Coup in Honduras

Military coups became increasingly unusual owing to the worldwide expansion of democracy during the nineties. The military were progressively separated from politics, out of the relative but yet existent expansion and improvement of democratic institutions, and the possibility for ruling classes to maintain social control without resort to violence. Such process was particularly visible in Latin America. The continent just went through two decades that were convulsed by regime changes from Ecuador to Argentina, yet in general the military did not interfere in political processes, at least publicly and using arms.

However, two days ago Honduras wake us up with a military coup that resonated with the worst moments of the XXth century in the region. We saw again things we though forever gone. The military forcibly deposed the president and embarked him in a plane heading to Costa Rica still in his pyjamas. They retaliated after the president had dismissed the head of the army, who had refused to install ballot boxes for a referendum. Such referendum was an attempt to modify the constitution to enable the President to stand for re-election, although not immediately but after another mandate by someone else. The Parliament opposed this referendum and the Supreme Court declared it illegal. Yet the president insisted in carrying on. The military decided to expedite matters and ignored the constitutional procedure of impeachment to forcibly remove the president from office.

The background: a President coming from the most conservative sectors who made a 180 degree turn to approach Hugo Chavez’s positions, and an elite increasingly worried about its deeply rooted privileges.
The US administration’s reaction was also unusual, but very positive in my opinion: condemn of the violent action, no public interference and ample leeway for the Organization of American States to lead negotiations. The US no longer considers Central America as their backyard? In fact all the Central American elite hold property in Miami, while millions migrate and send their remittances to sustain their families barely out of a line of poverty that is never lowered. My suspicion is that the US does not intervene in the zone the same way it used to do primarily because they do not need it.

In memoriam: Michael Jackson

Thursday evening. I get home, tired after a long working day which I finished with a good swim. One of those when you just enter home and land on the bed. Nonetheless I do not want to sleep without a bit of music. Today I feel for a classic: the last four songs of “Dark Side of the Moon”, by Pink Floyd, a masterpiece of contemporary music. One of those to listen to only from time to time, yet always enjoyable.

I listen lying on my bed, through the iphone headphones. It is the last tunes and the incidental sounds of the very end. A voice says “there is no dark side of the moon, really…” with a heart beating in the background, presumably the same one you can hear at the beginning of the record. Right at this moment, the end of the record, a text message comes in. A good friend says: “Michael Jackson is dead. :(”. Is that so? Oh… Tomorrow will be another day.

Next morning news is all over. Which is logical, given his worldwide popularity. His death came as an unexpected surprise, yet I do not feel particularly sad. I was never his fan, and I always found excessive to devote so much attention to someone who lived in his own amusement park, where he was slowly whitening while facing very serious accusations of child molestation. I found it excessive even if I could understand the reasons behind it.

However, I must acknowledge that Michael Jacksons' decease is the death of a symbol of the last quarter of the XXth century, an artist with a unique impact in the world of music, where he introduced his original fusion of styles, from rock to disco through pop and soul; also for his revolutionary innovations in dance, notably his moon walk. And most of all for being the first Afro-American artist who broke the glass wall and became a world icon for all races alike.

Michael Jackson brings me back to my childhood. I was barely nine years old when the mythical “Thriller” was released. When video clips had just appeared and were slowly making their way in terms of music promotion, Jacko released fifteen minutes of a real movie that kept us all glued to our seats in amazement, in a move that changed the genre forever. This is the Michael Jackson I will remember, the one I feel a part of my cultural background; the member of the Jackson five, the fresh creative man of the first half of the eighties. Before success, popularity and a very complicated history turned him into a pathetic character. Someone who could afford anything he liked but could never be really happy, to the point of turning his life into a circus that will probably continue after his death.

May he rest, finally, in peace.

Why Iran hurts me

Last 13 June there were presidential elections, after a long and mediatised campaign never seen since the Islamic revolution thirty years ago. The supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei immediately sanctioned the results, by which the outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected for a margin wider than 60% of the votes. However, there were several powerful reasons to suspect a well-prepared rigging. Among those:
-Khamenei did not wait for the usual three days before announcing the results. These three days are used to discuss and clear any allegations the candidates may have;
-The geographic distribution of Ahmadinejad’s vote was suspiciously uniform. He even won by a landslide in places widely recognized as other candidate’s most favourable territories;
-The opposition candidates denounced their observers had been barred from the polling stations, and that ballots were missing in many places;
-The elections saw an unprecedented turnout. Such moves happen rarely in favour of the maintenance of the status quo. That would be even stranger in a society were the majority of the population had not been born when the Islamic revolution took place.

