"Demand for Garraf's international schools is growing..."

News video of the school where my wife Paula teaches.

(Of course, not all the students/families there are "foreigners" because there's plenty of local Catalan/Spanish kids too.)

"These days the educational centers are already thinking about the pre-registration periods for the next school year starting in September, including the international schools in the region. These are private centers that are noticing a notable increase in demand, from families who want to send their children to school in an educational system different from the one designed by the Catalan administration. The arrival of new foreign families in Garraf is one of the factors that explain this increase."

"Grabbing Granados" – My latest article for Catalonia Today magazine

[This article* was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Feb. 2023.]

The Barcelona street named after Granados. ANDREU PUIG.

A huge boat is sinking in The English Channel. A man is clinging on to the side of a tiny raft, only big enough for one woman to kneel on. Soon, both drown in sight of other passengers.

According to witness Daniel Sargent, this is what happened to Catalan composer and pianist Enric Granados i Campiña and his wife Amparo Gal, who was too heavy to get into a lifeboat. Granados apparently refused to leave her alone in the sea and tragically on March 24, 1916 their six children became orphans.

In this ill-fated transatlantic crossing, returning from a tour, the boat they’d been on (the French-flagged Sussex) was mistaken for an enemy minelayer craft and torpedoed and sunk by the Germans. Only days earlier Granados had been playing piano in the White House for US President Woodrow Wilson.

Born in Lleida in 1867 and the son of a colonel (originally from Spanish Cuba) and a Galician mother, at the age of 10 he began to study music and gave public concerts in his hometown (though his first major recital was in 1890, when he was 23 years old.) Still a child, he moved to Barcelona and was enrolled at the Escolania de la Merced.

As is so often the case though with historical figures, myths and disagreement surround important areas of Granados’ life. The financial impact of his father’s premature death at just 57 is unclear but it seems likely that his mother received the correct widow’s military pension and kept the wolves from the door in this way.

What is known is that Enric got a job playing piano for five hours a day at the Café de las Delicias, but around the time he moved his ivory tinkling gig to the Café Filipino, the Catalan impresario Eduardo Condé was also funding him to a very pretty tune as music teacher of his children.

In fact, many of the best Catalan pianists of recent times came out of the music academy in Barcelona that bore Granados’ name. The institution became a centre for a theoretical-practical method for piano pedals that Granados had developed from the teachings he’d held onto from living in Paris two years before.

His masterpiece as a composer is the suite for piano “Goyescas” (1912-14) inspired by works of the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya. Partially first performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, it helped lead to his White House triumph. Despite these kinds of success, Granados went on to suffer from extreme stage fright later in his performing life, according to one source, even begging that he not be forced to play.

I wanted to know more about this man with the fruity name, his name having been given to one of my favourite streets in the Catalan capital. With only one slow lane of traffic, it’s a gently sloping oasis of near-calm and almost-quiet when all around is everything but that, lined with superb restaurants and quaint little speciality shops or delis at both ends.

I grab any opportunity to walk up or down this street. Sometimes I go out of my way to be on it, a part of it, while I think about the man too these days.

---

[*Most likely this will be my final piece for Catalonia Today magazine. Apparently for economic reasons, it has been cut in half: down to just 32 pages. This means independent journalists who are not directly employed have been also cut. I wrote for them between 2008 – 2023 and would like to thanks all those involved in the production of the publication.]

"the blint: english events in barcelona"

 

the blint

english events in barcelona

https://theblint.wordpress.com/ 

• 
  
• 
  
• upcoming events
 
• weekly events
 
• submit your event
 
• 
  

Their goal is: "to bring together the expat community in Barcelona."

"WHY ARE WE AFRAID OF #REFUGEES? / by ELIF SHAFAK"

"In this episode, [Turkish writer] Elif Shafak is focusing on the word #REFUGEE. Why are we afraid of them?"

"More Borics please" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

 

[Photo: EFE]

Was it sexism?

It wasn’t widely reported in the English language media but Gabriel Boric, the new leftist President of Chile has a Catalan mother, María Soledad Font Aguilera, who was originally from the working class area of Badalona bordering Barcelona. 

