🙏 This Week in Spain: Calm Before the Storm
Also: a Holy Week compilation, Puigdemont is running and more racism in football.
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | March 28, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #50
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*Rolling tumbleweeds*
🫣 Nothing to See Here: It’s Semana Santa!
Praise Jesus!
Gone (or at least paused) are the days of non-stop whataboutism in Parliament. Because in Spain the term “Holy Week” literally means a week and for a full seven days before Easter Sunday, all the yelling we saw last week gives way to solemn (and temporary) acts of piety.
Long story short, nothing happened this week. It was the best gift you could have given us. Seriously. We needed a break.
OK, let us rephrase. Stuff happened this week, obvs. But this rare oasis of civility caused by everyone being on freaking vacation means that, yeah sure, Parliament is technically open and fully functional but no one is paying attention, as Spaniards are completely checked out for the long weekend. And as the old saying goes: If a politician yells in the forest and no one is there, do they still make a polémica?
We’d like to begin by thanking Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, opposition PP boss Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, and next PP boss/Queen Troll Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso for doing…not much.
Like how “not much” are we talking about? Big news: Ayuso traveled to Chile (aka the Indiana of Latin America) and the PSOE tried to claim that the PP politician was “fleeing” there to avoid the scandal involving her boyfriend’s dodgy tax filings scandal. But while everybody acknowledged the whole thing is dodgy, and Chile is a weird place to go in general, they were also trying to get away for the holiday so they didn’t give much of a 💩 about her trip.
Oh, and sorry for forgetting you, Santiago Abascal (he leads that far right party Vox) and Yolanda Díaz (she leads the far left party Sumar)! But with the whole holiday thing you dropped so far off the radar we sorta forgot you.
Now, that doesn’t mean nothing happened. It just means not much important happened. So, in the name of keeping us all educated, here’s the little bits that did come to pass:
Remember the drama at state-owned RTVE over plans to hire progressive late night TV host David Broncano for millions (we wrote about it here)? Well, it didn’t end well for the president of the public broadcaster, who was fired this week.
Former Barça star/current-day rapist Davi Alves managed to pull together €1m from friends and benefactors for his rape-bail and left prison, thus giving him a break from his four years+ sentence (for an explanation of how that happened, here’s what we wrote last week). There were lots of people waiting for him outside the Barcelona prison. All of them were actively booing him as he made the trip to the car that would take him to his home.
Speaking of disgraced football personalities, Luis Rubiales, who kissed Spanish woman’s national team player Jenny Hermoso without her consent after winning the Women’s World Cup last year, may get over 2 years in prison for it.
Hurray! The Spanish economy keeps growing and it’s now one of the best performing countries in Europe, far exceeding expectations. Why, you ask? Apparently it’s investment in greening and digitalization as well as growth in housing demand because, let’s face it, everyone wants to live in Spain. Yay, us!
Ugh, not so fast. Inflation in Spain also grew this month (3.2% from a year earlier) as the national government “continued to remove support that had helped keep a lid on soaring energy costs”. Sad face.
Happy Semana Santa folks, you deserve it. So do we.
But first, more news below!
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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week
1. ☔️ Yes María, Semana Santa weather does always suck
Things are so slow we really are talking about the weather.
“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.” Ha! Julie Andrews lies like a rug. This Semana Santa, the rain has been falling everywhere. The plain. The coast. The mountain. Like literally, everywhere. People are blaming the named storm of the moment, Nelson (always blame the English). But it’s not just him. In the words (and picture) of national weather service AEMET:
Every.freaking.where: “During the period from March 20 to 26, rainfall affected the entire peninsular territory and archipelagos, with many areas exceeding 10 mm.”
Dumb question: We know it’s a cliché, but is it true-ish that Semana Santa weather is always C-R-A-P while the week before is always glorious? Luckily, we have several meteorologists liberal arts majors on staff to get to the bottom of this. Actually, more luckily, ElTiempo.es crunched data from AEMET, so we have something like facts. Such as…
Semana Santa is wet when it falls at the end of March. Seriously, just click here.
