Democracy counts

The current Spanish Government is a coalition between a slightly left of centre political party, the PSOE, and a much smaller and much further left party, Unidas Podemos. The other week the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, a Government Vice President, said, a couple of times, that the democracy in Spain was flawed. As you may imagine this caused a bit of a fuss. Then, a couple of days later, a talentless rap artist was sent to jail for suggesting in his songs that terrorists were jolly nice and our King was jolly nasty. People protesting the incarceration took to the streets and did a bit of burning and looting whilst they were there. Podemos was mealy mouthed in its condemnation of the street violence. 

My own opinion is that Spain has a bit of a problem with some aspects of democracy. For instance a woman, who tweeted some old jokes about about ETA, the Basque terrorists, blowing up the admiral Carrero Blanco in 1973, was sentenced to a year in prison (time that she would never have served) though her sentence was quashed by a higher court. Similarly 14 musicians in Spain have been taken to court, presumably for the content of their songs, though, in the end, only two were locked up.  Generally though it's a good place to live with all of the safeguards you would expect from a solid democracy even if there is a tendency to set those safeguards to the side every now and again and to be heavy handed and over authoritarian. There are far too many examples of the limitations on basic democratic expectations, like access to information, being able to complain or expressing an alternative opinion without coming up against insuperable obstacles or facing either a hefty fine or a jail sentence. Then again I remember that the UK locked up a couple of rappers for singing a song.

Freedom House, a US organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights begins its country profile for Spain with this summary paragraph: Spain’s parliamentary system features competitive multiparty elections and peaceful transfers of power between rival parties. The rule of law prevails, and civil liberties are generally respected. Although political corruption remains a concern, high-ranking politicians and other powerful figures have been successfully prosecuted. Restrictive legislation adopted in recent years poses a threat to otherwise robust freedoms of expression and assembly. A persistent separatist movement in Catalonia represents the leading challenge to the country’s constitutional system and territorial integrity.That sounds about right to me.

On Sunday morning I heard a piece on the radio based on the Economist Magazine's Democracy Index. I'd never heard of the Democracy Index but, apparently the UK magazine has been producing it since 2006. It quantifies the amount of democracy in 165 states. Not surprisingly their general, worldwide, conclusion is that the implementation of government imposed pandemic control measures led to a huge rollback of civil liberties in 2020. 

The Democracy Index score is based on five categories: 

• Electoral process and pluralism 
• The functioning of government 
• Political participation 
• Political culture
• Civil liberties 

There are a range of indicators within each of these categories and each indicator is scored. The questions are of this type: Are elections for the national legislature and head of government free?, Is the functioning of government open and transparent, with sufficient public access to information?, To what degree is the judiciary independent of government influence? 

From the score given to each country they are placed in one of four types of regime and ranked: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian regime. Although the score is plotted on a ten point scale it is presented in decimal format, 7.65 for instance, so it's actually more like a thousand point scale. Countries that score 8 and 9 are classed as full democracies, those with 6 and 7 as flawed democracies, hybrid regimes generally score 4 and 5 and authoritarian regimes score in the 1,2 and part of the 3 scale. 

The least democratic country on the scale for 2020 is North Korea with a score of 1.08. The most democratic country is Norway with a score of 9.81. Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada are right up there too. Surprisingly, in Western Europe, countries like Belgium, Italy, Greece and Cyprus are classed as flawed democracies because they score below 8 and, this time around, France slipped to that level. The best of Eastern Europe countries, Estonia, comes in as a flawed democracy as does the United States which is at position 25 with a score of 7.92. Just for a couple of my regular readers Russia is at 124, Qatar at 126 and Oman at position 136. Australia shares 9th position. In all the cases that's out of 167.

Spain does alright with a score of 8.12 and 22nd position. It's the lowest scoring full democracy in the table; teetering on the edge. The UK does better; full democracy with a score of 8.54 and position number 16. Ireland is better still, 9.05 and 8th place. 

So the Economist almost agrees with Pablo.

Hands against the wall and drop your trousers

In the 70s, when much of South and Central America were in political turmoil, I read an impressive book about the violation of human rights there. The book was full of torture stories. I was most impressed by the way that ordinary people didn't buckle under but I also pondered where the torturers came from. One Sunday you have a nice civilised country but by Monday morning there are people connecting electric wires to mens' testicles and stubbing out their fag ends on the soles of peoples' feet. What's the selection process, what skills and qualities are on the job description?

At the time when the IRA and UFF and everyone else in Northern Ireland was going at it I heard some bloke, who'd served in the British Army, describing a common technique for obtaining information from prisoners. They put a plastic bucket over their victim's head and then beat the bucket with a mop handle. It made me realise just how easy torture can be and I still, sometimes, think of that as I shop amongst the Addis stuff in the supermarket.

About a month ago a judge, talking in some conference here in Spain, said that he thought ETA (The Basque terrorist organisation) members had been routinely tortured by Spanish Security Forces. Now I have no idea whether he's right but in all probability he is. If I were a Guardia Civil member, who had just seen some mates blown to pieces by a bomb,  I might well become a little over zealous too. The Association of the Victims of Terrorism thought the judge should be sacked. They thought that it was outrageous that he should suggest that the Security Forces were other than on the side of the angels.

A couple of days ago a branch of Local Government in Madrid decided to ban a flag from a big football match final due to take part in the capital on Sunday. The flag is a version of the official Catalan flag with some adaptations. It has a nationlist significance and is a symbol often used by people who want an independent Catlonia. I was apalled, incensed and troubled by the decision in equal measure. The idea of trying to stop an opinion being expressed, in a democracy, by waving a flag seems akin to totalitarianism to me. I know that some Spaniards were of the same opinion but I got the feeling that for many Spaniards the equation was flag waving equals Catalan Separatists, Catalan Separatists bad, Stop them. Four legs good, two legs bad!

During the last twelve months a law has been enacted in Spain that fines or imprisons people for doing things that the Government thinks endangers citizens. It's not as though Spain is short of laws to deal with wrongdoers. You can get into trouble if you go burning and looting. Attacking people is also considered to be a bit beyond the pale. In fact if you can think of some bad thing I 'm pretty sure there is a Spanish law against doing it. There wasn't, though, a law to stop people posting videos to YouTube of police officers beating people with sticks for no obvious reason. The fines for scaling the fence at a nuclear power plant and hanging up a banner were related to trespass and damage to property. Organising a demonstration without a licence wasn't that big a deal either in the punishment afterwards sense. But the new law toughened that up. I forget, and I can't be bothered to look because it makes me seethe, but that banner might now cost 300,000 or 600,000€. Suck on that you Greenpeace types! The result? Someone was arrested in a town close to us when they posted a picture on Facebook of a police car parked in a disabled parking slot. It was considered a slur on the local police. Now I may just have an alternative view about that incident but it's perhaps better that I don't write it down or they may be knocking on my door.

So, suggesting that police officers may have been involved in torture or lazy parking, waving a flag or taking a video could, under certain circumstances, lead to people being sacked, fined or jailed. These things don't go unchallenged of course, the courts overturned the flag waving ban yesterday, but the concensus view  makes me wonder if Spaniards have quite got the hang of this democracy thing.

What seems blatantly obvious to me, that having a different opinion should not, generally, lead to legal action seems to slip by a lot of Spaniards. The judge's opinion that torture happened is confused with siding with the evil that was or is ETA. Supporting the right of anyone to wave a Nationalist flag is confused with supporting that Nationalism and exposing police officers for abusing their role is only a step away from robbing a bank.

Maybe it's just a case of old habits dying hard.