Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I’m being deluged with glossy elections material. The nationalist [BNG] party has published a 24 page booklet extolling its successes of the past 4 years. And the PP party has provided me with 1. a denunciation of all the BNG’s unfilled promises, and 2. a brochure containing a mere 30 commitments of their own for the next 4 years. The BNG, of course, writes only in Gallego but the PP sticks to the old-fashioned mix of Spanish and Gallego. With only 4 days to go, the socialist PSOE party has yet to show its hand on this sensitive subject. To me, at least.

I was intrigued to read yesterday that the Deputy Mayor of a small Spanish town of 3,000 souls had been gifted property by 13 of these good people. Although he’d then sold all the plots and realised significant gains, none of the deals had gone through the local notary or been inscribed in the land registry. I wonder if this is connected with the fact this avoids any reports to the tax authorities. Relatedly, El Pais reviewed the current political campaigns a couple of days ago and noted that a debate on the issue of an all-party strategy to deal with town hall corruption had been conspicuous by its absence.

The Spanish [Galician, even] clothing company, Zara, has had to apologise in Israel for mixing linen and cotton in one of its suits. This, apparently, is a sin to Orthodox Jews. Oy ve! This is even crazier than the ban on using the same pans and crockery for milk and meat. Decidedly more un-orthodox than orthodox to me.

Still on a religious note – As part of a long-standing aim to reduce state financing of the Catholic Church, Spanish tax payers can elect to send it a small percentage of their money by ticking a box on their annual declarations. This choice is taken most in Navarra [51%] and least in Barcelona [24%]. Who are, strangely, close neighbours. Well, pretty close.

After more than 2 years, I’ve finally reached the 940th and final page of Cervantes’ magnificent novel, Don Quixote. And this was the English version. Unimpressive but rather better than the 5 years I forecast back in January 2005. I don’t think I’d go quite so far as Samuel Johnson, who said it was the only book he’d read which he’d liked to have been even longer, but I can certainly recommend it, especially in the new Edith Grossman translation. However, I’d counsel against my initial strategy of trying to knock off a few chapters in bed. For me, at least, this was a great sleep inducer. But, sadly, this would now be true of even the Kama Sutra. Whatever that is.

Prompted by a recent comment from my friendly correspondent, Xoan-Carlos, I’ve decided to devote my latest 3-year compilation to a subject which much exercises some minds here in Galicia – CELTICNESS. I should stress I have no problem with Galicians striving to prove they're more Celtic than anyone else in Spain, even though I don't accept this. It harms no one and adds to the gaiety of life here. As one used to be able to say:-


2004

You may have missed the media reports but the Celtic Nautical Games are being held along our coast this week. Participants include Wales, Ireland, Galicia, Brittany, North Portugal and those international maritime giants, Cornwall and the Isle of Man. In addition, invitations have been extended to honorary Celts from Cantabria, the Basque country and the Canary Islands. The big event, apparently, is Painting Your Face Red And Swimming Away from Italians Pretending to be Murderous Invading Romans.


2005

I’ve recently mentioned some of the local beliefs. Another is that Pontevedra [like the nearby city of Tui] was founded by Greeks. A book I’m reading about early civilisations suggests the latter got to the north east of Spain but says nothing about them reaching the north west. But I don’t suppose this will kill the belief. Not that this would make much difference; the emphasis here is on continuity with the [earlier] Celts than with those effete Johnny-come-latelies from the Eastern Med.


Prompted by my reference to the Galician beliefs that they’re Celts and that Ireland was settled by Galician colonists, an Irish reader has sent me a fascinating treatise which suggests that even the Irish are not Celts. Instead, they’re descendents of various Near East peoples who, around 3,000 years ago, sailed out of the Med and up the west coast of Africa. The theory goes that they used the Iberian peninsula as a stopping off point, long before any land-bound Celts got there. On reading this, my first thought was I’d write to the local papers exploding the Celtic myths. My second thought was that my residence permit comes up for renewal quite soon. Anyway, it so happened I was today finishing A Brief History of the Human Race by Michael Cook. Looking up ‘Ireland’, I did find a reference to Ogham, a ‘folk script that the early Irish somehow derived from the writing systems of the Mediterranean world’. But a Google search suggests this really is a Celtic relic, from around 1500BC.


A group of people along the coast are trying to de-Americanise Halloween and return it to its Celtic, pagan roots. They claim its proper name is Samaín and it was an end-of-summer festival appropriated by the Christians. If this keeps the TrickorTreaters away from my front door, I’m all for it.

2006

I had thought the Cornish language was dead but I now read there are 4-500 people who speak it fluently. Cornish is a Celtic language and a close relation of both Welsh and Breton, with links into Gaelic [both varieties] and Manx. Welsh, Breton and Cornish form the sub-group of Byrothnic languages. So I guess the language purists would see a case for restoring the nation of Byrothnia[?].