The map shows that in almost all of Spain, rain falls during the last week of March Semana Santas more than 80% of the time.
Examples: In Cádiz (where one of your faithful Tapa editors is) it rains 80% of years, and 30% of the days during the last week of March. In very wet Santander, it’s 93% of the years, and 48% of days.
So ready your umbrella, blame Nelson, and if it helps…think of the droplets as the tears of the Lord. If we can find actual stats on the great weather of the week before Semana Santa, we’ll be back with them soon.
2. 📴 We almost lost Telegram (but didn’t!)
Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz issued an order to block messaging service Telegram in Spain on Friday. Then over the weekend he had an Oh Shit What Have I Done? moment and on Monday issued another order suspending the first order and asking the police to prepare a report on the app and how banning it would affect users.
Was he drunk when he issued the first order…or the second? Probably neither. It’s just that Spain tends to shoot first and ask questions later on these things. You see…
Spain has some issues with tech and copyright. Spanish regulators have been historically super protective of local content owners. At the behest of media rights holders and Spanish fútbol league La Liga, the Policia Nacional busted the boss of sports pirate site Rojadirecta back in 2016. More recently, efforts have moved from those who broadcast pirated games to those who consume them, as Spanish footy recently won the right to sue viewers who watch games via illegal websites and streaming feeds.
How’d it start this time? The blocking order came after Big Ass Media (Movistar +, Atresmedia and Mediaset) complained that people were setting up channels on the messaging app to share Big Ass Media’s sports and entertainment content without permission. Oh my god we are shocked 😱!
So we wrote to the address on the ‘About Us’ page: Seems like Pedraz sent a request to Telegram’s base in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) saying, like, “Give me the names of the admins who run these content channels” and, in a shocking move Telegram, did not respond. So Pedraz asked the BVI authorities to deliver the request but still didn’t get a response. Which is totally surprising because tech companies that are set up in the Caribbean are usually there because they’re trying to be transparent and stuff.
So Spanish judge got all “I will not be ignored” and ordered Telegram to be shut.
Then Pedraz changed his mind and called his own plan to shut Telegram an "excessive and non-proportional measure". Confused? We were too.
So what happened and what’s different this time?
A different target. The Telegram ban goes a step further than previous judicial slams. It shifts from hitting those making money from illegal streaming and those consuming those streams (thieves and users of stolen content) to the company that’s transporting the content. The wires, if you will.
Also, anonymous. The complaint from the media companies was aimed at several channels on Telegram that were sharing stolen content. Thing is, Telegram users can create channels to share content anonymously (and only with channel members). And Telegram prides itself on anonymity. As in…
Telegram owner Pavel Durov has, according to Bloomberg, historically used a “light touch to moderate content on the service, leading to allegations that it is frequently used for criminal activity and extremist material.” Basically, everything goes, and Durov has no interest in stopping that by taking away people’s anonymity.
Like killing a mosquito with a hammer. Pedraz backtracked when he realized shutting Telegram would have a big negative impact (or an "excessive and non-proportional” one, to use Pedraz’s words) on the 18% or so of Spaniards (about 8.5m) who use Telegram and wouldn’t necessarily get the content removed..
In other words…”Duh!” Fernando Suárez, president of the General Council of Professional Colleges of Computer Engineering of Spain, told El País the original shutdown order was “like deciding to close a province of our country because a case of drug trafficking or a robbery occurred within the territory.”
TL;DR: You’ll have Telegram for a while as the police prepare their report—and in the process let the judge forget his involvement in this whole thing.
3. 😥 Vini Jr. has had enough of racism in Spanish football
Real Madrid star Vinicius Jr. broke down in a press conference before Tuesday’s “friendly” game between the Spanish and Brazilian national teams (he’s from Brazil) at Real Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium. The reason? A series of racist attacks directed against him during games in Spain. And the quotes were intense.
