Solid

When it comes to National Identity I'm not a believer. I don't, for instance, see anything to be proud of in having been born in a particular place and I don't think  that the people of one nation are intrinsically different to the people of another. I do believe though that we all learn from our surroundings and that, as such, there are learned, generalised, national traits.

One thing that Spaniards like to say about themselves is that they are "solidario". It's not an easy word to translate into English - it's the attitude of being supportive, caring, empathetic, sympathetic and in it together.

Whenever there is an earthquake or hurricane somewhere in the world there will be something in the Spanish news about us being solidario and sending this or that team of rescue workers, search dogs, blankets or tents. The truth is that Spain has cut its foreign aid and only spends about 0.14% of it's Gross Domestic Income (GDI) on overseas aid. As a Briton, seeing those teams, supplies and tents being loaded onto the Airbus Atlas I often think the help looks paltry and late. One of the things we British can be proud of is that the UK is one of only seven countries in the world which has reached the 0.7% of GDI overseas aid target agreed at the United Nations. The UK economy is much bigger than Spain's so in folding we're talking 19 billion British dollars as against 1.6 billion Spanish dollars.

At the moment people are dying in hordes all over the World because of coronavirus. Spain has been one of the countries hardest hit though the latest figures for the UK are equally terrible. In fact the situation in Spain is probably much worse than reported. Imagine someone breathes their last in a Spanish care home. The person died because their lungs could not take in sufficient oxygen or expel sufficient carbon dioxide. The doctor can't put Covid 19 on the death certificate as the cause of death because there has been no corona virus test. The doctor writes pulmonary insufficiency in the space on the certificate and the death is not recorded as a part of the daily toll.

Maggie and I have taken to watching more television news broadcasts, both British and Spanish, during the pandemic. On the Spanish news the format is usually the latest national coronavirus news along with the political and economic news surrounding it plus the stories about shortages, bad planning etc. That's followed by a coronavirus update from around the world. Then there's the other news, a fair bit of sporting stuff (goodness knows how when there is no sport) and then lots of little human interest, soft news, stories.

The softer news stories are multifaceted. It might be about people using their 3D printers, sewing machines and production lines to make this or that for health workers or about football clubs opening their changing rooms for lorry drivers or about the children sending thank you drawings to police officers. Then there's usually lots and lots of applauding. Applause for the people giving impromptu concerts from their balconies, applause for firefighters who haven't been home for days as they drive by their home to sing  Happy Birthday over the loudspeakers to their locked in son, the line of siren blaring Civil Protection, Guardia Civil and Police cars "applauding" the supermarket workers. Today there has been lots of Easter ritual performed from balconies to applaud and, of course, every evening at 8pm we have applause for everyone from everyone.

The British news has the same sort of stories, maybe with a bit more complaining about the wrong responses, but there seem to be far fewer, hardly any, of the uplifting, morale boosting, we're all in this together stories. Maybe I've just missed them or maybe the Spaniards are right in thinking they are more Solidario.