Tim Parfitt

Let’s start with the guy on a horse who I didn’t include in last week’s blog, the one who’d posted a video of himself on Facebook saying, ‘Long live Spain!’ and ‘Long live Franco!’ – it was even reported that he was a former Spanish Foreign ‘legionnaire’. He said other stuff on the video, too. He said Carles Puigdemont was a ‘queer sewer rat bastard’, ‘a piece of shit, a parasite’, and that he hoped the Civil Guard put him ‘in a cage and transported him to the centre of Madrid in the back of a van for 16 hours’. Once Puigdemont was in Madrid, he hoped ‘prisoners fucked him in the ass non-stop, raped him and left him pregnant by one of those bastard Moors’. Then he said the ‘Viva España!’ and ‘Viva Franco!’ bit. There was another photo of him on social media greeting Xavier García Albiol, the ‘leader’ of what’s left in Catalonia of Spain’s ruling PP party, and the man recently referenced as an example of racist politics in a Council of Europe report.

The reason I’ve started with the guy on the horse is not because (as far as I know) he’s been allowed to say what he said without any legal repercussions … unlike, for example, insulting God or the Virgin Mary, or singing songs that criticise the king of Spain, which can land you in prison for over 2 years. No, it’s because of the anger and search for violence. I can only imagine the abuse he spat out on Thursday evening, after the news of Puigdemont’s release in Germany, when he realised the Catalan leader wouldn’t be spending 16 hours in the back of a van to Madrid to be fucked in the ass non-stop. I’m sure he blamed Germany and all Germans for this change of plan, in the same way many other Spaniards have done. It’s the Blame Game in Spain under this PP government, you see – it’s always someone else’s fault. It is never Spain’s fault. Don’t forget that foreign robots are to blame for the images of 1^st October. And it’s worse: they’ve started to believe their own lies.

Last week, it was the international media who were to blame for Spain’s inability to politically and democratically resolve the Catalan crisis. The Times newspaper was blamed by the Spanish Ambassador in London for its critical editorials of Mariano Rajoy’s government. Similarly, Le Monde, The Financial Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and The Washington Post have all been criticised for recommending political dialogue, or for demanding the release of political prisoners, or for questioning Spain’s democracy, the existence of the Franco Foundation or Franco’s grotesque mausoleum, or reporting on Spain’s ‘medieval’ Easter parades and the bizarre ‘tradition’ of singing Franco songs like ‘The Bridegrooms of Death’. How dare we criticise Spain (or Francoism)?

In the past few months, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Amnesty International and even the United Nations Human Rights Committee have all been blamed for something or other – from questioning human rights and freedom of speech in Spain, or for simply allowing Catalan politicians to stay and move around freely in their own countries, permitting them to hold press conferences and participate in debates, and even welcoming them with open arms. The PP’s Spain blames everyone else, not Spain itself, and never Rajoy. Right now, at the time of writing this, it’s the same with the Cristina Cifuentes ‘Master falsification’ story, brilliantly uncovered by journalists at El Diario online newspaper. But it is not Cifuentes’s fault that her qualifications have been falsified. No, it is El Diario’s fault for uncovering the story. How dare they? Oh, and their sources are also to blame.

Mikko Kärnä, a Finnish MP, has sent messages to both Mariano Rajoy and the king of Spain, complaining of the ‘feedback’ he’s received from some Spanish citizens whilst defending the right for Catalans to have a vote, and also for simply hosting Carles Puigdemont in Finland. One such ‘feedback’, he posted, was: ‘[You] son of a great whore, I shit on your fucking mother, if they expel Spain [from EU] I come to your country and I behead you all and your family.’ But all this is Finland’s fault, of course, not Spain’s. And then there’s a Spanish politician, Antonio Miguel Carmona, actually a PSOE member in Madrid, calling a German MP an ‘idiot’ for offering his house to Puigdemont in Germany … it just goes on and on.

So, yes, this week it was Germany’s turn to be blamed for Spain’s total failure to peacefully, politically and democratically resolve the Catalan pro-independence issue. All Germans are to blame, actually – especially those living in Mallorca. According to Spain’s ‘top right-wing radio guru’ (or simply put, a ‘nutter’), Federico Jiménez Losantos, those 200,000 Germans living in the Baleares could become hostages, and breweries in Bavaria could start to blow up. I actually cringed with embarrassment for Spain, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ‘Brand Spain’ itself when I read that the police in Germany were aware of the ‘threats’ and would be looking into the matter. I think the Audiovisual Board of Catalonia are also ‘analysing’ the issue (and so they should), but there’s been no comment or apology from any Spanish politician, as far as I know. You see, Germany is to blame, not Losantos.

Despite Germany’s Justice Minister, Katarina Barley, saying that the Schleswig-Holstein court’s decision on Carles Puigdemont’s release was ‘absolutely right’ – Spain’s Foreign Minister, Alfonso Dastis, has still labelled her remarks as ‘unfortunate’. But, hey, you know … he’s the same guy who told the BBC and CNN that the images of Spanish police brutality against innocent Catalan votes on 1^st October were fake. Katarina Barley went further with her comments. Having dismissed the crime of rebellion, the only offence that could prompt Puigdemont’s extradition would be the misuse of public funds – and according to Barley, ‘it won’t be easy’ for Spain to prove it. The above-mentioned example of a racist politician (according to the Council of Europe), Albiol, warned that the German court’s decision could undermine Spanish citizens’ trust in the European Union’s extradition mechanism. So you see … it’s the EU’s extradition mechanism that is also to blame, not Spain. Then there’s the PP spokesman in Brussels, Esteban González Pons, also criticising Germany, saying that because the European Arrest Warrant didn’t work, the whole Schengen Treaty ‘doesn’t make sense.’ You get the drift? It’s the Schengen Treaty that’s also to blame … not Spain. Never, ever Spain.

This week, there was also an unprecedented message delivered by David Kaye, a UN Human Rights expert. He urged the Spanish authorities to refrain from the criminal charge of rebellion against political figures and protestors in Catalonia that carry jail sentences of up to 30 years. Such sentences ‘raise serious risks of deterring wholly legitimate speech’. I believe that during this coming week, a Scottish judge will also refuse to extradite Clara Ponsatí on the charge of rebellion. Why? Because a rebellion simply did not take place. It will then be Scotland’s turn to be blamed. Not Spain. Never Spain.