In 2022: "Spain's beaches are now smoking free zones"

 

[A beach in Sanxenxo, Galicia © Xurxo Lobato / Getty Images]

"Spain is the first country in Europe to ban smoking on all of its beaches after the government passed a new law following a public petition.  

From now on, anyone caught lighting up on a beach is set to be hit with a hefty €2000 ($USD 2258) fine. A ban is already in place in Barcelona and the Canary Islands, where smoking on popular tourist beaches is prohibited.

A petition in Spain that led to the smoking ban 

The move comes in a bid to clean up pollution on the country’s 3000 miles of coastline. The new law passed on December 23 followed a petition of 283,000 names demanding action on beach pollution was handed to the Spanish government. Cigarette butts are a hazard on many beaches, as they contain non-biodegradable plastic polymer. The European Environment Agency found cigarette butts among the most common items littering Europe's beaches. As well as contaminating the soil, they are also extremely harmful if swallowed by sea life. Sardinia in Italy and some areas in southern France have already banned smoking on their beaches.

 [Los Cristianos in the Canary Islands where smoking is already outlawed on beaches © Salvador Aznar / Shutterstock]

Spain's other bans on smoking

In 2020 in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19, Spain banned smoking in outdoor public spaces where people can't maintain a social distance of at least six feet. Galicia, in northwestern Spain, first introduced a ban on smoking in streets, bars and restaurants and this was adopted by the country’s health minister and brought in nationally.  

Read more from source at Lonely Planet here.

A new "book town" in Catalonia: Calonge

 

"Calonge, a small town on the Costa Brava (Wikipedia), aspires to become an official member of the International Organisation of Book Towns (official website), and thus attract sustainable culture tourism to its medieval center.

 The local culture councilor was inspired by Montolieu in France.

With this aim in mind the local government offered empty spaces to potential booksellers, and after a relatively short selection process, on 10 Dec. 2021 seven new bookstores were officially inaugurated in a town of 10,000 inhabitants.

Some of these are specialized ones, such as Calonge Còmics, La Viatgeria (travel), Orient (the East, classics, Africa), Llibooks (children), and Cocollona (spirituality, esoterica). 

What’s missing of the original concept of book town are the second-hand shops – with online stores without physical outlets dominating the market and the Spanish and Catalan booksale volumes being relatively low, these might be even more difficult to set up and operate profitably than regular bookstores."

SOURCE: La Vanguardia, 11 Dec. 2021, pp. 38 – 39 [printed edition; online with pictures]            Found at Literary Rambles here.

"The Game" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

[Photo: Andreu Puig]

Millions of people are now playing it. 

Plenty are as desperate and traumatised as the competitors in The Squid Game, but if you live in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat or Santa Coloma or Sant Roc or La Mina your battle for survival has no entertainment value.

In fact, the game has already started in your sleep, where you are having dreams of persecution and chronic failure. 

Now you are out of bed early to take advantage of the cheapest electricity before the costs jump at 8am. You are in a freezing winter kitchen, dressed in your thin but warmest puffer jacket. 

Of course the heating cannot be put on. Don’t be ridiculous. 

Here is your routine breakfast: pappy supermarket bread and instant coffee with long life milk.

Soon you are standing on a RENFE line 4 train from Manresa heading away from Barcelona out to the industrial areas. 

Then, against the slow-rising December dawn, you are one of the still bleary-eyed passengers who get off at Sant Feliu. 

With the cold knifing into your ears even through your woollen beanie, you and a dozen others trudge along the rough pebbles on the side of the tracks. This means you don’t need a valid ticket. You’ve saved one euro. Something learned in this part of the game years ago. 

Of course, you could have been closer to your destination if you’d got off at Cornella but sometimes ticket inspectors are there, as you found out to your cost: a 100-euro fine that made you cry when you got home.

Today has a new twist. You have a job interview. 

You don’t know the pay rate because it wasn’t specified in the ad. It never is anymore. Was it always like that? The unknown. 

It has so many fingers around your throat. The day feels like it should already be over but you have a half hour march past bland square box buildings and fences. 

The air smells like a sewer but only when the breeze blows the wrong way.

Yes, the game is afoot. It is never not. 

You know there will be different versions of it to navigate. 

There is the one where you learn where the speed cameras are on all your local roads where you reluctantly drive because of the cost of petrol. 