Researching the word ‘Castrapo’ yesterday, I came across a site which goes into some depth on the Galician language. This is www.umoncton.ca/soeler/galiza_pol.htm and it’s an interesting read, so long as you can get past the sort of accusation we’ve become familiar with in the last few weeks - Spain is still an imperial power; the nation of has been repressed and colonised for 400 years; Spain is still a dictatorship and the PP party is a fascist organisation; the Galicians are held hostage by the Spanish; assisted by useful idiots who speak bastardised Gallego [Castrapo], Spain is bent on destroying the ancient culture and language of Galicia; etc., etc. Two of the most noteworthy claims are that, set against the restoration of the independence of Galiza, ‘Economics are not important,’; and ‘Galiza has had a rich Celtic tradition for over 2,000 years’. I suspect the electorate would find the first contention hard to stomach and I really wonder about the accuracy of the latter. A little later in my research I came across a Celtic site which contained the following snippet - In the 1960s Galicia’s bid to join the Celtic League was rejected on the grounds it lacked a Celtic language. Today the most visible assertion of Celtic culture in Galicia is in the field of music, notably through the Galician Bagpipe, or Gaita Galega. There are some, I have to say, who suggest the whole Celtic thing was re-invented in the 19 century to give more weight to the incipient Galician nationalist movement. There certainly was, of course, a Celtic culture in Spain but it wasn’t confined to Galicia and there appears to be little trace of Celtic-origin words in any of the Iberian languages. Just as in English there are only twelve, I believe. No staying power, obviously.


In the Basque Country a baker’s dozen of ETA members has been arrested in connection with extortion of a ‘Revolution Tax’ from local businesspeople. ETA may be involved in a peace process and ‘committed’ to seeing it through to a permanent ceasefire but, as with the IRA, their criminal activities haven’t ceased. And, showing just how much he’s learned from the guide book given to him by Gerry Adams, the leader of the political arm of the terrorist organisation condemned the arrests as an ‘attack upon the peace process’ and demanded all ‘acts of aggression’ must cease. Needless to say, he is also seeking the internationalisation of the process, in the hope this will foster the image of the Basque Country as Spain’s Ireland. This, of course, is also the objective of the Galician ‘nationalists’. Hence the stress on Galicia’s Celticness.


Having probably upset quite a few Galicians already today, I think I’ll stay away from the subject of the region’s Celtic origins and culture. And, anyway, what does it matter if people want to believe they’re more Celtic than, say, the Asturians and the Cantabrians? Not to mention the northern Portuguese, who used to be part of the Kingdom of Galicia. Back when they spoke the same language.


In its latest flight of fancy, the Galician nationalist party [the BNG] has demanded the Preamble to the region’s new constitution contains 5 or 6 references to Galicia as a nation. Its senior partner in local government – the socialist party – seems content to refer to the region as ‘The nation of Breogan’. He was a mythical Celtic king and so all this is even worse than the English wanting a constitution defining England as ‘The nation of Boudicca’. At least she actually lived in the place. And I suppose the Scots would want a reference to Robert the Bruce. And the Welsh to Llewellyn. . . Laughable. Or it would be if the politicians didn’t have things far more serious to deal with. Such as the fact Galicia is ageing far more quickly [and expensively] than anywhere else in Spain while her relative economic position is deteriorating. Fiddling while Rome burns.


Galicians are probably not real Celts. But they would like to be. Many, thanks to some self-interested tinkering with history by 19th century Galician romantics, are fully convinced they are. Whatever the truth of the Celtic origins – and they don’t shout out at you in the physical aspects of Galicians or in their language – people like them.


These are confusing times for us Brits. Alerted by Arturo up in La Coruña, I read a newspaper article this morning which suggested the English are not really Anglo-Saxon but as Celtic as the Irish, Welsh and Scottish and that we’re all descended from roving fishermen from the northern Spanish coast. This, of course, would make Francis Drake – hated by the Spanish as a pirate – one of their own. Then, this afternoon, I read a rather more scholarly article in the October edition of Prospect magazine which said our Iberian ancestors came very much earlier than the Celts and were, in fact, from the Basque Country. The writer of the article - Stephen Oppenheimer – sums up his gene-based research thus – “Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The [later] Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons. In fact, neither had much influence on the genetic stock of these islands.” And he ends his article with the following earth-shattering paragraph – “So, based on the overall genetic perspective of the British, it seems that Celts, Belgians, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings and Normans were all immigrant minorities compared with the Basques pioneers who first ventured into the empty, chilly lands so recently vacated by the great ice sheets.” What he doesn’t do, though, is explain why on earth they would want to stay in the God-forsaken place.


Referring back to the article on the British genetic make up, another major point made by the writer was that the Celts who reached the British Isles came not from central Europe but from France. This was after migration from Anatolia along the north coast of the Mediterranean and into Spain and France. He also refutes the view there was a strong Celtic culture in England when the Romans arrived. It’s much more likely, he says, the country had already been colonised by various Germanic tribes from northern Europe, particularly the Belgae. Bloody ‘ell. Now we’re not just Basque but Belgian as well!


Our several local political parties are currently spending time and energy which could perhaps be better devoted elsewhere to negotiating an acceptable-to-all description of the region for the final draft of our new Constitution. The front-runner is said to be ‘The nation of Breogán’. This is a reference to a mythical Celtic king who, rumour has it, sailed West and conquered Ireland in a couple of days or so. Showing that we are not as backward here as the rest of Spain thinks, a gentleman has written to a local paper to dismiss this as unacceptably sexist. Much better, he says, to add the name of a mythical heroine as well. And who could disagree; if you’re going to be daft, you might as well go the whole hog.

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