Instead, his father’s Croatian heritage was emphasised and I suspect this is not only because of the single family name.

A graduate of The British School in Punta Arenas, 35 year old Boric is the youngest holder of his nation’s most prized office, having gained just under 56% of the vote in Chile’s second round of elections last December. He defeated the right-wing José Antonio Kast, son of a veteran of World War II and militant in the German Nazi Party.

Boric’s party was able to earn a victory even after “a sudden blackout of bus services in Santiago and across the country forced voters to endure long commutes in the summer heat to express their basic right to a free and fair vote.

But against these efforts at voter suppression, the people of Chile offered their cars, vans, and motorcycles to assist their neighbours to get to the polls.” Most apparent was his support from younger voters and millennials, tired of the usual divisive political rhetoric.

Irina Karamanos Adrian, the new President’s “first lady,” has said she doesn’t want to be the country’s first lady, at least in a traditional sense. As a writer, anthropologist and militant feminist originally coming from Greek and German immigrants out of Uruguay, in her own right, she has also appeared on TV political debates before the presidential campaign.

(To me, if the new president had been a woman then we would have certainly seen a great deal of scrutiny of her life-partner/husband/wife/significant other, or whatever term you want to use. I have a distinct memory that just over a decade ago when Australia had its one and only female prime minister, Julia Gillard, there was a big hooha from conservatives about how she was partnered, not even married (!) to a man who had the supposedly “effeminate” job of a hairdresser.)

Boric himself came to wider attention after his message on Twitter following the independence consultation in Catalonia on October 1, 2017. He posted the words: “Images of police violence in Catalonia are shocking. A firm embrace from Chile to the Catalan people. More democracy, less repression”.

An electoral dark-horse and surprise victor, Boric is to be sworn into office this March in just one of the Latin American countries that have recently opted for left-wing presidencies; other examples being Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Mexico and Peru.

Boric was swept into power on an ambitious platform of practical changes like raising the minimum wage, reducing the cost of education, expanding the social safety net, fighting climate crisis and extending rights to indigenous people and gay and transgender individuals. He has even talked about creating a British-style national health service that is universal across Chile.

The big test for any progressive leader in power is what they do, not what they say, but if his manifesto is any indication then Europe too could do with plenty more like him.

 

[This article was first published under the title "Was it sexism?" in Catalonia Today magazine, February 2022.]

    

VIDEO: Evading eviction in one of Europe's most densely populated cities (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat)

 

"On the border with Barcelona, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat is one of the most densely populated cities in the EU and home to a large migrant community. 

Dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable members of this fringe society, a group of young volunteers set up Sindicat, a renters union that is working relentlessly to counteract the housing crisis engulfing the often undocumented residents." 

VIDEO here.

Read more from director Irene Baqué about the genesis of the group, and the documentary, here

A living in Spain guide

 

[Image of Catalonia: Shutterstock.com]

I was sent this Spain expat guide recently by their editors. 

It's a mixture of quite useful links, info about relocating, daily life and the bleedin' obvious . 

Worth a quick look if you want some basics and a bit of specific advice.

"Living the reality" -- My latest book review for Catalonia Today magazine

[Writer Carrie Frais: Pic by Poppy Maidment]

Who are these people? “Immigrants temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than the one[s] in which they were raised.”

 

This to me is a much better explanation than the word expat (or expatriate) which I dislike and so does Carrie Frais the editor of a new book titled “#LivingTheDream: Expat life stripped bare.” 

Her preferred definition of herself and the other ten women who contributed a chapter each is stated in her introduction, inside a publication with a cover photo of broken sunglasses. (It reminded me of Yoko Ono’s album cover for “Season of Glass” showing John Lennon’s bloodied specs after his murder in New York in 1980.)

 

The book explores “grief, loneliness, Brexit, motherhood, identity, belonging, single parenthood, rootlessness and integration” but these are just some of the issues that are ranged over. The nebulous concept of “home” is also touched on in various distinct ways.

 

As an author, Frais focuses especially on the emotional baggage of her relocation. Her timeline of the last decade and a half jumps between London and Cabrils (not Cambrils) in Catalonia and moves between themes of parental illness and death, the power of memory and ultimately the Covid 19 pandemic. Wisely, she both recognises and reconciles her status as an outsider: an adventurous one, open to challenges.