“I feel less and less like playing”, a red-eyed Vinicius answered when asked about racist taunts. “All I want is to play football and for Black people not to suffer.”
“I’m sure that Spain isn’t a racist country, but there are a lot of racists here and a lot of them are in the stadiums,” he told reporters. “I’ve had to show a lot of Spaniards what racism is and that it really affects me.”
“Since the first time I officially complained about racism in Spain’s stadiums,” he added, “things have gotten worse because, since they aren’t punished, they are getting stronger.”
Vini has been subjected to racism taunts repeatedly over the last few years, including an exceptional one we wrote about that occurred in Valencia last May.
Repeated racist chants (usually based on the Spanish word for monkey) pushed Vinicius into clashes with fans, and in a confusing incident, his own expulsion from the game.
Vini then tweeted that in Brazil, Spain was now known as a “country of racists”, and the tweet went mad (it’s since been viewed 74m+ times).
The Spanish football federation announced a series of sanctions against Valencia including a €45,000 fine (the highest ever given to a club for supporters’ racist attitudes) and the closure of the stands where the chants came from— and the National Police arrested three suspects. Not only that, but four Atlético de Madrid “ultras” were arrested for hanging an effigy of Vinicius from a bridge in a previous incident. (Spanish justice, often slow, can move quickly when pushed.)
But still there is clearly racism in Spanish stadiums—and people in football are loath to admit it.
A columnist in the Barcelona sports daily Sport wrote the day after Vini Jr’s press conference that his real problem wasn’t the chants. He said Vini should ask why other Black players didn’t have the same problems, and seemed to suggest it was his attitude on the pitch that was the cause.
Paraguay’s retired national team star José Luis Chilavert stepped in (it) as well on Twitter/X to complain about Vini: “Bread and circus. The first who attacks and insults his rivals is him. Don’t be a crybaby. Football is for men.”
Ultimately, the issue is the common mindset among football fans that “anything I can do to unsettle an opposing player is good gamesmanship” but, really, when that unsettling involves suggesting the opposing player is a monkey, it’s just racism. And the idea that admitting it hurts makes Vini “un-manly”? C’mon…
One piece of good news: Vinicius received rousing ovations—not taunts—when he was announced and when he came off the field in the Spain-Brazil match.
4. 👀 It’s Official: Puigdemont is running for Catalonia presi
Carles Puigdemont, the onetime and (he hopes) future president of Catalonia (oh, and current outlaw/Belgian tourist) who spearheaded the illegal/unconstitutional/etc. 2017 independence referendum in the region is already trying to reap the benefits of the soon-to-be-passed amnesty bill.
Puigdemont fled Spain in the aftermath of his failed unilateral declaration of Catalan independence seven years ago and took refuge in a McMansion in Waterloo, a Brussels suburb, to avoid getting arrested by the Spanish authorities (we’ve explained this a bazillion times).
And yet, he continued to be the symbolic leader of his separatist party Junts. That means he hit jackpot after last July’s general elections, when PM Sánchez failed to clinch a majority in Parliament and was forced to strike a deal with his pro-independence party for amnesty in exchange for the votes to get reelected.
That the bill is (at least for now) on its way to be passed, and the former Catalan boss is preparing his grand return. He announced last week at a rally in Elna, Southern France, that he’s running for Catalan president in the May elections.
Speaking before some 1,000 people (in Spain, the organizers would say 1.3 m and the authorities 28), he said he would look for a chance to “return to the presidency” that he was “unjustly and illegally” removed from back in 2017.
Puigdemont also vowed not to renounce “declaring full independence” from Spain “if this is what the Catalans want”. This does not appear to be what they want, but that’s a story for another time.
