Category: History

Speaking of Dreams: Podemos and The Power of Listening

11/19/2014

Pablo Iglesias the newly elected leader of Podemos

If someone were to shout out that the mayor of your town was a corrupt so and so, and should be investigated for syphoning public funds into his Swiss bank account what would be your reaction? Would it be to call for a thorough investigation into the accusations or would it be to call up the accuser and ask why he had not had his shoes cleaned recently? Would it be to interview the mayor about the foreign bank account or would it be to question the accuser about his choice of haircut?

Then, were his replies about hair styles not to your satisfaction, you would be forgiven for dismissing such claims against the mayor, because, after all, anyone who walked around with dusty shoes couldn't possibly speak with authority about serious issues.
Well this, to many, is how Spanish Politics are being conducted right now. As new political formations are being formed and new calls for regional identity the Gazachomonk goes in search of answers and comes up with not only an insight into why Spain is in so much in pain right now, but also a handy remedy for dusty shoes too.

Health Warning: This is not a tweet-length post. It may be better absorbed with your feet up, a chocolate digie and a cup of Ovaltine in your hand. Or if you prefer, go to the bottom of the post and you'll see a link to the audio version you can download. Either way, Go Slow and expect only the unexpected. READ MORE...

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1984 And the Spanish Civil War

9/19/2014

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Tony Benn once recommended that we should ask our leaders 5 Important Questions:

What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interests do you exercise it?
To whom are you accountable?
And how can we get rid of you?

Now, it strikes me that, were I to sit Mariano Rajoy down with a drink and say: "Look Mariano, I'm going to ask you 5 questions, and between you, me and this glass of gazpacho, be honest." I think he'd answer:

Complete and Total
We have always had it.
Our own.
No-one
You can't.

But things were not always like this. Once upon a time - for a fleeting moment in history - Spain enjoyed a flourishing democracy unlike anything the world had seen before, but it lasted just a few months. One man, however, witnessed that moment and wrote down the lessons he learnt in 3 majorly important books:

Homage to Catalonia
Animal Farm
1984

And his name, was George Orwell. (Read More below for video and podcast on Orwell)

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An Interview With A Volunteer From The Spanish Civil War: Sol Frankel

9/12/2014

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To celebrate the anniversary of the creation of the International Brigades in Spain - and their fateful withdrawal supervised by the League of Nations - the GazpachOmnk presents this very special interview with a British International Brigadista: Sol Frankel.

Sol Frankel

One warm and sunny October evening, 12 years ago I received an unexpected phone call. "Could I give a talk on Living in Spain at a Hotel in Almuñecar, on the Granada coast?" The presenter had fallen ill and they needed a quick replacement.

That same evening I stood in front of a group of British pensioners attempting unsuccessfully to satisfy probing questions on oily food, the whereabouts of fresh milk and why more Spaniards don't speak English. At one point I managed to lever the subject away from British culinary needs and onto Spanish Culture and Spanish history. Immediately, one guy began to snore, several couple shuffled out towards the bar, whilst the rest passed round a packet of Fisherman's Friends. One man, however, sitting at the front, looked up and waved his walking stick in my direction as I mentioned the British volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.

"Yes?" I said, as he signalled for me to approach .

"I remember," he said, thrusting the stick at me as though it was a rifle, "the only weapons we had then were antiquated Russian rifles that had come via Mexico."

"You remember?" I said.

"Yes, of course." He replied. "After all, I was there." (Read on for the full interview with Sol Frankel, the International Brigade fighter.)

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Leòn Felipe: The Poetical Pharmacist

6/30/2014

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Leòn Felipe is today's curious character from Spanish history. This series of brief posts aim to simply introduce you to some of the lesser known individuals of contemporary Spanish history.

People who lived life with a passion and a dedication to principle, politics and culture.

Leòn Felipe was a reluctant pharmicist but avid anti-fascist poet born in Zamora, Spain.

