LATIN AMERICAN DOSSIER PAGE 6

FEBRUARY 2006

The

Catalan

aff air

BETWEEN TRADITION AND DEMANDS FOR CHANGE

Saudi Arabia: reality check

BY IGNACIO RAMONET

GALERIE LELONG

FERRÁN GARCÍA SEVILLA: Cien 2 (1987)

The recent meeting between the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah confi rmed the solid relations between Riyadh and Washington. Most Saudis, however, care more about the situation at home, under a new ruler who claims to want to change society and the role of women, to combat poverty and to promote greater freedom.

BY ALAIN GRESH

THE intensity of the debate in

Spain about the Catalan statute of autonomy had been a cause of

concern over the past few weeks. Especially since General José Mena Aguado’s

statement in Seville on 6 January: “It is our duty to warn of the serious consequences

that the approval of the Catalan statute, in the terms in which it is drafted, could bring,

both for the armed forces as an institution and for the people who make up the armed

forces.” He pointed out that, under article 8 of the Spanish constitution, the mission

of the armed forces was to guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Spain,

to defend its territorial integrity and the constitutional order.

This intervention by a high-ranking offi cer in a politically tense situation had a painful

resonance for democrats. The timing was unfortunate: 20 November 2005 was the

30th anniversary of Franco’s death; soon it will be the 25th anniversary of Colonel

Tejero’s attempted coup of 23 February 1981; and in a few months it will be the 70th anni

versary of the uprising of 18 July 1936, the start of the civil war. Spain thought it was

done with pronouncements by the military, which were a familiar feature of national

political life through the 19th and 20th centuries, ending only with the adoption of the

present constitution in 1978. Times have changed, democracy has

taken root, and it is now unthinkable that a small band of offi cers could be a substan

tial threat. Gen Mena’s statement simply showed that a few military men still uphold

the interventionist tradition. The tradition had also been revived recently by the system

atic hate campaign by the rightwing Popular party against José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero’s

socialist government. Zapatero had taken various steps that aroused the wrath of the

most conservative elements. Take his decision, after his election in March 2004, to withdraw the troops rashly sent to Iraq by the former head of govern

ment, José María Aznar, even though 80% of Spaniards had been against it. Other meas

ures were even more controversial, notably the decision to return Catalan archives

looted by Franco’s troops in 1938 and held in

Salamanca. For weeks the rightwing media

bombarded the public with alarmist messages about the danger to the unity of Spain if the

archives were returned. The Popular party organised huge demonstrations against such

an act of vandalism. Then came the legalisation of gay marriages. Most Spaniards accepted the measure, but it raised an outcry in reactionary circles that

seemed to belong to a diff erent age. The Catholic church even went so far as to threaten that

mayors who performed such marriages would be excommunicated.

And there was the question of the new Catalan statute. Catalonia, like the Basque Country

and Galicia, has its own language and culture. The 1932 statute defi ned it as “an autonomous

region within the Spanish state”. It lost that status in 1939 but recovered it in 1979 when it

was one of 17 autonomous communities established in Spain. Under the terms of this con

stitutionally recognised statute, the Catalan government (the Generalitat) is empowered

to establish an independent police force and has devolved responsibilities for education,

health, social security, language and culture, and regional development.

Since November 2003, for the fi rst time since the end of the Franco regime, Catalonia

has had a leftwing government, a coalition of socialists, leftwing nationalists and Greens,

which promised to adopt a new statute. This statute did not propose any break

with Spain, was fi rmly embedded in the federal tradition and demanded recognition of

Catalonia as a nation. It was approved in September 2005 by 90% of the members of the

Catalan parliament and is under discussion in the parliament in Madrid.

The right and the church conducted a disgraceful anti-Catalan campaign. They com

mitted the full force of their media, which still wields considerable infl uence, and brought

out the cannon and boarding parties: shock and awe, the clatter of boots on barrack fl oors.

But despite all this, on 21 January the prime minister reached an agreement with the

leader of the Catalan nationalist party, and the new Catalan statute is to be adopted, with a

few amendments to bring it into line with the Spanish constitution.

TRANSLATED BY BARBARA WILSON

WHEN the deputy minister of

information asked me in 2002, “Will you talk about Saudi

Arabia objectively?” the question

seemed almost menacing. A few years later,

journalists enjoy much greater freedom to travel across the country and meet anyone

they wish, even intellectuals the authorities have forbidden to speak to the press.

This time a female journalist in the Jeddah head offi ce of the English language Saudi

Gazette asked: “Will you talk about Saudi Arabia objectively?” She wore a headscarf and

the lower part of her face was concealed, but there was nothing timid about her attitude or

the way she forced me on the defensive. She had just upset the authorities by publish

ing an article on choppy relations between Saudi Arabia and Libya; they put diplomatic

relations on hold for several months. She was covering the Organisation of the Islamic Con

ference (OIC) summit meeting in Mecca, talking to heads of state and political leaders.

So how do I answer the question? How can I be sure of giving an objective picture of a

country that is culturally so diff erent, with so much regional diversity and so many identi

ties? The language is not an obstacle for me, but how am I to rise above deep prejudice and

facile simplifi cation? However eager I may be to highlight social

and political change, progress and growing

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Israel: how a war criminal may be

transformed into a saint page 3

Tom Engelhardt: boys who played

cowboys and Indians page 4

Bolivia: the military may not take

socialism lying down page 6

Latin America: a radical alternative

to the free trade area page 7

Chile: new president but the same

old indigenous problems page 8

debate, the facts can’t be disregarded. Saudi

Arabia has a set menu for foreign journalists. They meet political leaders well versed in

empty language, westernised academics and business executives who speak English and

share the visitors’ world view. These encounters result in articles that all say the same

thing. So how to give a true account? Islam is at the core of Saudi Arabia, infl u

encing its way of life and its world outlook. Superfi cial observation may suggest that

Wahhabism is adequate as an all-encompassing description. But the country is home to

religious schools representing a wide range of traditions, including Sufi s, and has a lively

Shia minority. Far from being uniform, even Sunni Wahhabism has its own internal de

bate and discord, which has developed in recent years. But to appreciate the diversity,

one must listen carefully to men and women who operate inside another system of values,

use diff erent words from ours, and are understandably wary of the western media which

they consider, sometimes rightly, to be hostile to Islam.

Saudi Arabia, which has just joined the World Trade Organisation, is surfi ng on a

wave of rising oil prices. Earnings in 2005 reached almost $0.5bn a day. The prosperity

and economic drive is palpable. The value of

Continued on page 2

Cuba: the unjust case against

the Havana fi ve page 10

Azerbaijan: can it be democratic

if it’s ruled by a dynasty? page 11

Ryzard Kapuscinski: encounters

with the Other page 12

France: why memory is displacing

national history page14

John Berger: the photographer’s

path through the forest page 16