Now, a curiosity: Puigdemont is not banned from running for office (in fact, he already ran in 2021) because he hasn’t been indicted or convicted for rebellion or terrorism (he’s an outlaw/Belgian tourist, after all). He also doesn’t need to be in Spanish territory to run or be sworn in as an MP, and Catalonia’s parliament allows for remote voting. However… he says he wants to return. What happens then?
The “moral” leader of the independence movement is involved in two court cases: one in which he’s being accused of stealing money and ignoring the law to run the referendum; and the “tsunami democratic” case, in which he’s being investigated for terrorism activities (though no charges have been filed).
If Puigdemont decides to return to Spain before the amnesty bill is passed, legal experts say he would definitely be arrested and sent to prison. There is an arrest warrant for him after all.
But… The amnesty bill, which has been passed in Spain’s Parliament and sent to the Senate, will probably stall there for two months. Then it will eventually be sent back to Parliament, where it will certainly be passed before the end of May, allowing for the return of Puigdemont a month later.
The Catalan elections are scheduled to take place on May 12 and all political parties are getting ready for a contentious campaign that will kick off on April 5. Besides Puigdemont and the other usual pols (from the regional PSOE, ERC, the PP, etc) it will also feature Silvia Orriols, the mayor of Ripoll, who’s a right-wing separatist like Puigdemont—but anti-Islamic to boot! As Samuel L. Jackson liked to say, hold on to your butts.
5. ✝️ Holy Week (Part 1) Compilation
The 10-day period between the Friday of Sorrows and Easter Sunday—what we like to call Semana Santa or Holy Week—is filled with Jesus-themed events, from processions and floats to music recitals and crucifixion reenactments.
Every year, there are multiple situations that catch the attention of the populace because they are either curious or just plain funny. So here are a few things for you to discuss.
All bow to Emperor Fernando López Miras (see video above)
Murcia regional president (aka governor) Fernando López Miras was the talk of the town this past weekend after dressing up as Roman emperor Theodosius I ( or Theodosius the Great) and leading the Friday of Sorrows parade in the town of Lorca. On a quadriga, no less (that’s a chariot pulled by four horses, for those of you not really acquainted with ancient Roman chariot racing slang).
López Miras reeeeeeally seemed to be into it (seriously, see video above), with people chanting and cheering from the crowds. He was wearing an elaborate costume, that according to the media was “a historic mantle adorned with a medallion from 1935, embroidered in rich shades of green”.
Not everyone thought it was appropriate for the highest authority in the region to cosplay an all-powerful emperor while in office, of course. People on X/Twitter have called him a “clown” and “tacky” (wonder why?) and criticized him for indulging in the stunt while the region has “the highest school dropout in all of Spain”.
More Holy Week poster controversy
Remember the “sexy Jesus” scandal and how some angry people called Seville’s official Holy Week poster “offensive” because it featured an “effeminate” Jesus who looked “gay”? (He was skinny and had delicate facial features instead of looking all oiled and muscly like Rambo III.) Well, here’s another poster controversy for you.
The Brotherhood of Jesús Nazareno, in the town of Priego de Córdoba, Andalucía, has released a poster advertising the morning of Good Friday that totally doesn’t look like the Spanish remake of Brokeback Mountain.
The comments online have been exactly what you think. Enjoy.
Antonio Banderas consoling these two girls
Antonio Banderas is not only an international movie star—he’s also Spanish. Which means Holy Week is very important to him. That’s why every year he participates in the festivities in Malaga, his home town, as a member of one of the brotherhoods.
Banderas was supposed to carry the throne of the Virgin on Tears and Favors last Sunday, along with his brotherhood companions, but the weather was so bad that the parade could not leave the Church of San Juan.
Considering that these people put many hours into this event that they were awaiting the entire year, this came as a big disappointment (especially since it hadn’t rained in months). Many people in the church started to cry after learning they would not be able to get out and Banderas, being the awesome guy that he is, was seen consoling many of them. Vamos Antonio!
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"Things are so slow we really are talking about the weather". Rich seam.
Glorious. Pun always intended (even the loose ones).