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

international | miscellaneous | other press 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]