He had earlier worked as a stand up comic in a touring theatre company, spent 3 years in prison for fraud and later worked as a literature professor in the USA.

Leòn Felipe fought in the civil war in defense of the Republic and in 1938 was exiled to Mexico where he died 30 years later.

"Brother, yours is the estate,

The house, the horse and the gun,

Mine is the old voice of the earth.

You have everything.

Yet I leave you voiceless, voiceless,

I go off with the song."

Felipe and Che Guevara's Notebooks

He remains, with Garcia Lorca, one of most well remembered poets of the generation of 27

It is said that several of Felipe's poems were found in the notebook of Che Guevara's when he was finally captured by the Bolivian Army and the CIA.

Want mOre stories on Characters From the Spanish civil war? Read about the Ambulance Man, the Spy and the Exodus below.

http://www.speakingofspain.com/1/post/2014/02/the-untold-story-from-the-civil-war-the-spy-the-blood-bank-and-the-exodus-of-a-city.html

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Orson Welles And His Affair With Spain

6/24/2014

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What does the name Orson Welles conjure up to you? The voice behind War of the Worlds? The voice behind Findus Peas? Or the creative genius of Citizen Kane? Well how about this...think not Orson Welles but Awesome Well - for thats where the great man ended up: lobbed down a well on the outskirts of Ronda in Andalusia.

This is the story of how the best film director of all time (British Film Institute) - a man remembered for his love of wine, food, beards and cigars - built a relationship with Spain that spread over the course of his entire life.

Hemingway and "The Spanish Earth"

Some say it all began when Orson arrived at the age of 17 in Seville and fell in love with the city, the romance and the bulls. Others say it happened at a later stage, when asked by Hemingway to narrate the classic film in support of the Spanish Republic: The Spanish Earth.

Orson was chosen to narrate the film because he had become the voice of his times. He could convince you that the Earth was being invaded by Martians, or that Carlsberg is "Probably the best lager in the world" or that frozen peas were something to salivate over in the supermarket.

But such a voice can be too good, as he was to discover later in life. Hemingway, came to a similar conclusion and ended up narrating another version of the film, saying Welles was too dramatic and his voice shifted the focus away from the real issues underlying the film. Whatever the true reason, Orson's love affair with the country had begun and wouldn't end until his body would be tossed down a well in the deep south of Spain.

(Read the rest of this article here)

“Nuestros trabajos en piedra, en pintura, en impreso están a salvo -algunas de ellas por unas pocas décadas, o uno o dos milenios- pero finalmente todo deberá caer en la guerra o desaparecer en la final y universal ceniza. Los triunfos y los fraudes, los tesoros y las falsificaciones. Es un hecho de la vida. Vamos a morir. "Se de buen corazón", grita el artista muerto desde el pasado vivo, "nuestras canciones serán todas silenciadas, ¿pero qué importa?, sigue cantando.”

Orson and La Corrida

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The Death of an Idea: Final Part in the Silenced Revolution Series.

6/1/2014

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People say you can’t kill an idea, but you can. For that's what happened in Spain in 1937.

The Promise of a New World

In the last two episodes (Read Part 1 & Part 2) we saw how the anarchist movement in Spain had propelled parts of the country into a future where everyone owned the land they lived on, the factories they worked in and the canteens they ate in. It was the people themselves that ran the public transport system, that ran their hospitals and built their schools. It was an idealistic world that gave everyone a voice, a part to play and a future without corruption, injustice or repression from the state, the church or the army. This was the long-awaited anarchist revolution.

No other political or social ideology would come close to the anarchist movement of 1936 in Spain, yet by 1937 the movement had not only been dealt a death blow, but its very existence had begun to be eradicated from the minds and memory of popular history in a chilling pre-run of Orwells 1984.

How could this happen? And why - 80 years later - are we seeing the shoots of the movement once more arise between the down-trodden soles of the disenchanted and unemployed in Spain? Read More here.....

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