28 MAY 1977, Page 7

The change in Spain

Richard West

Barcelona Arriving in Barcelona to write on the general election, I am struck by the change, nut so much in Spain itself, as in the way it compares with England. Fifty years ago, even ten years ago, we the English managed to condescend to Spain with its beggars, its dirt, its excitable politicians, and Public services that would not work till Mariana. i'ow we can no longer feel superior. Indeed .,Aet the feeling here, as last year in Italy, of visiting a fellow banana-republic. Last year when I went to Milan, British Airways lost my luggage in what appeared to be a routine practice. So this year I asked r Heathrow if I could take both small bags 17 hand. 'No there wouldn't be room,' said ,Te girl quite untruthfully for, like most laritish Airways planes since the strike, this ettille was only about one-third full. And of ese few passengers thirteen, including Ynur correspondent, found that their baggage had not arrived in Barcelona. This n "ntine misdirection of luggage might in the Rast have been typical of a Spanish rather !Ilan British airline. Now one has to rely on he courtesy and efficiency of the Barcelona takirPort staff to repair the damage done by "le Heathrow airport staff.

In

spite of its own strikes and inflation, wn rampant since Franco's death in Spain no longer seems poor compared re' England. Indeed, some experts now ke_ekon Spain a few points ahead of us at the ttOIflOfj.0pe's economic league table. rtglish retired people and rentiers here inw live in scarcely genteel poverty and ye nglish tourists no longer lord it at Costa fava resorts such as Tossa. Meanwhile the n'3.13a.niards are seeking out the cheap tourist „e_bghts of London. 'There are quite poor

li an English resident said, 'who nd they

can go to London for five days for Zrty pounds, live in a hotel behind Buckintt'am Palace, with colour TV and breakfast ouff.own in, who would never have dreamed

t a few years ago.'

chin some respects it is Spain that has st anged, in some respects England. It is artling at first to see bookstalls piled with Pornography in this once austere country, ,a,nd demonstrators back on the streets. On „tne other hand it is odd to read articles in the .4panish press on British Leyland and 1.1aldred matters that presuppose in the e aders mind a knowledge that Britain is rerelict and corrupt. The familiar sight of °ttery ticket salesmen brought to mind a prophecy heard many years ago that England was finished when it too started official oTteries. And now it does. I saw the notice r;.orle this month run by Chester-le-Street ‘,1strict Council.

Again Britain's debate on 'devolution' is

very like that on Catalonian autonomy which is obsessively discussed here in the Catalonian capital. Protestations of Catalan loyalty are made by Catalan students, Catalan women, Catalan homosexuals, Catalan strip-teasers (who danced at a recent Catalan rally) and countless highminded groups such as the Catalan Permanent Assembly of Intellectuals. The Catalan dialect, sorry language, is much in fashion, partly because it is very easy to learn when compared to Basque, which is just as different from Spanish as Welsh is from English. 'It's a bit absurd having to spell whisky "guiski" and say "vol fok" for "Do you want a light",' said one non-Catalan, 'It's an ugly language but come to think of it they're an ugly people.' Just as Irish speakers used to sport a round badge (known rudely to some as an erse-hole), so some Catalans wear a badge saying `parlem Catala' I speak Catalan. This badge shows the Catalan flag of red and yellow thin horizontal stripes, which is" identical to that of the late republic of South Vietnam.

Catalan nationalism goes with dislike of southern Spaniards, Moors, Arabs and black Africans. Indeed communist propaganda during the civil war played on fear of Franco's Moorish troops who were accused of raping white Spanish girls. Old people in Barcelona tell with tears in their eyes of how, after the war was lost, the Moorish troops lit their cooking fires in the main streets, singing outlandish chants. Many Catalan communists and anarchists who escaped from Spain at this time went to. Algeria where they later were to become the most racialist and belligerent of the pieds noirs white settlers. Although there are not many Moors now, more than half the population of Catalonia is formed from outsiders, mostly from southern Spain, who do the menial jobs. This new proletariat tends to dislike the Catalans who in turn call them dirty, noisy and improvident.

A Catalan lady summed up her attitude to the southerners as: 'We hate bullfighting. We hate flamenco. We hate Spain.' I was told: 'People who work in factories and have reason to be communists, aren't Catalans. The Catalans mostly have office jobs.' There is enough truth in that observa tion to scare the local communists and their socialist allies, whose manifesto takes care to point out that they include, as Catalans 'Anyone who lives and works in Catalonia.' And although this left alliance claims by right to represent workers and peasants it takes pains to point out its appeal to 'intellectuals.'

In Homage to Catalonia, his • splendid book on the civil war, George Orwell claimed that the Communist Party was

trying to crush the revolution on behalf of the bourgeoisie. His own political friends, the anarchists and revolutionary socialists, were probably more representative of the working class. Today one gets the impression that here, as in many parts of the world, almost all the far left parties are run by the middle classes. The most 'militant' trade unions tend to be those representing teachers, civil servants, journalists, cinematographic technicians, engineers, skilled airport workers and other intellectuals.

As in France in 1968, the demonstrations are led by the student sons and daughters of professional or business people. A revealing slogan scrawled on a metro station here proclaims: `Sociologia en lucha solidaridad' -'Sociology is in the struggle for solidarity'. Yes I bet it is

When the Barcelona police (who are almost all southerners) set out to battle with demonstrators, their officers sometimes remind them that their foes, the students, have had opportunities denied to them. Things have changed since Orwell wrote of• Barcelona that if he saw a policeman fighting a worker he knew which side he was on. But which side is one on when a policeman fights a sociologist?

In May 1937, when street fighting broke out here between the communists and the revolutionary left, Orwell took up arms for the latter and spent three days guarding a rooftop in the Ramblas, the tree-lined avenue down to the harbour. He lamented his ignorance of political geography as compared to Barcelona people, accustomed to street fighting, who knew which district and even which building was likely to side with each faction.

My hotel in the Ramblas is just across from where Orwell was posted it must have been held by the communists. Standing in the doorway, trying to pick out the places Orwell mentioned, I noticed the Ramblas crowd was thinning although this was the hour of the evening stroll.

Then the police arrived in 'trucks and on motor bikes, their heads encased in visored helmets. A crowd came from Catalonia Square it was the anarchists, somebody said, they had been trying to set fire to cars and now wanted to reach the Ramblas.

Then came the noise of firing rubber bullets the metal grills clattered down on the restaurants and shop fronts, and the anarchists came running chased by police who whacked them with rubber truncheons..

The police looked big, bewildered and angry, like bulls. Indeed the way they charged the youngsters who scuttled up side streets only to reassemble further along the Ramblas, reminded me of a film I had seen of bulls chasing the crowd at Pamplona. Although some of the anarchists took some blows on the shoulders, the whole thing looked like a game, but one that could turn dirty before the election, on 15 June. Later I saw another slogan`Sociologia vencera' or 'Sociology will triumph'. It is not a threat to be taken lightly.