Dawn

Dawn

Sunday, December 17, 2006

93% of Galicians are reported to believe that the assets of all politicians should be public knowledge. The remainder, one assumes, are the politicians.

On Friday night, Santiago was awash with young people heading for the train and bus stations and towing small suitcases behind them. These were students going home for their weekend pamper and taking their dirty washing with them. Here, universities are not quite the mad dash for independence they are in Anglo-Saxon cultures. There is, of course, a reciprocal migration each Sunday evening.

The female politician I mentioned the other day was buried in a coffin draped in 3 flags - the Spanish, the Basque and the European. This says a lot about modern Spain, where one section of the population is pulling in the direction of greater local autonomy and another is pulling towards national submergence within a European superstate. Poor old traditional Spain is stuck in the middle of these possibly compatible forces. Currently, that is. Where it will be in the future is anyone’s guess.

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