 

Deborah Gray, Managing Director of Canela Public Relations in Barcelona has some specific advice. She finishes her chapter with a title taken from a century old quote from Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata, saying “exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is: many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.”

 

Her own life experiences include managing a private life (including children) and running offices in Madrid and Lisbon as well as the Catalan capital. She has been navigating the rough seas of European business conditions since 2006. Gray states, “Don’t define yourself by what you do for a living because it can all disappear overnight through no fault of your own.” Millions across Catalonia and the rest of Europe could relate to that.

 

Mother of three, teacher, writer, designer and Associate Director of MumAbroad.com Jane Mitchell, lives in El Masnou on the Maresme coast just north of Barcelona. Her part of the book is called “Becoming Me (Again)” and talks about how she made happiness a priority ahead of her career. She believes her previous years in Cairo taught her about acceptance and adaptability but didn’t fully prepare her for a new role as a mother in Catalonia.  

 

Sue Wilson of the Bremain in Spain organisation is another highlight, writing about the legacy of Brexit for her, living in Valencia.

 

A great strength of this book is that it avoids most of the cliches that surround those who relocate. In several places it confronts them face on to dispel fanciful dreams and watery eyed romantic projections of Europe as a land of sunny, easy plenty. I, too, think this needs to be done.

[This review was first published in Catalonia Today magazine here.]

"They took me to prison:" The nightmare of a young Italian woman at UK border after Brexit

Marta, 24, was supposed to work as an au pair in London but without a work visa, she was sent to the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre.

"They took me to prison; then I burst into tears..." [Dozens of EU citizens have reportedly suffered similarly.]

Read more from La Repubblica here.

"In a small world" -- My latest article for Catalonia Today magazine

Barcelona isn’t well-known for flamenco but Kayoko Nakata, thinks it should be. 

As a Japanese flamenco dancer with a Catalan husband and two year-old son, she lives near the city’s Sant Pau hospital. When she can, she goes back to her place of origin in the rural Iwate region where she’s a lifetime cultural ambassador.


Kayoko told me, “At the Barcelona Ciutat Flamenco Festival at the end of October, my work, “Hermandad” was selected from a lot of applications and I was able to perform at the Auditori Sant Marti. “That was just before the last three concerts in the festival were cancelled due to Covid restrictions.”


“Flamenco is a small world,” said. “Here and in Seville where I studied it, the attitude is very often that [Romani] Gypsies do this and Japanese people could never dance flamenco. Tourists don’t want to see Japanese or Chinese or Africans dancing flamenco. It's a closed world too. I struggled a lot and eventually doors opened for me and I danced in “tablaos” (or daily organised performances on stage) a lot.”


“The title of my latest show means bonding but also brotherhood. In that way, it describes what I’ve done with two types of music. I fuse flamenco with traditional musical elements from Japan. 

For example, in the song that opens the show I dance dressed in a “kimono” (traditional and formal Japanese garment) and I use hand movements from the ancient “Nihon buyo”  dance from my region. 

There are people in Barcelona who really like being surprised by that mixture. I’m someone who wants to create music and movement without borders. I don’t feel Japanese or Catalan or Spanish. I’m a human, a person.” Summing up herself on her website, she uses the phrase “I DON'T KNOW WHERE I COME FROM OR WHERE I'M GOING.”


I asked Kayoko about the meaning to her of “duende,” that core spirit of the art that is said to take over flamenco dancers when they are in full flight. She compared it to the Japanese idea of “mu:'' nothingness or being without, "unasking." She said in that state, thought was absent, like when she meditates.


Other things are also absent in her life, however. Currently because of the theatres being closed and face to face sessions prohibited, Kayoko teaches flamenco online from her apartment, though she’s only doing a small number of classes. Her students are both in Japan and those living in Barcelona, where she believes the  flamenco scene is based on many thousands of residents who have an Andalusian family background.


Like so many other teachers though, she’s had to try to adapt this year. As have the people around her. “I think the neighbours in my building are angry at me because of all my stamping on the floor but luckily none of them have said anything,'' she laughs. “I want to restart classes in my studio because that’s more enjoyable.”


