The local mayoral race is on here, and the politics are heating up. Even I am getting to understand them. There are eight people running, seven of them calling themselves the left of some form, one of them right out calling themselves socialists. There is only one right wing group that I can discern, PP who are the Francoists, or once Francoists...anti-immigration right wing, but not really terrifyingly far right. They probably exist in Spain, indeed I am certain there are some, but they don't seem to be running for government locally...The political graffiti seems to be building this one I found particularily confusing....the circle and lines is a Catalan flag, "contra Espanya" is obviously 'against Spain', canya however means cane or reed, like a fishing cane....hmmmmmm 'reed against Spain' there must be more to it.
I went into BCN this morning to pick up my God mother, well, sort of god mother, I was never baptised, but she adopted me as god daughter anyway. It is going to be great having her here. She's here for 3 days or so, and then gone for a week, and then here another 10 or so....
My time in BCN however was less exciting. I sat at the bus stop where the airport bus comes in for two hours or so....it was sunny and hot and when I moved into the shade, the ground was sticky where a British tourist had spilled a coke, inadequately cleaned up and then left the dirty tissue on the seat. Lovely.
There were cops hanging around all the time, and by the time I had been there a while I was just waiting for one of them to come up to me and ask what I was doing. Every single airport bus that came up, I got up and mingled with the crowd to see if my friend had arrived. They come every six minutes. Did I look like a pick-pocket? Quite possibly. But, she got there before I got questioned. HOT.
My husband and the girls and the dog went up into the mountains....they got back, the girls immediately went up on the terrace and hosed themselves off, the dog gave me one quick sniff and lay down, the man got a drink and then had a shower.
My god mother is having a nap, then we'll probably go for a walk....the girls are doing watercolour work, I see the need for more paper in the near future....
A friend is here, I avoided sun stroke and it's a beautiful sunny Sunday. Life is good.
6 comments:
Sounds like a great day - and how wonderful to have your "Godmother" there on Mother's Day.
Happy Mother's Day to you!
Happy Mother's Day Oreneta!!!
You know, maybe we in the States should start limiting our political ads to graffiti. I think that's a great idea!
Happy Mother's Day!
Hmm, just catching up here. I think the "canya" must be similar to an expression in castellano, "Darle caña" or something to the effect of "Give 'em hell."
Also, the PP is not franquista-- they are a party that came about after Franco was gone (obviously before then, there wasn't much call for political parties, but I think that the Socialists came first and were part of a european-wide movement of social democrats) The left wing parties may indeed call the PP "franquista" but that is a dire exaggeration in my opinion. Here where I live we do have some Fascist political formations (I don't think they actually win any seats) and a party whose whole platform is anti-immigration, with some pretty offensive campaign posters (again, I don't think they will get many, if any, seats.) I would definitely not put the PP in the same league as an "Anti-immigration party." I think they think of themselves as a Centrist party (and yes, there are many small far-right parties out there.) I would compare them to moderate republicans in the US.
Though I'm sure that the PP's immigration policy is less-than liberal (you won't see them at any "papeles para todos" rallies) and I am learning more and more about the whole immigration thing here and will be sure to post at some point.
In any event, I am totally disgusted with politics here and would not vote even if I could (or if I did, it would be very grudgingly) so maybe I'm not the best one to comment...
Me again...
I figured I should actually look into the PP's policies on immigration before I offer opinions, so I will look that up when I get some time!
Okay, last comment, I promise. I did some investigation, and found this:http://www.lavanguardia.es/gen/20070509/51344232395/noticias/un-video-del-pp-de-badalona-une-inmigracion-y-delincuencia-dvd-montigala-albiol.html.
It's a link to a video by the PP in Badalona, and it is most definitely anti-immigration and racist. I haven't seen anything like that on a national level or around here, but now I know why you said that the PP is anti-immigration!
In other tidbits, I found a few articles whic, in sum, say this:
The current leaders of the PP (Rajoy) has criticized the "regularization en masse" of illegal immigrants by the PSOE. The PSOE counters that the PP did the same thing (or worse) a number of times during its government, and that the immigrants who are being legalized now entered the country illegally under the PP government. Rajoy promises that if the PP wins the next elections, there will be no more mass leaglizations of immigrants. The PSOE responds that the Zapatero government is developing an immigration policy based on the control of migrations, respect for human rights, and the capacity of the Spanish job market, by means of an employment contract."
I still haven't waded through the last few Ley de Extranjería (Immigration laws) under both governments, but from what I'm reading in my research it seems that both parties are basing their policies, to a greater or lesser degree, on a common set of assumptions (very widely held, I might add) about immigration that are not necessarily accurate.
But I'll shut up now!
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