area, and historically one of its poorest—is waking up in grand style. After the death of General Francisco Franco, who lorded over Spain from 1939 to 1975, the country swiftly transformed from a lumbering, backward dictatorship into a plugged-in liberal democracy. Now one of Europe’s most dynamic countries and quickly rising in international stature, Spain is also incredibly popular, pushing past the United States to become the second-most-visited destination in the world.

  Tourism rakes in some $40 billion for the Spanish economy2 and employs about 11 percent of the population.3

  CONTEMPORARY BIG NAMES FROM SPAIN

  Pedro Almodóvar: Campy filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar brought Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas to fame and won two Oscars. In 2002, he walked off with Best Original Screenplay for Talk to Her; in 2000, he won Best Foreign Film for All About My Mother.

  Joaquín Cortés: Flamenco dancer Cortés stomps across the world’s best-known stages in outfits designed by Armani and had a steamy love affair with Naomi Campbell.

  Javier Solana: Former secretary general of NATO; is arguably the European Union’s most powerful man as de facto foreign minister of the EU.

  Judge Baltasar Garzón: He demanded the 1998 extradition of General Pinochet from Britain, and summons bigwigs from Kissinger to Berlusconi to his court. They rarely appear.

  Ferran Adrià: The chef at El Bulli (in Roses) is the toast of the world culinary scene for inventions such as the Rice Krispy paella.

  Telefonica: Waiting months to be hooked up, being forced to pay for pricey services you don’t have, waking up to find that your telephone number has been inexplicably changed—such are the joys of inept telecom Telefonica (which netted over $1.4 billion in 2005). With 100 million customers worldwide, it’s expanding into the U.S. Yikes!

  Enchanting Ávila: Saint Teresa floated here

  As the 50 million visitors who swoop in every year can testify, there’s too much to love about Spain, Europe’s most festive land. Modernist architecture that swirls in Barcelona, palm trees that sway in medieval squares, the classical guitar echoing through alleys, tiled tapas bars where hams hang overhead, fab wine that’s affordable, sunny beaches, and fun-loving locals are but a few enticements. Spain’s biggest draw is variety: from the foggy Ireland-green hills of Galicia (home to redheaded bagpipers) and the parched white villages tumbling down the Andalusian hills (dotted with palaces of Muslim Moors), to the rugged Mediterranean coast and folded valleys of dairy farms in the north, Spain is a patchwork of different histories, personalities, and terrains, and each corner possesses its own distinct style, spirit, and flavored spirits. That the different territories are now allowed to flaunt their distinctiveness and speak their own languages is one alluring feature of New Spain.

  PARTY TIME!

  Nearly stamped out by dictator Franco, who viewed regionalism as a threat, the festivals (fiestas) of Spain are now symbols of a cultural renaissance. Every region, town, and neighborhood (barrio) has its own, some immortalizing historic acts, others tributes to saints, harvest rituals, or simply reasons to eat chestnuts, paella, or grilled leeks dripping in spicy sauce. Geese, pigs, or bulls run through the towns; balls of fire roll down the hills; locals put on plays lampooning the town’s least beloved. Men don branches on their heads and run into lakes, cobblestones are carpeted with bright flower petals and aromatic herbs, statues move, or a Madonna is “stolen.” Some fiestas are mock battles, where goatskin bags transform into wine-shooting artillery or the air is filled with flying tomatoes. A young maiden might be kidnapped so the town can search her out, men might be ceremoniously caked in flour, women might dance around costumed as mules, boys might crawl around looking up dresses, or the streets might be turned over to the white-haired for the famed “Dance of the Chickens.” But the most dramatic festival, and certainly the smokiest, is the annual spectacle in Valencia, Las Fallas, where hundreds of giant satirical sculptures of political figures (each costing tens of thousands of dollars and taking a year to create) are set ablaze in every barrio. The fires dance eerily through the night, and by morning the disliked figures, and the sentiments they represent, are reduced to ashes.