Another is using back roads without roundabouts because your car is not registered any more and the police routinely stop drivers to check. You can’t even drive it in Barcelona in the low emissions zone because it’s too damn old.

The game is getting to the end of the month. 

The games within the game: self-haircuts, self-dentistry, and self-denial: not eating meat and never spending on other travel outside your area. 

And shopping for the cheapest fruit and vegetables where you usually end up buying them from corner shops. Suspiciously, there’s no country of origin label for their produce.

The game is the guilt when every blue moon you buy a beer in a bar, just to remind yourself that you’re human. 

It’s knowing that next month, next year cannot be any better. It is always worse, so it always will be. 

And there will be no Christmas for your child. That is the worst of it.

   

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Dec. 2021.]

"Translating 'modern slavery' around the world"

  

"The Freedom United community around the world [was asked] to take part in our survey Translating ‘Modern Slavery’ to better understand  how terms such as “human trafficking,” “forced labor,” “modern slavery,” etc. are discussed, framed, or translated in languages besides English. Language is complex and we recognize how local cultural contexts and linguistic nuances shape local advocacy and public understanding...

SPANISH:

Lara Chiavarini:
One of the main problems I see and read when talking about human trafficking in my native language (Spanish) is the difference between “trata de personas” (human trafficking) and “tráfico de personas” (smuggling of migrants). I dare to say this has its origins in “bad” translations. Forced labour could be said “trabajo forzado” or “trabajo forzoso”, forced marriages can be said in both ways as well “matrimonios forzados/forzosos”. Debt bondages is generally found linked to modern slavery: “esclavitud por deudas” and finally modern slavery could be found as “esclavitud contemporánea” more than “moderna”.  When talking about “human trafficking” and “modern slavery”, depending on who is writing and who is their audience, people chose one word or the other. Modern slavery may be more shocking so it is generally found (at least in my country, Argentina) in newspapers and articles. Nevertheless it is also true that people usually say that they are slaves of their work, of the system, etc.

Michael Solah:
Esclavitud, tráfico de personas/humanos (Spanish – Ecuador). There are a lot of signs in travel places (airports/border crossings) with warnings about human trafficking, including penalties. Unfortunately child trafficking is a big issue and I feel it is not discussed enough, it disproportionately affects those in poverty in Ecuador. The implications are similar to English, though in Ecuador it is often assumed the people being trafficked are children.

Elsa Grimaldi:
In Argentina, where we speak Spanish, those terms are translated into: tráfico de personas, trabajos forzados, matrimonios forzados, dependencia de la deuda, esclavitud moderna. What comes to mind with these issues is the humiliating, pain-inflicting ways in which humans treat other human beings, usually based on religious or cultural motivations but many a time for economic motivations, e.g. to make profit out of selling or enslaving other people (women, children, men). "

Read more here.

A (pre) X-mas story in Catalonia

(Photo: Mané Espinosa)

 

"The sad news for many health workers is that their temporary contracts fell due and they lost their jobs. Now Catalonia has picked up some 600 Andalusian health workers who say they now get better hours and a better contract."

[This story from La Vanguardia originally found at excellent news service Business Over Tapas.]

New German government calls for European ban on biometric mass surveillance

"The newly-agreed German government coalition has called for a Europe-wide ban on public facial recognition and other biometric surveillance.  This echoes the core demands of the Reclaim Your Face campaign which EDRi has co-led since 2020, through which over 65 civil society groups ask the EU and their national governments to outlaw biometric data mass surveillance. Today, 24 November 2021, the new German government announced their highly-anticipated coalition deal, including the strongest commitments seen so far in Europe to “rule … out” “biometric recognition in public”.  They further called to “reject comprehensive video surveillance and the use of biometric recording for surveillance purposes”. The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the environmentalist Greens and the business-focused Free Democrats (FDP) jointly emphasised the vital importance of anonymity in public as well as online.  Their statement echoes the demands of over 65 groups in the Reclaim Your Face campaign, co-led by EDRi."

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

"Death cafes" -- An interview with Catalonia convenor Jordi Abad Lalanza

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today, Nov. 2021]

Q. What do you think is the most important thing people should know about Death Cafes?

They are informal gatherings where we talk about death related topics. It is a space of complete trust. It’s non-therapeutic and we let our thoughts and emotions flow.