Khamenei’s reaction gave rise to huge demonstrations that had not been seen since the days of the revolution. The rest is sadly known. On 19 June, at Friday’s prayer, the supreme leader took another step the delegitimation of the institution he represents, by proclaiming that the demonstrations were illegal, not legitimate, and inspired by foreign powers, and that they would be repressed. This was said when, according to official figures, already ten people had been killed. So Khamenei was essentially giving his green light to a bloodbath, while he mortally injured the institution of velayat-el-faqih, by which government and parliament are under the guidance of the religious authority. Khamenei openly associated himself with a clear breach in democracy and with the crackdown on popular revolt.

This move only intensified what the regime had been doing for decades: iron-fist repression inside the country, impeding any demonstration with tear gases, acidic water, batons and live shots, with total freedom of action for the basiji, the youth militia akin for instance to Mugabe’s thugs that terrorized Zimbabwe a year ago –and who continue doing so whenever it is expedient to the regime-; massive arrests. All these combined with intoxication outside the country, accusing everyone of interfering with Iran’s affairs while restricting any access to information, cutting off Internet, expelling journalists or restricting their movements to prevent them from verifying any information they receive, or even attacking the premises of an opposition newspaper and arresting everyone under the accusation of terrorism. Up until now, the only source of information was the people themselves, using the new information technologies.

So far the regime acknowledged some twenty dead people –while some estimates affirm that the real figure could be tenfold-; there have been almost two hundred arrests amongst dissident intellectuals and civil society figures; any attempt to demonstrate continues to be fiercely repressed. The opposition leader did not surrender and denounces his movements have been restricted. At this point the fact that Mr. Moussavi comes from the same regime where he was once the prime Minister became irrelevant. The intestine fight for power has been totally exceeded by the popular movement. Equally irrelevant as the ignominy of the vote recounting, which acknowledged irregularities in 50 districts out of 170; and that there were three million more votes than there were electors. The regime added that, all in all, this last detail does not affect the final result.

What matters is that the regime is tainted with its own people’s blood. There has been an earthquake which will have deep consequences. Iran is seeing its civil rights movement, symbol of the emergence of a new middle class and of the evolution of customs. The regime’s crackdown was for everyone to see. This will not end here.

Some say that solidarity is the tenderness of peoples. Raising my voice for a true democracy in Iran is for me a duty of global citizenship. A citizenship I had the chance to progressively enrich with affective bonds all over the world. These allow me to get first hand information, but also to share impressions, feelings and an outlook. There is also the certainty that anyone who was never deprived of liberty can rarely have a clear conscience of all that it entails. In my case I was lucky enough to grow up in a country that was just liberating itself, but my parents did transmit me the experience of living under a dictatorship. All the aspirations limited by fear; but also the rediscovery of dignity. This goes also to them.

That SIMCA 1200

I am just about to get to the office when I found the jewel in the picture, parked in a corner of Place de Fontenoy, in the heart of Paris’ VII arrondissement. I cannot help taking a picture, as this car is old enough to be very rare. Moreover, this SIMCA immediately evokes a great stream of memories.

For that is my childhood’s car. My parents had one, a SIMCA 1200, which had originally been red and I knew only in blue. Plaque B-8775-Y, it lasted from the early seventies until July 1987, when it was replaced by a Ford Orion. It must have run for more than 150.000 Km. I still remember vaguely that night, on National road II between Malgrat de Mar and Vidreres, in one of the countless allers-retours from Barcelona to Palafrugell, when we excitedly saw the meter going from 99.999 to 00.000.

I always liked that car. It was relatively rare and hence easily recognizable. I used to like its rounded forms that I preferred to other’s cars at the time. I always saw two eyes in those lights, like a smiling face that looked at me. So many hours spent at the back seats with my brother, teasing each other. Seeing a black plaque (a French one, like the one in the picture) would be a pretext to pinch the other. And so many other games that used to irritate our parents. The runs to see who would get to touch the car first after a day on the beach. And the long imaginary travels I used to do when I could sneak in the car and sit at the wheel on my own.

All that melancholy that used to fill me when we would leave Palafrugell for Barcelona and I could see the town through the rear window. The stops in Caldetes to get water at the thermal source. As a small kid I failed to understand how could it be that we could drink it after a while if it was so hot. Those huge traffic jams when going through Mataró, when I used to amuse myself observing the path taken by that coin towards the money box at the neon sign on top of Caixa Laietana. And so many other moments that come to my mind thanks to objects’ enormous evocative power. More than twenty years ago.

Private transport and second residence, symbols of a new middle class emerging from the Francoist “desarrollismo”, the same middle class that finished by forcing the coming of democracy. People who had to build their future by working and remaining passive and silent in a repressed and repressive society, in a regime that was first totalitarian then authoritarian and legitimized itself in this prosperity, yet never abandoned or denounced its violent and criminal essence. This very prosperity was the beginning of the end of that horror. Thanks to the effort of people like my parents I could grow up in a free country.