  The crazy quilt of varying cultures is also Spain’s greatest weakness. Some call España an artificial country of seventeen disparate regions, first stitched together by power-hungry and religion-driven monarchs Isabella and Fernando, and later pounded into one faux nation by Franco’s strong arm. Madrid is headquarters of national government, but each of Spain’s regions has its own parliament and a great deal of autonomy. Yet some regions—Catalonia (which holds Barcelona) and the Basque country among them—still want more independence, and sometimes threaten to secede.

  The biggest thorn in Spain’s side for decades has been ETA—Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Homeland and Freedom)—a separatist group that wants the Basque region in northern Spain to secede, bond with adjacent regions in France, and start its own country. Formed in 1959, the group has killed hundreds, but may be starting to mellow with age.

  Ironically, what most pulled Spain together as a nation recently was tragedy—the bombings of March 11, 2004, which killed 191, injured over 1,400, and caused a political upheaval in their wake. The government of the conservative Popular Party (Partido Popular), poised to win an upcoming parliamentary election, instead went flying as the people showed they were fed up with then-prime minister José María Aznar’s dicey leadership abilities and his party’s numerous manipulations and lies. The Aznar administration’s deceitful behavior leading up to the election wasn’t new: it had also tried to cover up its bungled handling of the 2002 Prestige oil spill.

  Over 90 percent of Spaniards opposed the 2003 war in Iraq—millions marched in antiwar rallies that were among the world’s biggest—and were against sending Spanish troops there. Prime Minister Aznar ignored them and shipped off the military for Iraq’s postwar reconstruction. Aznar never even broached the topic in the Spanish parliament before the deployment; he finally mentioned it in the Cortes some eight months after troops had flown out. When Spanish cameraman José Couso died in Baghdad, after a U.S. tank he was filming fired on his hotel balcony, the Spanish media boycotted Aznar. At that day’s press conference, they piled their cameras, recorders, and notebooks in the middle of the room, crossed their arms, and glared as the prime minister slinked in, the trademark cocky expression noticeably missing from his face.

  POLITICAL BOMBS: MARCH 11, 2004

  Terrorism isn’t new to Spain—the bombs and bullets of Basque separatist group ETA have killed over 800 (mostly police, government officials, and journalists) since 1961. However, the country had never before experienced anything like what happened that Thursday in March. During Madrid’s morning rush hour, ten bombs on three trains exploded simultaneously, ripping open carriages like sardine cans and leaving the tracks strewn with dead bodies and bloody limbs. Within hours, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda—Abu Hafs al-Masri—claimed responsibility for the attack that killed hundreds. But even while smoke still billowed out from the trains and emergency workers hauled off the injured and covered the dead, the Aznar administration had already made up its mind: it was the work of ETA. The sophisticated operation—bombs were detonated by calls to explosive-rigged cell phones—didn’t fit the Basque group’s MO—and ETA, which admits to its mi
sdeeds, loudly denied any involvement. Investigators quickly discovered evidence pointing to Islamic radicals—a duffel bag with a live bomb, a detonator, and an Arabic-configured cell phone, and a nearby van loaded with detonators, cell phones, and extremist Islamic tapes—but Aznar’s Popular Party government wouldn’t acknowledge the discoveries.4 Foreign minister Ana Palacio instructed all Spanish embassies to maintain that ETA was behind it,5 the Interior Minister announced it was “absolutely clear” that the attack was all ETA’s doing,6 and Prime Minister José María Aznar demanded that the UN Security Council immediately condemn ETA for the Madrid attack (which the UN body did that day). Aznar personally called the heads of international media to insist this was a barbarous act of the Basques; his administration tried to suppress information contradicting that view. The reason Aznar kept up the farce: the parliamentary election was in three days. Aznar’s government had retained power largely because of its hard line stance against ETA, with whom it refused to negotiate. An ETA attack would ensure victory in the upcoming election. However, if it was an attack by Islamic radicals, perhaps in response to Aznar sending Spanish troops to Iraq, then it would be a glaring liability. Despite the government’s nonstop chanting of “ETA, ETA, ETA,” word slipped out that it probably was not ETA at all. For their deception, as much as for their unpopular decision to get Spain involved in Iraq, the Popular Party lost the 2004 parliamentary election. Three days after the attacks, a record 77 percent turned out to vote—the numbers boosted by young voters who rarely show up—with most casting their ballots for the only national PP alternative, the Socialists. Some international pundits condemned Spain, saying voters had caved in to terrorism. The truth was that many Spaniards were sick of PP’s incessant misinformation, and its response to the March 11 attack was but one pathetic example.

