In defence of Spain
In the article Eta ends but conflicts continues (25 May), Arnaldo Otegi states that the real problem is “Spain and its lack of capacity to deal with the national question, and its weak democratic history”. According to the author, “Spain never recovered from the frustration of losing its empire and the aim of the transition from Franco dictatorship was to give the appearance of change but nothing more.” For Otegi, “Spain is deep state behind the thin skin of formal democracy”. What a biased and partial analysis of the Spanish political situation and the socio-economic changes during the last 40 years!
Of course, a perfect democracy doesn’t exist and has never existed, but Spain is a highly decentralised country with 17 regional parliaments and governments that control education, health services and many other areas that affect the wellbeing of the population. The fact is that free elections are called for in local councils, and regional and national parliaments. Basic education and health services are universal and have standards comparable to other countries in the European community. Furthermore, some apparently non-democratic aspects of the constitution are copied from other European countries.
J C Echeverria
Pamplona, Spain
Democracy is failing
Helena Rosenblatt’s article (1 June) underlines what we should have learnt from Brexit and Trump: that liberal democracy fails in the absence of either establishment consensus or a majority of citizens with an adequate political education. Scandinavian countries may have the latter, but the UK and US have relied too much on the former. Where, then, are the political campaigns to address the utterly inadequate level of political education?
Such education has two key components: understanding of the political system and critical thinking skills. In the UK, only the very small proportion of students who do A-level politics get any degree of understanding of the political system. Even the BBC, with its mission of public education, does virtually nothing to promote critical thinking, and lets politicians get away with basic fallacies at every turn. If we’re not prepared to give serious attention to supporting the basic conditions for liberal democracy, its decline is all too predictable.
Robert M Ellis
Malvern, UK
• Depressingly, Helena Rosenblatt is right: there is a longstanding illiberal tendency within our democracies that is threatening to bring our global democratic governance down. But rescuing ourselves from this is more than just a matter of clear thinking and better historical knowledge, as Rosenblatt seems to suggest. It means first accepting the limitations of democracy that have always been there and the illusory character of what we have long believed to be universally accepted democratic values.
In the end democracy in all its forms comes down to elite dominance imposing its own set of democratic values on the rest of us, primarily in its own interest in a way that may coincidentally be in the interests of the wider society within which this operates.
The best we can hope for is that the prevailing elite that emerges from the current contest between various notions of democracy will pay sufficient heed to the wishes of global society as it satisfies its own needs and wishes.
Terry Hewton
Adelaide, South Australia
• The crisis of democracy is being driven by a combination of the intensifying overdevelopment of capitalism and the long-term underdevelopment of democracy.
Capitalist overdevelopment is driven by the need for growth that is producing unprecedented inequalities and ecological damage. Meanwhile, democratic underdevelopment has been driven by the failure to extend representative political democracy to encompass workplace and community democracy.
This crisis has created a gap that will increasingly be, at best, filled by short-term coalitions and, at worst, long-term strongmen and, of course, the generals. It will take activism, resistance and courage to transform both capitalism and democracy.
Stewart Sweeney
Adelaide, South Australia
Briefly
• You quote The Sydney Morning Herald’s report on the marriage of Harry and Meghan: “Their story will do so much to inspire young women from disadvantaged backgrounds and show that you can rise to the top without being born into wealth, privilege and power” (25 May). Well, you can try marrying into it.
Davis Byars
Budapest, Hungary
• Although the headline was mildly amusing, the article Beached Wales (25 May) didn’t make sense. If Wales has been awarded 47 Blue Flags and 83 Seaside Awards, and England has 65 and 125, respectively, how is it the “Welsh coastline outshines the rest of the UK when it comes to clean beaches”? Are the figures inaccurate? Is something missing; for example, relating the awards to the miles of coastline? Or is the journalist – Will Coldwell – Welsh?
Andrew Lacey
Mold, UK
Editor’s note: the point of the story was to report that Wales has the most awards per mile of coastline.
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