AWAITING THE TEMPEST
Part 3
Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain…
Needless to say, the building boom has had an extraordinary affect upon the demographics of Spain. In fact, since 1960, well over a million Spaniards have left the countryside for the towns and coast. This has been encouraged by Franco after his adoption of conventional economics and his issue of the Stabilisation Plan of 1959. This explicitly recognised that Spain could no longer remain an agricultural society (Franco’s natural instinct) and needed to expand into industry and tourism, if it was to evolve into a modern, successful state.
However, for many Spaniards, particularly from rural areas, the tourist industry is a shock. Indeed, this year (1971), the psychiatric department of Malaga hospital stated that 90% of its new non-chronic psychiatric cases were young men from rural areas, who were unable to cope with what they had seen on the coast. No doubt encountering foreign ladies in bikinis did not help.
In fact, it is fair to say that the bikini is a challenge that went to the core of Francoist values. Designed by Frenchman Louis Réard in 1946, it was named for the devastating affect it would have on people (rather like the US nuclear bomb tests on Bikini Atoll). This was certainly the case in Spain, where bikinis were not allowed until 1952 and only, initially, on Benidorm beach.
Certainly, allowing bikinis to be worn on Spanish beaches was deeply controversial. So much so that when Pedro Zaragoza, mayor of Benidorm, passed a local decree allowing the bikini to be worn he found himself facing excommunication by the Bishop of Valencia.
Facing eternal damnation, Señor Zaragoza climbed onto his Vespa and, in an action reminiscent of an Ealing comedy, rode the nine hour journey to Madrid to ask Franco for help. Although comic in some ways, allowing the bikini to be worn was extremely important, if Spain was to solder its reputation as the place to come on holiday. Señor Zaragoza realised that the last thing his burgeoning town needed was for foreign tourists to be diverted to other Mediterranean countries, where beach ware was more relaxed.
Ever the realist, Franco supported Señor Zaragoza and, as politically astute as ever, let it be known (via his wife, evidently) that he agreed to bikinis being worn. Señor Zaragoza avoided excommunication, other coastal towns swiftly approved the bikini and the Spanish tourist industry continues to be an extraordinary success, with massive growth, year on year. Indeed, the beaches of Spain are nothing if not a magnet for holidaying North Europeans.
Of course, everyone is aware of the two emblematic symbols of Spain: bullfighting and flamenco. This is largely because Franco has promoted them as representing the universality of Spain. This has been a clever move although flamenco is from Andalusia and has nothing, in truth, to do with the rest of the country. Nonetheless, the extraordinary colour of flamenco and the excitement of bullfights are easy to promote and clearly set Spain apart from other Mediterranean countries.
Bullfighting is not to everyone’s taste but tends to be something that every tourist feels they should see, if they come to Spain. Many have read Hemingway’s classic book ‘Death in the Afternoon’ and feel that bullfighting has a glamour to it that is irresistible.
The trouble is that the reality of a bullfight comes as a significant shock to many tourists, most of whom cannot come to terms with a bullfight being an art form, any more than they can accept it as a sport. Hemingway may well state that ‘a fighting bull is to the domestic bull what the wolf is to the dog’ and that a bullfight is the ‘playing out of a tragedy’ within a tightly ritualised art form but few North Europeans leave a bullfight persuaded. This is never more so the case than when a horse is hurt or killed during a bullfight.
In fact, a picador’s horse was only first provided with any protection in 1926. Before that time, picador’s horses were sometimes killed by the bull, its stomach eviscerated as the picador twisted his lance into the enraged bull’s neck. Now, mortal injuries are extremely rare but shocking when they occur and hardly an advertisement for Spain, anxious to portray a new and modern image to the world at large.
Flamenco has none of the controversy of bullfighting. However, it is a strange emblem for Spain, as flamenco is a gypsy art form and therefore from a distinct sector of the population who are generally disliked. So, it is no mean feat for a stern dictator like Franco to have taken flamenco to heart and to promote it so heavily.
In reality, few tourists see ‘real’ flamenco. This is because it is a very harsh and difficult to appreciate for anyone not a true aficionado.
Certainly, the cante jondo is rarely played in the tourist shows and few people are aware that flamenco is all about voice – and a voice which was not even accompanied by a guitar, until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Equally, to see flamenco at its best, any aficionado will tell you that you need to be lucky enough to come across a juerga, a spontaneous jamming session, where you may just be lucky enough to experience that most mystifying of all Spanish emotions, the duende. This is a state of ecstasy that either you and or the flamenco performer may feel during a performance.
Currently, the rising star of flamenco is a young man called Cameron de Isla who seems set for flamenco super-stardom. He plays at the Tablao Torres Bermejas in Madrid but you will find other great flamenco artists performing around the back streets of Seville. However, finding them playing naturally at a juerga takes some determination and a willingness to stray well away from the holiday crowds.
For the most part, tourists see ‘fusion’ flamenco, a commercialised form of flamenco, sometimes not even played by true gypsies. Nonetheless, it is an extraordinary experience to hear a grizzled gypsy singing, guitar in hand, surrounded by beautiful women dancing in gorgeous, brightly coloured dresses. Clicking their castanets, stamping their feet and with upper body movements like Egyptian goddesses, the woman invariably look impossibly arrogant and sexy. It is enough to persuade most people that they are seeing real Spain. It is an illusion but a magnificent one and advertises Spain in the most exotic and flamboyant way possible. Franco is probably as delighted by this perception as most tourists.