  José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero appeared as surprised as anyone else when the Socialists won the election in spring 2004, but his administration quickly made several moves that impressed the public. Prime Minister Zapatero appointed women to half the seats in his cabinet—that’s a first—and he made good on promises to end Spain’s involvement in Iraq, pulling troops out the next month.

  When Defense Minister José Bono informed the U.S. that Spain was bringing her troops back from Iraq, there was some serious static over the wire. Donald Rumsfeld reportedly called the pullout “cowardly,” which prompted Bono to yell back that Spain indeed had cojones.7

  The new government inherited a few problems—namely, an unemployment rate of 11 percent, an ill-defined immigration policy, and the question of what to do about ETA. The young government has made quick progress: unemployment is now at about 8 percent, a new immigration law extended citizenship to millions who had been working there illegally, and, in March 2006, ETA announced, for the first time ever, a permanent cease-fire.

  The issue of foreigners arriving from all corners is entirely new to Spain, which until the 1990s had few immigrants from anywhere, except for teachers coming in from the UK. Now the masses are arriving by car, train, and plane—and on flimsy rafts or floating tires from North Africa. Latin Americans claiming Spanish ancestry—particularly Argentinians, Ecuadorians, and Venezuelans—have arrived by the hundreds of thousands. Since 2000, over 3 million foreigners have flocked here—600,000 in 2003 alone.

  While many Spaniards are pleased with the Socialist leadership, the religious and the conservatives aren’t necessarily among them. The Popular Party’s leader, Mariano Rajoy, is organizing anti-Zapatero protests, denouncing him for even speaking with ETA. The religious are upset because Spain became the third European country (after the Netherlands and Belgium) to legalize same-sex marriages. Another issue: powerful Catholic sect Opus Dei, founded in Spain, doesn’t have an instant “in” with this government. During Aznar’s administration, it influenced numerous issues, including bans on stem cell research, and attempted to mandate teaching religion in schools.

  RELIGION IN THE SHADOWS

  Started in 1928 by Spaniard Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer, who encouraged self-flagellation, the right-wing Catholic organization that some call “a church within the church” sounds like the ultimate do-gooder organization. Operating charities and foundations, Opus Dei (Latin for “God’s work”) aims to better the world by “spreading throughout society a profound awareness of the universal call to holiness.” Opus Dei does so by empowering the layperson. But Opus Dei has many unusual practices; some call it a cult. One cause for criticism is its recruitment methods: prospective members, often students, aren’t fully informed about what they’re getting into, are encouraged to cut ties with their families and friends, and are told that if they don’t join (or if they try to leave) they will go to hell.

  Although Opus Dei members may number only 85,000, they are the rich and the powerful, politicians, judges, heads of intelligence, and newspaper publishers among them. “Supernumeraries,” as married members are called, are encouraged to confess only to Opus Dei priests, attend mass daily, and make very large donations to Opus Dei. A smaller, very devout group are called “numeraries”: they live in Opus Dei centers (where doors don’t have locks), turn their income over to Opus Dei, list Opus Dei as beneficiary of their wills, allow Opus Dei to monitor all their mail and communications, take vows of celibacy, attend daily mass, and sleep on boards. They also observe practices that some consider “kinky”: they wear spiked chains (cilices) that cut into their thighs, and they whip their buttocks with knotted ropes thirty-three times a week—and they typically ask to flagellate themselves even more.