As a foreigner or “gaijin” as they are called there, I was lucky enough to live in Japan for three years. Similar to Kayoko Nakata, I also had a partner and young child with me. Also like her, I discovered something of a small world.


I learned that the world was not as big as I’d thought because Japanese people basically wanted many of the same things as me. This, despite the fact that they have a hugely different culture and history from where I’d grown up in Australia.

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, December 2020.]

"Living too together?" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

 

Back in mid-July, after more than four months, I (reluctantly) set foot in the city of Barcelona. 

I also made the mistake of driving in the centre, having wisely used public transport in the past.

I love the place and always get a thrill out of going there – we live on the edge of Barcelona province in a small town – but walking through crowds of people in the midst of a contagious pandemic, it was impossible to relax and enjoy myself as I’d always done before.

Yes, most people were wearing masks covering the nose and mouth but around 20 or 30 percent of those in the street were not. Plenty of them appeared to be tourists. The following day, regulations were changed so that it was compulsory to wear a mask in all public places across Catalonia.

I have to say though, the relief I felt when I escaped the absurdly narrow traffic lanes of Gran Via and got the car out near the space and mountains surrounding Josep Tarradellas Barcelona–El Prat Airport was a welcome one.

It seemed almost claustrophobic and unnatural to be in a city of 4.8 million on the day that a city with the same population (Melbourne in Australia) had just been locked down in Covid quarantine for six weeks.

It might also have been in my subconscious but in the days before my unusually disquieting visit, I’d read an article about Barcelona having Europe’s most densely populated square kilometre in Europe. More than 53,000 people inhabit this single 1km² area. (France also has a place with more than 50,000 people in a single km², in Paris.)

The urban zone that breaks this very dubious record lies just south of Barcelona Football Club’s Camp Nou stadium. Unlike older city locals who often refer to places (public squares) as reference points, for me as mainly a travelling teacher, I use Metro stations and recognised this ultra-dense area is between the Collblanc and Torrassa stations on one side. The other corners run along the old N340 national road to near Badal metro stop and down to Santa Eulalia station.

It’s true that technically speaking this compressed cube of humanity is in the “city” of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat but in reality it was originally agricultural land, subsumed by the Catalan capital and (as someone who has spent time working around there) it certainly feels to me like it’s a extension of Barcelona, being only eight stops on the Metro from Barcelona’s centre. When combined, the two “separate cities” make up the second most dense urban area in all of Europe.

It hardly needs saying but this particular part of Barcelona is one the poorest. It has a high number of low-income immigrants but residents say that renting an apartment can still cost 800 or 900 euros a month, which can only encourage overcrowding. This is made worse by the fact that a growing number of people living there are not registered with the local council. This leads to underfunding of social and other services.

Other problems in the area are a simple, natural result of this extreme density: major lack of parking, an almost complete lack of green spaces and related high levels of pollution. Recently, this square kilometre and surroundings have also been a centre of a wider outbreak of Covid-19 in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

As a result, I ask the question: If living in each others’ pockets is such a good thing then why aren’t the very richest in society doing it?

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Sept. 2020.]

"Where (some of) Spain's agricultural workers live"

A video report from LaSexta titled ‘Between garbage and no hot water in old farm-buildings: the inhumane conditions in which the seasonal workers have to live’.

[Thanks again to the comprehensive round up of weekly news at Business Over Tapas.]

"Black lives matter in Barcelona" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

Unlike the UK or USA, one of the more visible ways that many Europeans are used to seeing black people is at work as street sellers, especially during summer in the bigger cities. These are the so-called ‘top manta’ who display their products on blankets in busy places.

In July three years ago, Barcelona’s ‘top manta’ vendors – virtually all of whom are of African descent – decided to set up their own website and clothing brand. Their aim was to turn an illegal activity into a more widely accepted one by “officially registering as a non-profit organisation/union.”

In a piece of good news, they recently finished the first round of their crowdfunding campaign to which almost 2,500 people donated (mainly in amounts of less than 50 euros) to reach their initial target.

