No surrender
Douglas Davis talks to José María Aznar in Madrid about terrorism, multiculturalism and the Atlantic alliance My obituarist will, please God, pass lightly over my lamentable instinct for news. Last week I contrived to be abroad for precisely those 24 hours that will define much of Britain’s agenda for the next decade. True, I witnessed the result of the Olympic bid from a departure lounge at Heathrow airport, and by the time the terrorists were tearing at London’s throat I was in faraway Madrid.
By coincidence, I was in the office of José María Aznar, who was prime minister of Spain until an eerily similar attack in Madrid — multiple, co-ordinated bombs aimed at civilian rail passengers — destroyed 191 lives on election eve in March 2004. Spanish voters were quick to conclude that Aznar’s support of the Iraq war was to blame. No matter that he had delivered solid economic growth for eight years, balanced the budget, halved the unemployment level, kept inflation under control, devolved power to the regions, rooted out corruption and anchored Spain at the heart of Europe. Within three days of the Madrid attack Aznar had become al-Qa’eda’s most highprofile political victim. ‘That was,’ he says sadly, ‘a terrible message for all democracies.’ It was ‘scandalous, outrageous’ that Spain’s socialist leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, should have blamed him for the Madrid bombings, and he cannot imagine any political leader in Britain suggesting that his friend and soulmate Tony Blair was responsible for the London attacks because of his support for military action in Iraq. Now, in the minutes after the London attack, he hopes British public opinion ‘will strongly support the Prime Minister’.
Aznar recalls with obvious distaste a meeting he attended of the European Council of Ministers about two weeks after the Madrid attacks and shortly before he handed over to Zapatero. His European partners were effusive in their sympathy for, and solidarity with, Spain. But then came what he calls ‘the reflection’. And, after reflecting, his partners concluded that they should ‘examine the roots of terrorism — poverty and injustice in the world’.
‘That,’ he says, ‘was the expression of Europe. I thought it was a very serious mistake because it reflected a lack of determination to fight terrorism. So I asked them, “What is the connection between the attacks on Madrid and poverty and injustice?”’ It was the terrorists, not poverty or some notion of injustice, that had caused the slaughter. But Aznar’s protests were not considered to be within ‘the spirit of Europe’, and were politely turned aside. ‘It was easier,’ he says, ‘for them to look at the sky.’ Sitting in the spacious office he now occupies as president of the Fundación para el Análisis y los Estudios Sociales in central Madrid, I sense his frustration at the distance he has travelled from real power. True, Aznar had announced that he would be standing down after two terms before the voters had a chance to turn his centre-right People’s party out of power, but that is cold comfort for a youthful 52-year-old former prime minister whose engine is revving but whose gear remains resolutely in neutral.
On this sultry July day, he looks cool in his open-neck blue shirt, but the fire is raging inside. He says he has lost his appetite for politics, but his decision to walk away is a puzzle, given his powerful convictions about the destiny of his country and continent. The image of Aznar standing shoulder to shoulder with George W. Bush and Tony Blair on the eve of the Gulf war remains vivid. But now there are other images, too: a Don Quixote tilting at windmills; a Lear raging at events that have passed out of his control. Fate is seldom kind.
Aznar insists that he keeps busy and fulfilled by running his foundation, writing and lecturing (he would, wouldn’t he?) and he brushes aside the observation that daily life for him — and the growing band of youngish former heads of government — must seem deeply banal.
But he is clearly frustrated that, with the defeat of the European constitution in France and the weakening of the French role in Europe (‘Chirac is in a very bad political situation’), he — or a like-minded Spanish leader — will not be there to help shape a new Europe. ‘This moment is especially important for supporters of the Atlantic idea,’ he says. ‘My pain is that this would be an excellent moment for Spain to improve its influence in Europe. But with the current position’ — a reference to Zapatero — ‘this opportunity will be lost for Spaniards.’ Still, he dares hope that the possible election of Atlanticists in Berlin (Angela Merkel) and in Paris (Nicolas Sarkozy) will set Europe on a pro-American, reforming trajectory which respects the integrity of its nation states, abandons the ‘social model’, embraces economic reform, abides by the stability pact, halts the headlong drive towards further expansion and is less indulgent of terrorism.
Aznar reserves a special contempt for Jacques Chirac’s ambition to transform Europe into a ‘counterweight’ to America. Such a European model — appeasing, pacifist, economically shackled, socially stunted, lacking self-confidence and separated from the United States — represents everything that Aznar abhors. ‘I disagree with leaders like Chirac,’ he says. ‘His ideas are a very big mistake for Europe.
‘He and Schröder seek a world with many centres of power. They think it is indispensable for Europe to shape her institutions, her architecture and her policy in opposition to the US. This is an old question with the French. Chirac is obsessed with the Americans. It’s ideological, a question of power. He cannot support a situation where America is so powerful.’ Our meeting is intended to focus on the transatlantic dysfunction, but it is impossible to avoid issues associated with that (7 July) morning’s events. Like immigration. Aznar is in no doubt that multiculturalism in Europe is ‘finished, dead’. Whatever their cultural, ethnic or religious complexion, all immigrants must be prepared to salute the national flag and sing the national anthem. As it is, he is concerned about the ‘enormous mass of immigrants’ in Europe who zealously defend their own values but care little about those of Europe.
The problem, he says, is compounded by Europeans who ‘do not know and do not defend our own values’. These values, he says, leaving no room for doubt or interpretation, are family-centred Christian values. ‘For me, it is impossible to explain Europe without explaining Christian values.’ Yes, he says, Europe should open its doors to immigrants, based on a consensual, coherent policy. But respect for ‘the common values in our society should not exceed the special rights demanded by immigrant communities ... It’s not possible to coexist in a society with different forms of civilisation, with different rights and responsibilities.’ Nor does he have any time for the notion of an ‘alliance of civilisations’, the European code for an accommodation with Islam. ‘This is an enormous nonsense. Look, I had an excellent dialogue with Mohammed Khatami [the former president of Iran]. It’s one thing to have a dialogue between civilisations, but an alliance of civilisations ... that’s stupid.
‘For us, the most important alliance should be the Atlantic alliance. That is the guarantee of our liberty and freedom, democracy and prosperity. That is the true alliance.’ It is Aznar’s mission, his driving passion, to promote a new Atlantic pact that will renew the Atlantic alliance and create ‘a greater economic area’ between Europe and America. Security and stability in Europe, he says, are only possible in the context of close ties, at all levels, with the United States.
Aznar is described by some of his critics as inflexible and arrogant. Much of this can be attributed to his uncompromising war against Eta, the Basque separatists. In office, he differed from Blair because he refused to indulge in the fiction of negotiating with the terrorists’ supposed political wing — in Eta’s case, Batasuna. He banned them all, and by the time he left office his tough approach seemed to be working. Eta’s teeth had been effectively drawn. But, he notes bitterly, his war against Eta is being undermined by his successor’s policy of negotiating with the terrorists.
Spain has grown up fast since Franco’s death 30 years ago. Its democracy is strong, if still somewhat immature; its television is still in thrall to the government of the day; its institutions, both private and public, are still too politicised. But Spain has bought a oneway ticket out of the old stultifying authoritarianism. For that it owes a debt to the uncharismatic José María Aznar, the former tax inspector who has dragged one of Europe’s most backward states into the glare of the 21st century. Spain has grown up.
Well, almost. Spain and Britain have provided two contrasting models for reacting to terrorism. Will other Europeans, faced with similar trauma, react like Spaniards or Britons? It is likely that the unfortunate Aznar will not be the last European leader whose fate is decided by Islamic terrorists.
Previous page
