Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor of the 19th century, is credited with the apt phrase that “Spain is the strongest country in the world. Century after century trying to destroy itself and it still hasn't succeeded".
The British journalist Michael Reid – who was the correspondent of The Economist in Spain for several years – has poured all his knowledge of the field – and readings – into the book España, just published by Espasa. True to the legend of Anglo-Saxon reporting, he has traveled from end to end of the country and interviewed everyone, from anonymous people to Felipe González or Carles Puigdemont. We may or may not agree with his opinions, which he does not hide, but since he has the elegance to separate them from the facts, reading is recommended for curious people of all tendencies.
"Unlike Italy, Spain is not a systemically corrupt country", he points out, although he does observe impunity in "uni-party feuds" in some autonomies. He puts his finger on the sore in things we would rather not hear, as the pandemic had one of the highest death rates in Europe here due to the inefficiency of the administrations. His analysis is also sharp when detailing the causes that led to the revolt of the indignant at the beginning of the 1910s ("Spanish legislation protected, in a particularly unfair way, that those who had to hand over the keys to their property to return it to the bank if they continued to owe him the unpaid balance of the mortgage”), an earthquake that changed the political map and generated by imitation other protests – Occupy Wall Street, no less.
Very much against the proclamation of independence, he defends that it was a disobedience that should have ended with disqualifications and fines, but never with high prison sentences, like those of the Jordis, "particularly disproportionate".
He also does not understand that it is difficult for the Spanish State to support the pre-eminence of Catalan in the educational model (he cannot think of a better way to generate empathy), nor that the Generalitat, in turn, is not more flexible with regard to the presence of Spanish in the classrooms.
You see, Otto, here we go.
