Culture - The Legacy of Franco

Catalunya probably suffered the worst during the Franco years. El Caudillo had a special paranoid hatred in his heart for what for centuries had been considered the most cultural and enlightened region of Spain. Aside from the region forming the bastion of The Republic during the war, it was also against the social advances authored by Catalans that Franco staged his military rebellion. And for this reason, in the post-war years up until the death of the dictator, Catalans were subjugated to particularly harsh suppression. Place names were changed --for example, Sant Cugat became San Cucufato-- people speaking their mother tongue were subject to beatings by the Guardia Civil, fines and arrest.

Of course, it wasn't only Catalunya who suffered. Anybody overheard criticizing the dictatorship or even some innocuous element in the system was likely to simply disappear. Over the course of two generations, this began to have a profound effect on the mentality of the population. And this effect can be seen today in the lack of motivation for an essential economic change. The general attitude in the population is, "Keep your head low, keep quiet, don't rock the boat."

A good illustration of this can be made in comparing the country to France. The French are very quick to go on strike and protest in order to safeguard their own economic dignity. But not so in Spain. In a country where the cost of buying or renting a home has tripled in the past 8 years, where the cost of basic necessities has doubled while the average income has grown only 2 or 3% per year, people discuss and complain about the problem in private, but nobody hits the streets en masse to rectify the situation.

A typical salary here can run between €600 and €1,400 per month. But the cost of a flat begins at €500. The situation is in stasis, because those who are older purchased their homes before the spike in housing. And those who are 30 years old or younger still live with their parents. Nobody is happy about the situation, but nobody is willing to do anything about it either. My boss, for example, has increased her prices over 50% in the past few years, but this increase doesn't reflect any investment in facilities or salaries. In other words, it all goes in her pocket. And the other employees, Spaniards, prefer not to complain openly to the boss. They prefer to go about their job without lios. It's a very typical attitude here.

But what's curious about this attitude is that it was the very opposite before the Civil War. People fought hard in order to gain social and economic dignity. Protests were as common as milk wagons on the street. Pamphlets and newspapers were published with enormous headlines in harsh rhetoric, full of exclamation points. But no more. The people have been cowed. And most of them don't realize it or even know why. Es así, is the phrase du jour. It's like that. Very Zen, very Taoist. But, it's also reminsicent of the old adage, "If you act like a victim, you will be victimized."

One thing is certain: The situation will not remain viable much longer. When young people eventually move out of their parents' homes and begin looking for their own apartments, and they discover just how impossible it is to survive with the shit salaries that are being paid, there will be a demand for drastic change. The economy, while stable now, will eventually suffer a profound paradigm shift. Something volatile is on the horizon.

Culture - A Crappy Catalan Christmas

Okay, it’s been three days now and I thought I’d get over this. But I can’t get it out of my head: The image of my two-year old son beating on a log until it shits out gifts.

It’s a tradition here in Catalunya, a region which seems to have an unhealthy obsession with crap, especially when it comes to Christmas and religion. As if it weren’t enough to hear daily throughout the year, ¡Me cago en dios!, an epithet which translates directly as “I shit on God.” No Nativity scene is complete here without the Caganer, a figurine who squats behind the manger, Joseph and Mary, the animals and Three Wise Guys while his bare ass hovers proudly over a tiny, brown swirly of crap.

I’ve lived here long enough that most things seem normal to me, but this is the first year that I’ve had direct experience with the Caga Tió, or The Shit Dude. Essentially it’s a log with a face and hat on one end, propped up by two sticks which –with a little imagination—could be construed as legs. A blanket is thrown over his back-side and food is set out for him on the days leading up to Christmas. This, in order to plenish his bowels. Then, on Christmas day, the whole family gathers around and they beat on him with wooden spoons, mallets, and whatever violent sundry can be found around the house.

Meanwhile, they sing a song:

Shit, dude! Shit lots of candy!

Shit some wine and cookies!

Whether you shit or not,

I’m going to hit you with my stick!

After each refrain, they march in a parade around the house while some sneaky member of the family tosses gifts under the blanket. When the children return, all the adults begin to say, Let’s see if the dude has crapped. Look what the dude has crapped out! Ohh, what nice crap! Then it’s back to the song and parade and more gifts.

You know, I’m really not too uptight when it comes to language and my child, but something about this just doesn’t sit right with me. I guess it’s not so much the words as it is the focus on defecation and coprophagy by proxy.

But who am I to argue with tradition? In the same way that one can never really pinpoint the origins of obsessive-compulsive acts, cultural traditions inevitably guard their own secrets. Some say that it began in the Pyrenees and spread down from the mountains. My in-laws, who never miss an opportunity to describe their hardships during the Civil War, explained to me about 5 or 12 times over dinner that they had to beat on just an ordinary Tió, with no face, legs or hat. In the face of such determination to eat the crap from a log, I doubt that I will ever be able to dissuade my son from participating in this deviant ritual.

But all told, I don’t suppose it’s quite so bad in comparison to a tradition in which I grew up, in which every Sunday I was forced to eat the flesh and drink the blood of some long-dead guy who had been beaten to a pulp and executed in a brutal and excruciating manner. So, really it’s all just a matter of perspective. On the one hand, coprophagy. On the other, cannibalism. It’s so hard to judge.

The Christmas Truce

It was a mass movement that began with songs. German voices strained across No Man’s Land, carrying the words of Stille Nacht to the hearts of war-weary British troops, who knew the song as Silent Night. They began to sing along. Then the soldiers took turns serenading their enemies, one song after another. Brave party crashers crawled across No Man’s Land, carrying not grenades, but bottles of brandy, or jars of marmalade.

