Columbus Day = Hispanidad = Spanishness = Catholicism versus Lefties = Soldiers Virgins & Flowers

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Tuesday October 12, 2004 15:04

by iosaf

the 12th of October is the traditional day of marking Global Hispanic identity.

The day the italian Columbus, known as Colom to the Spanish, landed on a carribean island claiming it for the crown of Aragon (modern catalonia) thinking he had discovered India is also the day of the patroness of Zaragoza, the virgin Pilar.

Spain marks this day with a military parade in Madrid and homage to the flag, and the usual polemic between all those who despise or value such displays of nationalism / imperialism / cultural hegemony et cetera...

But there has been something never seen before-
Veterans of both the liberation of Paris and the republican side of the civil war and a volunteer for the fascist division on the Russian front have taken part.

Meanwhile in Zaragosa, Aragon, there is a big procession with statue bedecked in hundreds of thousands of flowers and a really good televised mass said to invoke the virgin, by no less than three cardinals assisted by all sorts of hooded holy types, a few score of altar boys and not a single woman.

This year is the first time that a president of the Catalan Generalitat has made his way to Madrid to take part in the ceremonies.
Joan Maragall leads the tripartite of PSC, ICV and ERC. His party PSC is the catalan equivalent of the PSOE which rules alone the Spanish central government.

This year is also the first time that a veteran volunteer of the "Blue division" which Franco sent to support Hitler and his Rumanian fascist allies on the eastern front with Russia during WW2 has walked.

He was accompanied by a veteran of LeClerc's armoured division which liberated Paris sixty years ago this summer. The first tank to enter Paris was manned by veterans of the republican side of the Spanish civil war.

The presence of these two old men, most of who's contemporaries have now died together has caused condemnation from the parties of the left in Catalonia. Both ICV (greens) and ERC (republicans) decrying the presence of the tripartite's president and a fascist at the event. Whereas the PSOE minister for defence José Bono sees the simultanous presence of a fascist soldier and a anti-fascist soldier as a sign of "Spain at peace". The event held on Madrid's "castillian street" saw 3,500 soldiers, 92 planes and 300 armoured vehicles reviewed by the spanish royal family. In addition the victims of ETA and the M11 bombings were remembered.

It is fashionable now throughout Europe to see old enemies appear together at memorials or those days of collective revindication.

This year has seen the Chancellor of the German Republic not only take the stand of the D Day celebrations in Normandy, but also lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Warsaw under the very mixed gazes of the surviving polish veterans. But the German Chancellor did not fight in that war.

polemic-
http://www.vilaweb.com/mailobert/index.html
standard press article-
http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=6&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=154864&idseccio_PK=130&h=

© iosaf [I'll talk to the FBI about this one only on condition that i am paid standard network media interview rates]

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Comments (3 of 3)

Columbus Day Lies

by R.Isible

Wed Oct 12, 2005 19:35

Including interesting links to professional holocaust exploiter Eli Wiesel and the Moonies.

its that time of the year again!

by on ocassion one wonders where one has migrated to.

Wed Oct 12, 2005 15:41

Well, this years O12 has been pretty much the same as last years. But this year there wasn't any big parade with old enemies holding hands.
The CNNñ TV reports a bundle of fascists in Barcelona's Montjuic castle, waving their flags, giving their salutes and shouting "¡No! to the estatut".
(if you don't know what the "estatut" is, put it through the search engine. This is the day people say "spain" is the one nation and nation alone, sort of a bad day to be talking up the estaut, sure I'm incorrigible. Those basque seperatists did their thing too, and a false bomb warning in the name of ETA closed Zaragossa airport effecting pilgrim transit to the cathedral televised mass for Maria the Pilar.)

meanwhile, the CNNñTV also showed a bundle of catalans in Gracía, Barcelona (the wonderful republic of Gracía) all wearing white doll type masks, waving their flags at the local forces of occupation (the spanish police), and shouting "No! No! No! Fascism never again!"

_______________________________________

On the other stage of televised politics, today the ministers of interior and justice of the EU met in Luxembourg to discuss recent events and incidents (& their not insubstantial fallout) at the frontier between Spain and Morocco at Ceuta, Melilla. (little factoids, Melilla's citizens contribute 12.5% of their total to the armed forces compared with the peninsula average of 2%. Melilla's citizens count on 21 teachers of religious education salaries paid by the central state, 10 Catholic and 11 Moslem)

I suppose the frontiers of Melilla and Ceuta and our recent proven ability to see far over them -
is where "Hispanidad" either begins or ends, though generally I only speak of "€urope".

The €U have decided to agree with Spain that this is indeed a problem of all the €uropeans.
Got that? The events in morocco are your concern.

C/f story and update comments-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72231

Accordingly the €U under its UK presidency are going to organise a summit with the African Union under its Mali born president which will be celebrated very soon in Morocco.

(everyone will have shoes I promise you that)

- has to be said -

by -

Tue Oct 12, 2004 15:53

On the 15th of August 2004, a gang of skinheads, members of a neo-nazi organisation attacked a youth (dressed as a punk) in the predominantly republican and nationalist part of Barcelona, the suburb of Gracia. They stabbed him repeatedly in the neck.
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/111902
This was not an isolated incident, and similar attacks occur regularly across the continent. Defacing of graves is something incontrast which doesn't happen in Spain, perhaps as so many of the republican mass graves are yet to be properly opened and the dead of the republican side given proper memorial.

The presence of a Blue division veteran in the march today does little to re-assure many families throughout the Iberian peninsula that they are safe from the legacy of hatred and supremacist which is european or spanish fascism. They too, were victims "in the name of Spain".

The legacy of Le Clerc's armoured division which saw veterans of the Spanish civil war given the honour of being the first allied troops to enter Paris in 1944 is now one of truly democratic intent and comitment to pacifism.

Every year on the weekend before the Hispanidad celebrations in Madrid, franco-ist and neonazis congregate in Barcelona's montjuic to salute the fascist era flag. Members of the same grouping who disturbed minutes of silence held by the government for the victims of terrorism. Members of the same grouping who with links to the extreme right of both the USA and other EU states, pro-actively infiltrate alternative media, and community centres (as most recently seen in Valencia) whilst campaigning for municipal representation (as seen in the UK, Germany and France).

As long as there are youths who deny the Holocaust, who preach race or gender hatred, who fly those flags there will not truly be "peace" in the heart of any nation in Europe which was a victim of fascism.

We can never forget what happened.

Accordingly for reasons varying from anti-fascist to nationalist, protests against the Spanish national day were held in Catalonia and the Basque today.

somethings can not be forgotten nor forgiven till they are remembered.

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Columbus Day = Hispanidad = Spanishness = Catholicism versus Lefties = Soldiers Virgins & Flowers

Comments (3 of 3)