(This entrepreneurial move predated the 2015 tragic death of a local man of Senegalese origin who fell from his third floor apartment balcony in Salou during a law enforcement raid. His family sued the police.)

The union collective says the business venture is part of a broader goal to improve their living conditions as marginalised people and because they “want an alternative to the fake products we dreamt we could take off the streets in our city.”

The association was formed by migrants from various African countries who have found a form of daily subsistence in street vending. They argue that they want to have legal employment and residence status but that has been denied them.

Under the slogan “Surviving is not a crime,” their collective had been founded as “a way to support [themselves] in the face of the harshness of selling in the street every day and as a way to defend [themselves] in the face of institutional racism, persecution and criminalisation.” They are also keen to remove the stigma around their jobs and emphasise that they are “creative individuals with ideas and ambition, [just] like you.”

Some members have talked about the dignity of their work even though many earn an income that barely reaches 200 euros a month.

A recent Barcelona council investigation found that, contrary to allegations, there was “no mafia” involvement in the supply of products to ’top manta’.

It is believed that there are organised groups involved in the trafficking of people who bring these immigrants to Spain and there are also “criminal bands” linked to counterfeit goods.

Partly due to pressure from several migrant collectives, in 2010 street vending was “de-penalised” in Spain and it became a minor infraction.

But again in 2015, a penal code reform, carried out by the conservative government of the People’s Party (PP), reestablished street vending as an offence with sanctions of between six months and two years jail.

Legal status of ‘top mantas’ aside, I am interested that these men and their families have an income that allows them a decent life that keeps each of them away from serious crime as a way of making ends meet financially.

Some other members of the public have expressed frustration that ‘top manta’ sellers take business away from established shops and businesses, as well as the complaint that they pay no tax and are selling goods manufactured by children in extreme poverty.

These strike me as probably valid points that need to be worked out, but on a European-wide basis rather than a national or local one. Overall though, we face the problem of what should (and can) be done when people are trapped in the kind of situation the ‘top mantas’ are.

Everyone has the basic right to a decent living. How governments and society deal with this is a huge question that tests how humane we really are.

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2020. ]

More info on the Barcelona 'top mantas' here: https://en.goteo.org/project/top-manta-bcn

    

Q and A on life as an immigrant in Europe (or "expat" if you prefer.)

From ExpatFocus.com  (November 11, 2019) 

Brett Hetherington (Photo credit: robbiekavanagh.net)           
 

Who are you?

My name's Brett Hetherington and I'm a European (Australian/British) journalist, teacher and author (most recently of Slow Travels in Unsung Spain) living in Catalonia, Spain with my partner/wife Paula and our teenage son Hugo.


Where, when and why did you move abroad?

Our first move was to Japan in 1999 (where Hugo was born) and three years later we moved to England.

After two years there we moved to live in inland Catalonia in the Barcelona region and have been there since 2006.


What challenges did you face during the move?

Plenty! Languages were a big one because we all had to deal with Catalan as well as Spanish. Hugo was only five when we came, so he picked it up quickly with the help of some great teachers at his Catalan primary school. I've become functionally fluent in Spanish and generally understand Catalan okay, though I don't speak it.


How did you find somewhere to live?

Luckily, a teacher my wife was replacing was leaving his apartment in the town where we wanted to live, Vilafranca del Penedes. I communicated directly with the landlord (in a mixture of his poor English and my even worse Spanish). Later, we bought our own place in a small nearby town, almost a decade ago now.


Are there many other expats in your area?

Very few here, but 20 minutes away on the coast around Sitges (where we used to work) there is a strong expat community.


What is your relationship like with the locals?

Friendly, and some acquainatiances, but few real close friends, I would say. Most small-town, rural Catalan people call themselves "closed." They mean that they're not open to having many new social relationships outside their already established ones.


What do you like about life where you are?

The vineyards and open spaces of nature around. It's a great balance too when you mainly work in the big city of Barcelona.


What do you dislike about your expat life?

Well, I think of myself as an immigrant more than an expat because I don't see who we are as any different to others who came here from somewhere else for a better life. I do intensely dislike the bureaucracy and arbitary kinds of decision-making in Southern Europe. The low salaries that never rise are making life harder every year too.


