IMMIGRATION

Twenty years ago an English friend of mine jokingly suggested that the trouble with Spain was that there were too many Spanish people in it. At that time you would probably go for weeks without seeing a coloured person; the few Arabs there were would generally keep themselves to themselves and on the street you would only ever hear Spanish being spoken. The South American community was so small that it was unnoticeable. The culture shock after living in multi-racial Britain was quite tremendous. The rapid change from those days to the new modern multi racial Spain has, unfortunately, managed to create reactions varying from fear to indignation among born and bred Spaniards which, in certain areas is creating a social unrest in which real violence could break out at any time.
One of the main factors for this social unrest is the lack of integration. Moslems, in general, will not integrate with non muslems either here or in any other part of the world. Oh yes you can work alongside them and occasionally share a joke with them but the barriers are always there.
Contrary to popular opinion they are not hard workers who are here to do the hard dirty work that the nouveau rich Spanish disdain In fact most of the ones with whom I have worked are skivers and their disdainful attitude towards western women is disgraceful.
The South American communities are generally not inclined to integrate with the Spanish people either which, if we take into account the fact that the language is shared, is surprising. Here the lack of integration is mutual as the typical Spaniard is not particularly interested in opening his heart to them and so LatinAmericans generally bunch together. They are not hard to find at weekends around a football field for example or in a particular favourite meeting place where they will congregate in large numbers( often hundreds or more) where they resemble a flock of particularly vociferous starlings. Look among them. You won't find any Spaniards. Many families have arrived with young children wh, resenting having been taken away from their homeland and friends and usually ostracised by Spanish kids, find it extremely difficult to achieve at school,
and, as school failures, organise themselves into gangs such as the well known Latin Kings...... Shades of West side story without the music and with a lot more violence.
The dark skinned African immigration is, for obvios reasons, the most notice-able of all immigrant group. Many have arrived illegallyand live in a clandestine world of their own, usually sharing a flat between about twenty in order to make survival possible and work as itinerant sellers or seasonal field workers. Unlike the previously mentioned groups most Africans are open and friendly and only too pleased to integrate with the Spanish as much as the Spanish themselves will allow.
The Chinese community, which is dedicated to doing business with their shops,restaurants and clothing businesses has to integrate superficially in order to do business with everyone else but they are still like chalk and cheese on the personal level and only befriend their own kind.
The ex communist block north europaean countries contribute greatly to Spain's immigrant community. While the majority are hard working and honest they themselves suffer from the bad press that a certain number of their countrymen cause them as there seems to be an elevated amount of crime, often violent crime, associated with these nations,which logically makes Spanish people reluctant to integrate with them. Give a dog a bad name..........
The last group of immigrants is us. The Brits, French, Deutches, Holanders etc. etc. who did not come here to escape from poverty. I often wonder why many of us are here. So now I come to the Big Prize question. Are you integrated?. Are your parties attended by your Spanish friends? Do they invite you to their parties? And do you really speak Spanish? Do you know what is being talked about? Do you know who Fraga is? or Paquirrin? Have you got any c.ds of Spanish groups in your collection? If the answer to any of these questions is NO, then it's time YOU started to INTEGRATE. The Spanish will accept you warmly if you try and understand them, This blog hopes to provide you with some insight on the topics of the day which will help you in the right direction.
BUT Remember, as my old friend Paco el fontanero once said..." You can be whatever you want in España. What you can't be is an hijo de puta.

NOT MISSED THE BULL.

In a recent and unprecedented public ballot organised by the mayor of the Valencian town of Paterna, the majority voted AGAINST the use of Bulls in the towns fiestas this year. That may come as a surprise to you as, in fact, it did to me but it is a fact that on the subject of bullfighting the"fiesta national" public opinion is deeply and bitterly divided. At many of the major bullrings around the country protest demonstrations are frequently staged ;at times ending in violence between the pro and anti groups albeit often spurred on by the sensationalist media looking for a good story. Although no national poll has ever been suggested by the government I am confident that ,should it ever take place, the anti bullfighting lobby would win by a considerable majority.
The younger and middle aged Spanish are sick and tired of being tarred by the same bullfighting brush wherever and whenever they travel abroad. From Brussels to Bangkok Spaniards are fed up to the back teeth of hearing outraged critics of this practise spoiling their otherwise idyllic tourism. Most Spaniards do not go to bull fights. Most Spaniards wouldn't go to a bull fight if they were paid to. Those who do go to bullfights are mostly well into their middle age, the majorityof whom are right wingers whose Frankist parents indoctrinated them in this barbaric practise and are too thick skinned to even consider changing their ways. Having said this ,of course, any up and coming young creeper on the vine of right wing politics would HAVE to be seen at the important events to help his progress through the ass-licking jungle of the post Franco right wing. If my words offend anyone who is not a) right wing, b)brain dead c)employed in the multi million€ bullfighting industry, and actually ENJOYS WATCHING NOBLE ANIMALS BEING TORTURED TO DEATH then I am very pleased to have offended you.
If then,like me and the majority of Spanish people you are against this sad and indefensible anachronism, don't be too worried. IT IS ON ITS WAY OUT: In two generations ,mark my words, BULLFIGHTING WILL DISAPPEAR like urban zoos and cock fighting

Here come de judge...but I ain't afraid.

Autonomous community politicians throughout Spain will be delighted to learn that they can accept expensive presents from anyone, however shady the character of the gift giver may be and irrespective of how much public money may be engrossing his offshore bank B account. Isn't that good news? You and I may not agree but that is basically what the decision by the Valencian supreme court to file the corruption proceedings against President Camps insisting that there was no proof that the gifts, not only suits, expensive toys, watches,Louis Vuitton bags and a large etc of expensive goodies so generously handed out to important members of the Valencian Popular Party by flamboyant head of 'Orange Market' Don Alvaro Perez had any cause-effect relationship with the multi million € contracts adjudicated to him by by this administration over the last few years. And how did the supreme tribunal come to this surprising decision? When the scandal first hit the media Presi' Camps denied all knowledge of Orange Market and Alvaro Perez. When photos linking them on various occasions, both publicly and .especially, privately, Camps was forced to admit their close friendship. Then the suits. " I didn't receive any suits, I pay for all my clothes." Nothing of the sort. The court found that the offending tailor mades were indeed gifts from the philanthropic Mr Perez. So I ask myself, "if there was no cause effect relationship between gifts and public contracts, WHY LIE? All very mysterious isn't it,? Or is it?
It happens that the Valencian Supreme court consists of three learned magistrates and it also happens that these magistrates are political appointments. If ,therefore, we take into account the fact that in the final two to one decision in favour of filing the process against Camps i.e. his not having to stand trial, the two judges in favour were not only known right wingers but also, and sinisterly, in the case of the presiding magistrate,Judge Juan Luis de la Rua, a well known personal friend of the Camps family...Sunday paellas etc. etc. It would be dangerous to my reputation to procede along these lines any further so I will leave it to my reader's imagination or mathematics to put two and two together. The saddest part of this whole scandalous Greek tragedy is that this TOTAL LACK OF DEMOCRACY AND ABJECT FAILURE OF THE JUDICIARY took place not in a banana republic, Hugo Chaves's Venezuela or Mugabe's Zimbabwe for example ,but right here in the Valencian Communioty in the modern Spain which, even as I write ,is preening itself to be admitted into the all powerful G8 group of economic potencies.