  Pope John Paul II loved Opus Dei—his press secretary was a member—and in 1982, he made Opus Dei the most powerful Catholic group by raising it to the status of prelate, which means it answers to nobody but the pope. Some say the elevation has to do with Opus Dei’s donation of $1 billion to the Vatican Bank the same year, but that rumor, like much about Opus Dei, is hard to prove (or disprove). The pope was questioned about his move to make Opus Dei founder, Escrivá, a saint in record time—Escrivá died in 1975 and was canonized in 2002—but that’s just one controversial move that has many non-Opus Dei Catholics wondering what is up with this shadowy group.

  A final issue is Spain’s involvement in the European Union, which she joined in 1986. The EU funneled billions upon billions of dollars into Spain, much of it going to infrastructure, and all of it helping to give Spain a vibrant economy that for much of the past decade grew at some 5 percent a year. With funding now being siphoned off by new EU members in Eastern Europe, it remains to be seen how well Spain will hold her own. Oh well, que será, será—they can deal with that mañana.

  Long dominated by France, Germany, and, to a lesser extent, Britain—the so-called Big Three—the European Union is now admitting that with their large landmasses and populations, Spain and Poland are also major EU players.

  History Review

  Settled by Romans, Celts, and Visigoths, the peninsula of Iberia was a disorganized mass of scattered kingdoms when eighth-century Muslim Moors invaded, conquering most of the land in seven years and creating a settlement that became one of the world’s most sophisticated. Setting up headquarters in the parched terrain of the south, they made Córdoba the capital of the kingdom they called al-Andalus, which today is called Andalusia. Working alongside the locals, the Moors established a settlement that rivaled Alexandria and Baghdad in their heydays, lasted seven centuries, and far outshined any other society in Europe.

  AL-ANDALUS (711–1492)

  Scientific and philosophical scholars flocked first to Córdoba and then to Seville and Granada, as did linguists, architects, artisans, and scribes who translated the works of ancient Greeks and Romans, launching a renaissance comparable to the one born in Florence some six centuries later. Marble palaces and elaborate mosques with horseshoe arches appeared across the land; water from mountain snow and rivers was brought to homes via pipes. Irrigation and advanced agricultural practices coaxed forth new crops from the seeds Moors had brought; soon,
the perfume of orange blossoms breezed through courtyards, and outlying hills burst with trees of almonds, dates, lemons, and limes alongside fields of sugarcane and rice. While the rest of Europe was technologically in the dark, the paved streets of Córboda were lined with lights; markets boasted silks, tapestries, swords, porcelain, and spices. The most popular shops were booksellers, whose trade was made possible by the eighth-century introduction of papermaking techniques and by the skill of copyists, who produced some 50,000 books every year. Ideas and research flourished, as thinkers scratched pens across paper in flowery scrawls of crescents and dots; by the tenth century, libraries abounded, some containing over 200,000 handwritten tomes, and the Koran, Bible, and Torah stood alongside books by Ptolemy, ancient histories, scientific treatises, and volumes of poetry. Hospitals performed operations for cataracts; schools taught algebra and spherical trigonometry; students learned Latin, physics, botany, and medicine, and studied maps of the seas and the stars. Observatories tracked celestial bodies and astrolabes guided ships on trade routes to the Far East. Just as impressive was the level of civility that typified much of the Moorish occupation. Women in al-Andalus were doctors, lawyers, librarians, and esteemed copyists of books; Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived side by side in relative peace, each pursuing their religion in their own places of worship. Non-Muslims enjoyed nearly all rights afforded to Muslims, even working in government and schools; they could also drink alcohol, eat pork, and ignore Islamic dictates. However, nonbelievers paid a high tax and males could be drafted unless they converted.