Q. This year is the tenth anniversary of Death Cafes at an international level, with the first one in London. How many have been held in Catalonia and when did they start?

It is my personal initiative. I started in February 2019 and we had 12 meetings up to March 2020, when we stopped due to the pandemic. Subsequently, I have held 7 more virtual meetings.

Q. Why did you decide to organise these meetings?

My personal story is that I’ve had several losses that have marked my vision of life and death. From 2007 to 2015, I’ve been attending oncology patients at the end of life in their homes. Then in 2015 I finished my Social Worker studies and later I did a Masters in palliative care. I am currently working in end of life care. My major concern is that this society does not talk about death. It’s a taboo and I want to break this taboo, inviting people to do that.

Q. What kind of people come to death cafes and for what reasons?

Usually the average age is 40 and up, but we have also had young people. There are many reasons, mainly just curiosity, but also there’s interest in talking about death and not being judged for it. It’s not a grief management group, but people find that they’re respected with the freedom to talk about death and everything related to it.

Q. How do you run your cafes?

As an organiser, you should have questions or topics prepared to be presented. That makes the session more dynamic. The role of the moderator is to ensure that the conversation is safe and that everyone can participate, and the most important thing is to never be judged for your thoughts or emotions.

Q. At last count there have been 13,099 Death Cafes in 80 countries, why do you think they have been so popular? 

There is always an interest in everything to do with death, as the last taboo. It is true that in British and American culture, these encounters are easier. In Mediterranean culture I think there is much more reticence.

Q. One attendee at a meeting in the US said that "most of the sessions are full of people laughing and having fun.... You meet strangers and talk about an intimate topic that most people can't even talk about with their family." Do the meetings in Catalonia actually include fun?

There are moments of everything, of attentive listening, of seriousness, but there can also be moments of humour and positive expression. People also enjoy themselves and share joy as well as funny situations about death.

Q. In a broader context, what do you think have been the impacts of the pandemic on bereavement, grief and funerals, and the effect of these changes on mental health and well-being?

I think that not being able to say the usual goodbyes to our loved ones will make grieving more complicated to manage. Death has been visualised, but in the end if it hasn't happened to you, it will be statistics. I think it affects our mental health and wellbeing, but I think society penalises people who have suffered a loss and bereavement will be poorly managed.

Q. Do you think there’s really such a thing as the much-talked-about “closure” after death? Is a good death possible?

A good death is how you want it to happen, so it is important to think, talk and write down how you want it to be if the time comes (advance directives). It’s a very personal thing and can be confusing but for me it’s being able to be with my loved ones, to have them respect my decisions, to have control of the situation and to be able to leave with everything spoken about and with a lot of love. There is never closure if we truly have love for that person. At the beginning it is an intense pain but as time goes by, this person remains in our memory, not with pain but with gratitude for having known and enjoyed him or her.

Moroccan-Catalan writer Najat El Hachmi talks to Mona Eltahawy about freedom

 

"The daughters of Muslim families in Europe must face different challenges to defend their individual freedoms and their emancipation as women.

On the one hand, the patriarchal traditions that come from their country of origin, intimately linked with religion.

On the other, the onslaughts of racism from the far right, which discriminates against them whilst calling for them to be relegated to second place as foreigners.

Finally, there are two revived phenomena that make the process more difficult: Islamic fundamentalism and a certain relativism. In the face of all this, what they want is a genuine freedom, unconditioned by origin, class or identity."

See more from original source here.

New centre in Barcelona for Plural Masculinities

 

"The Plural Masculinities Centre is a new municipal facility which is opening to foster a diverse, positive and plural perspective of masculinity, helping to generate different collective perceptions from the strictest and outdated meaning of “being a man” or “behaving like a man”. 

Greater flexibility in the perception of masculinity paves the way for promoting healthier and more equal relationships and doing away with binary-based stereotypes.

The new centre is an open space for citizens and will carry out its projects in conjunction with organisations linked to masculinities, through three areas of action:

• Education: boost awareness among young people through work with the education community, taking into account formal and non-formal education alike. This action must allow for work on different models of masculinity with children and teenagers, and also to address parent models and ways of exercising masculinity with parents and adults.
• Culture: foster the creation of pieces and spaces at cultural facilities in the city which address this area, with projects which allow them to reach the general public and open up the debate on the problems of hegemonic masculinity.
• Sport: this is a social sector where the stereotypical role of masculinity has a strong presence, meaning work will be geared towards collaboration with sports organisations to conduct training and awareness campaigns.

