When a Mother Country
Tells Its Kid, ‘Shut Up’
By SIMON ROMERO, The New
York Times
CARACAS, Venezuela -
Even though they
achieved independence
more than a century ago,
the Spanish-speaking
nations of Latin America
often look to Spain as a
reference point.
Sometimes the mother
country is a foil,
sometimes a support,
sometimes a mirror, for
what unfolds on this
side of the Atlantic.
In recent weeks, Spain
clearly has been cast as
both a punching bag for
Latin America’s leftists
and a bastion of valor
for its moderates, after
a dissing match in which
a king of Spain took
offense at a Venezuelan
president’s remarks and
told him, very publicly:
“Why don’t you shut up?”
The dressing down
quickly took on a life
of its own. King Juan
Carlos’s blunt question
instantly become the
campaign slogan of the
day for enemies of
President Hugo Chávez.
It blared from YouTube
clips everywhere, rang
out from cellphones in
both Spain and
Venezuela, and screamed
from T-shirts all over
Caracas.
In the excitement, the
context of the exchange
was largely brushed
over: In addition to an
epic spectacle, the
comic opera offered a
terrific glimpse into
the unendingly
complicated relations
between Spain and its
former colonies.
First, what happened:
Seizing on a moment when
the king had returned
from a polemical tour of
small Spanish enclaves
near Morocco, Mr. Chávez
used a summit in Chile
of Latin American and
Iberian leaders to taunt
the Spaniards, applying
the word “fascist” to a
right-wing former
Spanish prime minister
who wasn’t even there.
The king’s rebuke
followed, and then
threats from Mr. Chávez
to review Spanish
investments in
Venezuela. Before it was
over, the president of
Nicaragua and even Fidel
Castro had chimed in to
defend Mr. Chávez with
allusions to Spanish
economic colonialism and
ancient racial
grievances.
There is a history to
all this. In the 1980s,
when Spain and much of
Latin America were
emerging from
authoritarian rule,
Spain was something of a
model as it moved beyond
Gen. Francisco Franco’s
long dictatorship. In
1981, leftists across
the region applauded
King Juan Carlos after
he helped thwart a
reactionary coup attempt
at home.
In the 1990s, the
relationship changed.
Cash-strapped Latin
American countries were
privatizing state
enterprises and offering
them for sale. Spaniards
snapped up banks,
electric utilities,
telephone companies and
road concessions. Latin
Americans called it “the
reconquest.”
Now, global migration
aggravates resentments.
Spain draws hundreds of
thousands of immigrants,
largely from the Andean
countries, and many
complain of xenophobic
treatment. Last month, a
beating of a teenage
Ecuadorean immigrant on
a train in Barcelona was
caught on video, and
prompted an outcry
across the Andes.
Meanwhile, Spain’s
investment in the region
has slowed drastically,
a result of a surge in
trade within the region,
new investment from
China and India, and
complaints against some
Spanish companies. So it
has become easy for a
populist to make points
with poor voters by
bashing Spain.
The spat at the summit
offered a good example.
When Daniel Ortega, the
former Marxist rebel
leader who is now
Nicaragua’s president,
took the microphone to
defend Mr. Chávez, he
also denounced a Spanish
utility with a virtual
monopoly on power
distribution in
Nicaragua.
Mr. Castro, from his
seclusion in Cuba,
framed the episode as
the Spanish monarchy’s
“ideological Waterloo.”
Himself the son of an
immigrant from Spain and
a Cuban woman, he raised
old race issues by
invoking his ancestral
connection to the Taínos,
Cuba’s pre-Columbian
inhabitants. “I have
Taíno, Canarian, Celtic
blood and who knows what
else,” he wrote in an
essay published last
week in his government’s
signature newspaper,
Granma.
In his attack on the
absent Spanish prime
minister, Mr. Chávez
employed a rich
Venezuelan tradition
that still shocks more
gentlemanly parts of
Latin America and the
Iberian peninsula: the
political insult. The
tradition “has been part
of our culture since the
early days of
independence, when
insulting a political
rival’s virility was the
norm,” said Francisco
Javier Pérez, author of
“The Insult in
Venezuela.” Mr. Chávez
has used it against
President Bush, Tony
Blair of Britain,
Vicente Fox of Mexico
and Alejandro Toledo of
Peru.
Mr. Chávez has outlasted
all of them in power,
except for Mr. Bush, and
may outlast him as well.
The Santiago
confrontation came just
weeks before a
referendum scheduled for
Dec. 2, which Mr. Chávez
hopes will allow him to
run for an indefinite
number of terms in
office. His critics say
the incident could have
been a distraction ahead
of the referendum, but
it may not end that way.
There are now about
300,000 Spaniards in
Venezuela, many of whom
moved here in search of
opportunity before
Spain’s economy lifted
off in the 1990s; many
of them are less than
thrilled about the
insults to Spain.
The influx, in fact, has
strengthened bonds
between Venezuela and
Spain, and they are
reflected here in
cuisine, music, trade,
even novels. One book
published this year, “La
Caraqueña del Maní,” by
the Spanish writer José
Luis Muñoz, captures the
complexity. The
protagonist is a Basque
exile seeking a new life
amid the demimonde here
of salsa bars and
Iberian eateries.
Over a meal of Txakolí
wine and Idiazábal
cheese, he sums up how
the New World, despite
its occasional outbursts
against Spain, still
fascinates the Old.
“Venezuela is a friendly
country,” Mr. Muñoz
says, “and if one is
lucky not to be caught
in the middle of a
gunfight, well, it’s
almost paradise.” |
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Spain’s king told Hugo
Chávez, “Why don’t you shut up?” Jesse Bravo of Texas
put the slogan on T-shirts, and sold them globally. |
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