Before long, an unofficial truce was established as German, French and British enemies left the trenches to join each other on the battlefield in a novel way. They shook hands and shared cigars. They regarded each other warmly. Almost immediately, it became obvious how unpleasant the party was with all those dead bodies around. So they set about to burying them. Chaplains came out from both sides as they quoted psalms together and sang hymns.

Once the field was clear, it was only natural that they should play football. Rifles were exchanged for a ball, vital organs replaced with a goal, and they battled nation against nation in the truest of true world cups. There was more singing and dancing as soldiers continued fraternizing with their enemies, day after day, until the generals could stand it no longer, and they unanimously decided that this was bad for the war and it must stop at once.

The only problem was: The soldiers didn’t want to end the truce. For once, they were having a good time. Orders to return to battle were issued, but ignored. In some cases, officers aimed their weapons at their own troops and ordered them to begin shooting at their newfound friends. But no shots or artillery would strike human flesh in the aftermath of that impromptu holiday truce.

In the end, troops had to be rotated to the rear so that perfect strangers could once again be counted on to kill each other without remorse. And every Christmas after that, for the remainder of World War I, the generals ordered constant artillery barrage at Christmas to avoid any repeat of this expression of good will.

Fortunately, for the generals, they were able to control this impulse toward cameraderie and the war managed to continue another four years. If it hadn’t been for their perspicacity, the trench warfare might have ended right there and we may never have discovered tanks, anti-aircraft guns and flamethrowers. But the event will forever be remembered as The Christmas Truce.

Have a Merry Druidic Tree-Slaughtering Festival and a Happy Random Change of the Calendar Year!

Language - What’s Wrong With "Fuck"?

In the presence of my toddler recently, I let fly the phrase, “That’s fucked up.” And of course it became a new addition to his rapidly expanding toolbox of expression. What was remarkable to me about the episode is that, once confronted with it, I really didn’t care if he spoke that way or not. Another way of putting it, of course, is: I really didn’t give a fuck. And I couldn’t help but wonder if there is something wrong with my attitude.

A friend of mine lowers his voice on the phone when uttering the word as an intensifier, as if he were telling me about some whore he screwed in Utah while his wife’s in the background wiping oatmeal off his kid’s cheeks. It’s such an evil word for a child to be exposed to. Apparently. Yet, aside from the fact that everybody else thinks so, I don’t see why. As I expressed to my child’s mother, if eventually he can distinguish between situations in which it’s acceptable or not, what’s the big deal?

It’s a word, nothing more. A labiodental fricative and a velar plosive, separated by a monophthong. So what? Fff, uh, kk. Three sounds that, in any other combination, are harmless. Twenty years ago I read –in some unremembered source—that what anglophones consider vulgar or not is actually descended from an ancient form of ethnocentricity. For a few centuries after William the Conqueror, the language of the English court was French. So all words deriving from French, such as fornicate, penis, or vagina were considered acceptable. Fuck, cock and cunt, however are Anglo-Saxon, deriving from the Germanic origins of the language and were therefore considered vulgar. Vulgar, by the way, originally meant “common” and only later came to include the definition of “in bad taste”

Its power lies not so much in its presence but in the intention behind it. Once, in high school, a teacher ripped my Sony Walkman out of my hands in the hallway and took it into his classroom. Feeling a sense of injustice had been committed, I followed him into his class and, in front of his remedial reading group, demanded the return of my property. Persuant to my understanding of the regulations, walkmen were prohibited in class, but not in the hallway. When I refused to leave without my device, he wrote me up for detention. Then, very slowly, I tore the detention slip in two and dropped it on his desk, saying, “You can go fuck yourself.”

The strength in the statement lay not in the literal meaning of the phrase, though it would have been amusing to see him try. What rankled him and his administrative overlords more was the absolute destruction of that pedestal of respect that authority depends on. Not only did I refuse to acknowledge the sancity of his quarters, nor give importance to his imposition of d-hall, but with one fell swoop I tore down the barrier of propriety that divides students and teachers and said, essentially, You are not important enough for me to observe the rules of language. For some reason, that was worse than any of my other “offenses,” and it begat a series of parental meetings ultimately resulting in my suspension from school.

I’d like to think that words like “fuck” and “nigger” will eventually become disempowered along with all their cronies, that they will become like a rubber knife that will only be laughed at if used seriously. But given the self-importance of both the puritanical and politically correct, it seems that day is a long way away, even if, due to overusage, the word is far less powerful than when Holden Caufield freely commented on it in 1951. Indeed, the television show Deadwood is fighting the good fight by defusing the word through overusage, as can be measured in The Deadwood Fuck Count. I look forward to the day when politicos speak as freely as the characters on HBO. “That miserable fuckwit thinks he can run this country better than I, and god help every one of you cocksuckers if he wins this fucking election.” I wonder how many more votes Kerry would have won if I had been his speechwriter.

I suppose that –in the spirit of “If it bends, it’s funny; if it breaks, it’s not”—I will continue to be amused at the sporadic “fuck” that my baby utters, knowing that it offends sensibilities that I neither share nor approve of. As he goes through life, I’ll do my best to instill an idea of pertinence and moderation, along with respect for individuals. But if, on the odd occasion, he looks up at me and says, “Papa, that Blues Clues is one fucking good show!” I’ll just smile and scratch his head. “That’s my boy.”