Guerra tizando

We are, it seems, at war.

Spain too - after a fashion. Having stood proud next to Bush and Blair for a few weeks, when the fighting began, Spain became just another official cheerleader alongside Uzbekistan and Eritrea.

The question is, was it worth it? Neutral in both World Wars, Spain historically doesn't get involved in any international conflict it hasn't started. Yet suddenly it has a side - and one that the people don't like in the slightest.

As soon as this war finally began, President Aznar promised a restless parliament that, despite his fighting words alongside his new playground buddies, Spanish troops would never be involved in the conflict.

This declaration was made slightly less significant when someone pointed out that Spain wasn't invited to send troops in the first place. Aznar responded with a large dose of unconscious irony and sent the Spanish flag Gulfwards on a ship of 'humanitarian aid' and an oil tanker. Fill her up while she's there, would you?

Aznar - called An-sar by satirists because that was how President Bush once introduced him - looked very strange standing next to Bush and Blair pre-war. People here seemed confused too, as if they'd just seen their dad on Sex in the City. The general conclusion is that he just turned up and both Bush and Blair assumed that the other had invited him. Now that mistake has been cleared up, he's come back home, to be forgotten by the world until the next Allies Reunited meet-up (book your flight to the Azores now, keep an eye on Colin Powell and the twiglet bowl).

Ansar has already said he won't stand in the elections next year but prospective successors in his party are hardly throwing themselves forward into the limelight, in case they'd be forced to endorse a war that more than 80% of the population are against. His party is filled with former Franco supporters; Ansar himself had argued against the formation of a constitutional democracy once the mad dictator had finally popped it. What you think of the man mostly depends on which paper you read - he's either a man of integrity who's improving Spain's standing on the international stage, or a muppet of the highest order, whose head is so far up his arse he uses his lungs as a comb.

Meanwhile, the 'No a la guerra' demos continue nationwide and daily, and the frustration is starting to turn nasty. 10 people were injured Saturday, followed by a whopping 118 in yesterday's march in Madrid, which begs the question, why do the authorities always think that sending out riot police is going to keep order? If there's anything that's going to bubble the bile of protesters, it's the sight of repressive authority. Still, by sending in the riot shields and the sticks, it allowed Ansar to remix the Mugabe groove by claiming that, in opposing a war, his political opponents were clearly endorsing violence.

The conclusion seems to be that the main opposition, the socialist PSOE, are as good as elected. Headed by Jose Luis Rodeirguez Zapatero, a man with the eyebrows of Ming the Merciless and who looks permanently uncomfortable in a suit, all it has to do is play it straight. Unlike in the UK, where the opposition is now just a decaffeinated version of the same brand, his party is markedly separate and it was against the war from the start. On the instructions of the King, Ansar tried to form some kind of reconciliation between his party (the Partido Popular - yes, I know) and the PSOE, to present a united front to dispel unrest. "Stop the war and then we'll talk," came back the rather obvious reply.

So now we have two flavours of gore on the daily news - the pornography of war and the less titillating sight of protesters outside PP headquarters throwing bottles at riot police and then being beaten to a light puree of which Delia would be proud. And so it goes on.

Protests against the PP have taken other forms too, the most high profile of which is the Yoghurt War. As many high profile members of the PP also run dairy/fruit juice/cereal company Pascual, the country has been doing what it can to bankrupt it into oblivion by not buying its stuff. Pascual has responded by turning sour, sending lawsuits against anyone it can find. How that one will pan out is anyone's guess - most likely with a quiet change of name.

How Spain manages to keep electing a party of Francistas is another puzzle. Scarily enough, a few young people have been overheard saying things like, "hey, Franco did some good things for the country, you know. I hear some things were better when he was around." Which is akin to the worm saying that the early bird is a nice guy because his shit makes good fertiliser. A nasty piece of work, it's generally acknowledged for instance that Franco only rebuilt the train system on a new gauge to make an invasion by Hitler more difficult.

Meanwhile, Ansar has a few questions to answer, such as why the government-controlled oil company Repsol has massive interests in Iraq, bought an extra four million barrels of oil from Iraq late last year and also why, if he was always against the dictatorial regime of Saddam, Spain sent an official delegation to a celebratory exhibition in Baghdad in November. Currently Ansar changes the subject faster than you can say moral expediency, but that immunity may not last - no matter who his desert island buddies may be.

Posted by Andrew Losowsky at March 24, 2003 06:48 PM | TrackBack