The centre is located at Av. Marquès de l’Argentera, 22, and has a team of ten specialists. The premises include a large multi-purpose room and shared facilities with the Men’s Support Service for the Promotion of Non-Violent Relations (SAH).The annual budget for the new centre is 1.3 million euros.

The idea behind the opening of the Plural Masculinities Centre is to develop public policies on gender which include men and offer reflection from the perspective of masculinities in two ways: firstly, to highlight the benefits for men in the construction of positive and respectful masculinities, and secondly to get men to commit men to the change towards equal gender relationships.

Debate on masculinities with the Decidim platform

In a move to facilitate open debate with the general public, a specific section has been created on the municipal participation website Decidim Barcelona, to work on masculinities jointly and connect local people with experts and organisations in this area. Initially, the project has three different spaces: introduction and perspective, open debates, and city agenda and resources on masculinities. Campaigns and communication initiatives will also be designed to reach out to young people via social media."

Read more from source at Barcelona's local government here.

"More than teaching" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

[Photo of a 1-to-1 lesson by ANDREU PUIG]

 
 

Dear reader,

 

It seems I have misled you and that I was wrong about something I suggested in this column last year. 

In an article titled “House closed” that was published in November, I wrote about how across Catalonia the International House chain of language schools folded and this meant that the owners made a decision to sack all 300 employees. 

That left them still only technically employed because they were all being unpaid but also unable to claim unemployment benefits.

 

This was in addition to the shutting of Merit School in Barcelona and several others I used to work for. (I won’t name them here.) 

With these separate closures creating what I saw as a collective tragedy, I inferred – without actually saying it – that from the Covid pandemic, the entire English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) industry was highly likely to get flushed down capitalism’s stinking toilet. Not quite.

 

What is the case though is that teachers who still have jobs are being forced to do more for less.

 

Most people’s idea of a teacher is someone who stands in front of a blackboard or whiteboard and talks at a class. That’s what they see; just as what I see of a nurse is someone who walks into a hospital room and checks on me when I’m a patient. 

Of course, there’s a great deal more to it for anyone in both those jobs.

 

“Whenever two or more are gathered in education’s name” EFL teachers will usually talk about how we are practically social workers/counselors or even a kind of friend to our students. 

This is one aspect of my work that I really enjoy and it’s especially popular in 1to1 classes where some students divulge the most personal things without any colleagues around. Last week, I faced a student in an online class in tears about her recent divorce. I’d known her for two weeks.

 

In the recent past, I’ve also listened to male students confess their infidelities and tell me how they’re hiding ongoing affairs. I’ve had a female student come to class and spend repeated hours filling me in on how her husband manipulates her and tracks her movements. 

These are a few of the more dramatic examples but a normal part of the job is hearing and absorbing complaints about coworkers, bosses, or the government. We are seen by plenty of students as educators but also as people who can be trusted because we’re not a fixed part of their workplace. 

At other times, it seems we’re like travelling salespeople who visit your office to spruik the health-giving properties of the English language. All this and much more.

 

But we are doing more, for less, as I said before. Pay rates have been pushed down even further by ‘client’ companies who dictate to smaller ‘academy’ language schools from what their budgets supposedly allow them to afford in these hard times. 

This financial burden has often been passed on to teachers who, already trapped in a low-paid industry, are being paid an industry standard contract rate of around 15 euros an hour. Before taxes. 

When my family and I moved here in 2006 ago I was being paid 21 euros an hour at an international secondary school. (A house cleaner in Catalonia is generally paid around 10 euros an hour this year. In cash. No taxes but also no social security.)

 

Precious few EFL academies pay higher than the norm and plenty of employers pay even lower, now incorrectly claiming it’s cheaper for teachers to work at home via online classrooms. 

And travel costs for petrol, trains, metro and buses going from the inner city out to Sant Just or Martorell or Terrassa? That’s been quietly forgotten about or scoffed at when requested.

 

I’m also doing more admin for the 5 different companies I currently work for. I have a couple of better paid private classes and I’m happy to have work again after a barren summer. 

But I’m not happy to do at least an hour every day of putting class data into each academy’s separate system. That’s on top of planning teaching sessions or writing student reports: all unpaid tasks totaling up to another hour every day.