What is the biggest cultural difference you have experienced between your new country and life back home?

This has been our home for a long time now, but if I compare it with where I lived most of my life, I'd say I miss the more spontaneous way people socialise and talk to strangers, as well as the multi-cultural population being a part of the mainstream.


What do you think of the food and drink in your new country? What are your particular likes or dislikes?

The food is wonderful: seasonal, fresh, still not too expensive in general. It's a big reason to live here. The range of vegetables is always limited to Mediterranean ones though, unless you want to pay big money for "ethnic" ingredients.

That's the only downside, because the seafood and usual high quality in well-priced "menus del dia" is great. There's fantastic, cheap wine in this area too.


What advice would you give to anyone following in your footsteps?

Do it! But be prepared to live in a low-wage economy unless you are very lucky. On the other hand, Spain/Catalonia is a great place to bring up kids, in my opinion.


What are your plans for the future?

Stay until we can't afford it anymore and if Brexit doesn't make life impossible or any more costly.


You can find Brett's book, Slow Travels in Unsung Spain, on Amazon.

"Who are The English?" --- My latest article for Catalonia Today magazine

This summer while we on the continent of Europe are enjoying doing whatever we can afford to do under the Mediterranean sun, we should all spare a thought for the English and their other Brit cousins.

They will be living through the continuing economic and social disaster created by Brexit and other agonies that are certain to multiply and crowd around like flies at a July barbecue.

A large slice of the pain of modern England comes from its identity and Brexit is only one symptom of this disease. 

I recently read an exceptional book titled ‘God is an Englishman’ published exactly 50 years ago, and all the way through it the Australian author Donald Horne, (who also wrote the well-known book ‘The Lucky Country’ about his own homeland) shows as much penetrating insight into who exactly the English are as anyone else I know of.

Using his book as a measuring stick against the past, it’s remarkable how little England seems to have changed (especially for the better) in that half a century that I have now lived through.

Facing up to the coming instability of the 1970s, Horne found that Britain’s history meant that it too deserved to be called a fortunate country. As he saw it though, “what gets on British people’s nerves is that they no longer know who they are.” (Loud echoes of today’s Brexit confusion?)

He saw a culture where people “find reality in excitements of..fashion and the entertainment businesses.” This led to an emptiness and general dissatisfaction with their lot. For him, it meant too that almost half of young British people alive then were fantasizing about emigrating. Of course, many did or already had (including my father.)

Some of Horne’s other best observations come from his clear understanding of the social class system that still operates deeply all through life there. He recognised that all Brits essentially operate to serve the comfort and ease of the “Upper English” but that a visitor who stayed for years might not notice that England is genuinely one of the world’s most working class nations.

Here, the author, who did in fact marry an Englishwoman and live for five years on a farm in Cornwall, west England, relates a truth that few Brits would have liked to admit, even in the unlikely event that they knew it. Twice as many manual workers as white-collar workers went out to their jobs in this “antique economy”; one that directly made it possible for the queen to stay happy in her castle.

The average Brit was in fact a relative of a peasant who had been tossed by need into the provincial towns or London, just like so many ’internal immigrants’ who arrived in Catalonia from (other) parts of rural Spain in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Soon after the time that Horne was writing though, it was estimated that at least half of England’s land was entirely unregistered: a hotchpotch of inherited wealth. Today we now know that this half a nation is owned by just 1% of its population: 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations.

These crucial numbers of course ignore the ironic title of the book. It refers to the 16th century monarch Elizabeth’s bishop of London who specifically claimed that “God is English” and “His nation was to be the New Jerusalem” of the British Isles.

The very English genius George Orwell warned against the “habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects” but if we think about today’s English people I’d compare them to that little desert lizard who hops from foot to foot to avoid getting its feet burnt on the hot sand. 

Here I mean the political and social temperature, not that from the sun.

(This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2019.)

"German captain becomes anti-populist heroine in Italy migrant standoff"

 [Photo.

Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters] 

"The young German captain of a migrant-rescue ship stranded off Italy dismissed threats of arrest and personal criticism from the country's far-right interior minister on Friday, saying her main priority was the safety of 40 rescued Africans.

