Swastika Eyes

I read an article in "el Pais" yesterday. The Israeli embassador in Spain was seriously arguing in favour of the possibility that a law that prohibits denial of the holocaust is imposed throughout the European Union. I 've been reading a lot about such issues recenlty, mostly because of a growing intetrest in prohibition in general during the last year or two. First David Irving, a British self-taught historian that is questioning some aspects of the Shoa (that is the mass murders of Jews by the Nazis) gets arrested in Austria and charged for this exact questioning, then some Danish cartoonists gets into serious trouble for depicting the prophet Mohamed in their sketches and a performance of Mozart's "Idomeneo" is sensored in Berlin because of presenting the decapitated heads of Jesus, Budha and Mohamed. Then again, two days ago, Alen Jason an unfortunate 55-year old passenger of the Australian Quantas airlines was not allowed to board the plane for wearing a T-shirt that was mocking the president of the USA and only yesterday the Esthonian government introduced a law according to which there is penalty of imprisonment for using "symbols of opression" such as the swastika and the communist hammer & sickle....

It seems we are living in interesting times...

This whole prohibition thing is actually more rediculous than it sounds. Mostly because it is useless. Irving's views on the holocaust are un-historic in themselves, the danish sketches were seriously lacking taste, Idomeneo's performance was only meant to provoke and by the uproar it caused, its un-talented director got the publicity he wanted. I am not even going to comment about the poor guy's cancelled trip and as regarding to the Esthonian government my apologees for the picture I post here, which is actually a 1907 US postcard!!!

But jokes aside, there is a serious problem with all this rhetoric, which is slowly becoming a dangerous prospect. Millions of people died in the Nazi concentration camps (a significant part of them homosexuals, crippled, communists and gypsies, for whom somehow the term holocaust cannot be applied, since it is something like a propaganda trademark), but what their death mostly signifies is the ultimate proof of the virtues of democracy and freedom of expression, noble causes for which humanity has mourned an even greater number of martyrs throughout its history. And I really do not see how threatening any wirdo who wishes to deny historical facts with imprisonment or fines will make the truth tru-er or protect our democratic and ethical values in any manner.

All over the world there are individuals that keep denying the holocaust, as there are people that believe that slavery actually benefited the Africans and that the physical extermination of american Indians was an inescepable consequence of civilization. I bet there are people out there that consider bloody dictators like Pinochet and Videla as saviours of their countries while I personally know a few people that think that Franco's rule in Spain was the best thing that happened to this country and claim the Spanish Civil War with its 600.000 dead to have been worth it! What about all these nutbags? I say we lock them all up in the same cell with Irving!

Evenmore, I think we should keep one step ahead and prohibit NOW before it's too late, the denial of all physical laws. Assure our societies once and for all that they are safeguarded against deniers of the gravitational force, the lunatics that think there scooters may be faster than light and all the dangerous subversives that dare to object to the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics! And what about going even further in truth-abusing prevention and classify as an utter crime of sacriledge the statement that Maradona's goal against England in '86 was indeed scored by God himself! I mean, what graver example of historical distortion of facts!

I will agree with most of you that comparing Maradona's handed revenge with the death of millions in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen may even be offending, but that is not what is at stake here. What the real point is, is one of our societies main difference with the Nazi, Weimar society of the late 1930s. And that is the freedom of thought and expression. In our societies -at least until now- history is written by historians and not politicians, it is shaped by the collective memory of the people and not some propaganda-pushing lobbies and there are NO historical truths imposed by law! This is a right our grand-fathers earned by fighting fascism, our fathers preserved by fighting military dictators and we have the responsibility to safeguard with our word.

As for the Israeli embassador in Spain -whose name I am glad to be forgetting- I just hope he keeps in mind that "universal lawfull truths" are very likely to eventually demand "final solutions". And if he is so un-historical to be willing to allow this, we surely aren't.

My two left feet

Sometimes it feels a bit uncomfortable just to be around, going through your everyday routine. At the movies, all films look the same, at the gym you don't feel sore but numb, you don't really care if things go right or wrong, you actually don't give a crap if anything goes.

You don't pay attention to what people tell you neither you care about what they think of it. You have no appetite but still feel hungry, you go on with the next beer although you already feel dizzy. It seems as nothing makes really sense.

As if you were trying to walk around with two left feet.

We often think about things that will put our lives in perspective, that will make us open our eyes to what really matters. Then, when these things suddenly happen, when the bad news leave you numb, sinking in your sofa under waves of irony, you see no perspective. You just close your eyes and hope it goes away, you wish there was no perspective and that you still considered a new pair of pants smutted with oil, the rain you face from your window on a Saturday morning, or your moody flatmate's outbreaks of wining to be the real problems.

But you can't.

You just curse all new year's wishes that seem to have been pointless, then you go into denial and think nothing's really worth it. And then you sit back and realize all you can do is let the time pass, leave enough space between you and the uncomfortable truths that lie ahead of you, not because you want to avoid them, but because you need enough room to run when you 'll finally have to jump over them. Until then you can only try to keep balance on two left feet.

Just another "guiri"

Last Saturday I went out shopping. It's true that I needed a new coat. I still do, since I did not buy it. The winter sales frenzy had taken over my fellow "Barceloneses", (tourists included) and I was soon fed up with trying to enter stores packed with people, sweating just to manage to grab the item I had spotted and then queue all the way to the dressing room and to the cashier's. And though there are people that still find this an amusing way to spend their Saturday mornings, I don't.

I soon found myself, wondering around the crowded streets around the old port. I saw the flocks of British tourists -the "guiris" as the locals call them-, stretching out their tummies to face the sun, having their beers with shrimps instead of the traditional fish and chips, casting their lazy shadows all around the Rambla del Mar. I went on, up the Rambla, on a winter afternoon that felt like spring, with the sun showering the poplars with its coppery light, watched the kids passing by, adoring their huge cotton candies, the street-theater heroes, some performing restlessly, other still, motionless human statues covered with body paint.

I stopped at a second-hand bookseller's bench and bought a collection of Julio Cortazar's novels for 2 euros, put it under my armpit and strolled by Plaza Reial like the fake boheme intellectual I would like to be, stopped and read the opening part of "Rayuela" at my favourite Plaza del Rei, had a cup of coffee and headed towards Passeig de Gracia.

It was getting dark when I arrived at Plaza Catalunya. The shoppers, beaten and exhausted, were flooding the streets outside Corte Ingles and around Portal del Angel. The shoplifters and the pickpockets were calling it a day, while the tourists were just getting ready for Saturday night and as the last light of the day was brushing off the golden rooftops of Casa Rocamora, I felt ridiculously happy, satisfied and complete, silently amazed by the city I am -sometimes uselessly- spending my days and eventually realized, that although almost a year has passed, I am still, just another guiri.