 

And here’s a cost comparison for historical context. The price of petrol has gone up by 50% since we moved here in 2006. I don’t think I need to tell you about the jump in costs of rents in Barcelona or the price of electricity going up by 36% in the previous 12 months.

 

More work for less? Oh, yes.

 

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2021.]

Severe Poverty Rises From 4 Million To 6 Million in Spain

 

"In Spain, four million people were living in severe poverty in 2018. Now there are more than six million. According to the Caritas and Foessa Foundation report, the impact of the pandemic is “devastating” and more than 11 million people now live in a situation of “social exclusion”…’"

Of course we can't ignore the global capitalist system which is now in a state of new techno-feudalism as a major reason.

Read more from source here.

[News story first found at the superb aggregator Business over Tapas. ]

A winter of malcontent in Europe

I support nationalisation of energy industries because...

"The current energy crisis highlights a lack of robustness in the system. 

Many countries have reduced their coal and nuclear capabilities as part of political and environmental plans. Together France, Germany, Spain, and Belgium alone have pledged to close 32 nuclear reactors by 2035. Thus reducing their possible backup energy sources...

The crisis is already here and we’re starting to see the effects. Governments are already stepping in to [supposedly!] protect their citizens. 

France is going to give a one-off payment of €100 to those struggling to pay their energy bills. Greece is looking to provide subsidies. Italy is offering a support package worth €3 billion. The UK is going to increase the cap on the amount that energy providers can charge their customers to try and keep the market afloat."

And Spain...?

Read more at original source, The Good Information Project : here.

"Berliners To Vote On Expropriating Housing From Powerful Landlords"

 "Berlin’s efforts to lower the fast-rising rents in Germany’s capital city have led to a referendum which could expropriate and socialize almost a quarter of a million apartments primarily from Deutsche Wohnen, the largest real estate company in Europe and one of the largest companies in Germany."

Read more here.

"So, how was your summer?" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

 

When people ask me this question I’ll be able to say it was unique. I had some novel experiences. 

Because the Spanish government doesn’t seem to have the ability to get its Social Security department to pay welfare benefits properly, I was one of the millions of unemployed who received nothing from them.

Like most private (or non-government) teachers in August I had no income.

This meant that the only state support for my household of three adults was a voucher for 100 Euros that I could spend in our little village’s only food shop. Still, I’m grateful for that. The town council helped.

Of course, it didn’t stop me worrying about the possibility of losing our house. That’s another new feature of 2021 but not confined to summertime.

What else? Well, we didn’t travel anywhere. We couldn’t afford it. Same as last year and the year before that. Instead, I spent hour after hour looking for the best place to sell some of my wife’s inherited jewellery. My mother in law’s gold bracelets paid for some of our mortgage.

I also put some time into a new hobby: persecuting myself and my wife and son to only use electrical appliances during the low-charge periods of the day, 2pm to 6pm. 

Of course, it didn’t work. Our electricity bill has gone up anyway. But we’ve almost stopped eating meat and drinking tea (the real, expensive stuff) so that might help even things out, do you think?

But surely I did something worthwhile? Yes. For my one glass of it a day, I found a bottle of wine I can actually drink that costs less than 1 euro. Also, I kept beavering away on my first novel. It’s getting close to finished. Nice. I watched my son with his girlfriend and I was proud of him. Also very nice. (She’s moved in so now there’s four of us.) 

As well,I walked here and there. It was free. Nice, again. It meant I discovered new patches of nature and parts of nearby towns that I hadn’t explored before: Pacs del Penedes and it’s Roman aqueduct in the medieval shade of a leafy forest, the thickest vines on the side of unfashionable Santa Margarita i Els Monjos and yet more wonderful Roman arches next to Sant Jaume dels Domenys.

All those in silence and with no one else around to distract me.  I went home and learned a lot reading Doris Lessing then dreamed about going to a restaurant again one day. It’s been more than 18 months since we did that.

On top of those fun and games, I enjoyed the heat of the sun. I always do. There was a part of me though that sometimes thought of that melancholy Bob Dylan line. “It’s not like the sun that used to be.”  

In short, while on a reluctant holiday, I tasted the stale, acrid taste of relative first-world poverty, or at least the sensation of sliding hundreds of metres towards it from what was once a comfortable middle-class existence. Surely, this is “The New Adventure” of the 21st century.

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Sept. 2021.]