After two weeks at sea, the...31-year-old, Carola Rackete, has become a symbol of defiance for challenging the authority of minister Matteo Salvini, known as "Il Capitano" at home for closing ports to non-government rescue ships.

Speaking to reporters from her ship, the Sea Watch, via a Skype connection, Rackete said she was forced to enter Italian waters due to the worsening condition of the migrants plucked by her crew from international seas off Libya on June 12.

Related: The radical populist party that shook Italy's establishment

"The need which we have on board is psychological... The necessity to go into port is to prevent any harm or any self-harm which people might be contemplating," she said.

Rackete, a conservationist who has served on cruise ships and on a Greenpeace vessel in the past, has drawn strong support from Italy's pro-immigration opposition parties and also felt the sting of Salvini's ever-busy Twitter account.

Related: After 'Salvini decree,' refugees face uncertain future

She says she now devotes her time to rescuing migrants as a reaction to her privileged upbringing.

"My life was easy. … I am white, German, born in a rich country and with the right passport," she said in comments provided by Germany's Sea Watch, a charity that has been running rescue operations in the Mediterranean since 2014.

"When I realized it, I felt a moral obligation to help those who did not have the same opportunities as me." "

Read more from source at PRI here.

"Brexit blues" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

[Protesters in London, January 2019. EFE] 

My wife and I are just a few weeks away from being what amounts to illegals in a country (in fact, an entire continent) where we have lived for the last 4,600 days.

Both of us having a British parent has meant that we’ve been able to have most of the rights and responsibilities of a European citizen and our (Australian only) teenage son has had no legal problem either.

With Brexit this is all soon to change for us and an estimated 308,000 Brits in Spain.

Another million or so across the rest of the European Union are set to face the same uncertain status unless the British government finally delivers on its promise to fully safeguard its passport holders living in the EU. 

Quite simply, there is growing alarm, anger and feelings of abandonment across this very disparate group of individuals.

But how and why did we get to this point in the first place?

It’s worth remembering that the cause of Brexit was an advisory referendum. 

It was a public vote called by former Conservative prime minister David Cameron more than two years ago. 

He made the referendum happen purely (in his mind) to prevent the growing popularity of UKIP (right-wing anti-Europeans) and to shore up his own leadership in a party with a range of strong opinions on Britain being an EU member.

Cameron did not design this referendum because of public pressure in the United Kingdom. 

In fact, only 37% of the voting population ended up choosing to cast their vote in favour of leaving, though this was almost 52% of the total vote.

As senior EU officials have in fact recently confirmed, Cameron believed that his then coalition partner, the Liberal-Democrats, wouldn’t agree to an in/out Brexit referendum. 

When Cameron won an election and then found himself governing without the Lib-Dems, his hand was forced by powerful elements in his party and the business sector, despite Cameron being publicly pro-Europe. Also mistakenly, he expected a victory anyway.

So, the awful mess we are in now was started by the Conservatives and is being continued to this day by the Conservatives. I am not going to talk about those who promoted Brexit with, what Donald Tusk rightly called “not even a sketch of a plan to carry it through safely.” 

I am not going to talk about the countless thousands of working people who have already lost jobs to Brexit-era closures and relocations, or about a likely 750,000 more unemployed to come.

I am also not going to talk about the loss to UK schools, hospitals and service industries of EU nationals, forced out by a government pursuing a “hostile environment” policy toward immigrants. 

I could also mention those Europeans who felt it necessary to leave Britain because of the greatly increased bigotry and discrimination against many of them that Brexit has unleashed.

Instead, I am going to identify the single biggest reason why the pro-Leave forces won the referendum. Apart from blatant lies, scaremongering and running a campaign that spent illegally, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and others took clear advantage of their own government’s austerity policies.

Massive social welfare cuts, hospital privatisation, school budgets slashed, starving local councils of funding and large scale vital infrastructure being left in ruins. 

All this together created sections of the country who were itching to make a protest vote and punish the government, Europe, immigrants: these were who Leave leaders identified as being at fault for what was in reality the everyday results of the harshest forms of austerity. 

This was why Britain needed to “Take Back Control”. This finger-pointing was enough. That simple slogan.

And now today, look at the result.

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2019.]