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Changing Face Of Modern Spain

(By a Reuter Correspondent)

United States aid and the rise of a new generation of Spaniards seeking a new way of life, are changing the face of Spain. Much of the old Spain was consumed, materially and spiritually, in the Civil War. The new generation, tending to be sharply “anti-colonialist,” anxious to find new moulds for a national way of life which can never be the same as it was before, is looking for inspiration across the Atlantic. Disliking communism but equally impatient with what it considers to be “19th century bourgeois customs,” this new generation of Spaniards eats hot dogs and drinks milk shakes or orange juice at the snack bars which are fast replacing the traditional cafes with their marbletopped tables. For, all over Spain today, in the provinces as well as in Madrid, cafes are closing. The marbletopped tables on which the dominoes used to clatter and over which so many millions of words of political argument have passed, have been sold under the auctioneer’s hammer at give-away prices. The great “political” cafes of Madrid, like La Granja. which gave six Cabinet Ministers from its “tertulias” (groups which met regularly there) to the first Government of the Republic in 1931, the Negresco and the Aquarium, have disappeared. Most of the premises are now banks.

Home life, too, is developing rapidly among the Spaniards. Once, the home in Spain was only too often merely a dormitory and nursery so far as the men of the house were concerned. All their spare hours were spent in a club, cafe or tavern, according to their social standing. Now, much more attention is being paid to home comforts. Modern furniture and gadgets, I ranging from washing machines to electric toasters, are seen in increasing numbers. This new generation of Spaniards has accepted drastic social I reforms and labour legislation which is among the most advanced in Europe.

Without a murmur, it watched the Spanish zone of Morocco which had cost Spain 100,000 dead in fighting to maintain order there between 1906 and 1926, being handed over, last year (1956), to the Moroccan Empire.

It has taken in its stride the gentle but steady inflation since the Civil War, necessary in modernising a semi-feudal economy with one foot in the 16th century and the other in the 20th century, but a painful process for the classes with fixed incomes. Self-Criticism

This generation is even, and this is a profound change indeed, disposed to self-criticism. The Madrid daily newspaper, “ABC,” one of the newspapers in Spain with the biggest sale among the conservative classes, publishes every day the fiercely-satirical cartoons of Mingote, in which he pillories the rich and their greed.

The bitter passions which have raked this land for the last 100 years and which exploded in hatred and vengeance and intolerance in the Civil War, have faded today. Probably the most popular Spanish film of last year among the present generation of Spaniards was “Calabuch”—a film which preached toleration and an absence- of class hatred and of religious prejudice, a film in which Spain’s stern civil guards, the rural gendarmerie, were seen playing dominoes amicably with local fishermen, and in which the Catholic parish priest of the small village welcomed the help of a Protestant foreigner in playing his church organ. . Singing in Church There are even deeper changes. Opposite to the ultra-modern United States Embassy, on the Calle Serrano, a stark, austere building following closely in style the United Nations building in New York, stands the baroque new Jesuit Church of the Sacred Heart and of Saint Francis of Borja. It is a church which draws its congregations from Spain’s wealthier classes who live in that area. On Sunday, the sound of community singing can now be heard there. From the pulpit, a priest urges the faithful: “Come on now, sing more heartily, please!” Rarel, before have Spaniards been heard singing hymns in Church. A proud individualist, the Spaniard of central Spain, at least, has never been a. man of song.

Nor is the changing pattern of life confined to Madrid. The provincial towns are changing just as fast as the capital. The smartest new cinema in Spain today is in Saragossa. To appreciate how far Spain has moved in recent years, it is sufficient to consider the attitude of the worker. The worker of yesterday wanted to kill those who owned motor cars. The worker of today may be buying a motor-cycle—and wondering when he will be able to think of having a car.

Having, in a painful process which has lasted some 150 years, adjusted herself to no longer being the centre of an empire, Spain feels little sympathy today with nations like Britain and France which are in the process of adjusting to new conditions their relations with their associated territories.

Spanish reactions are liable to be hyper-sensitive. The Englishman who asks what possible use Gibraltar could be to Spain is told that what Spanish people resent is the implication, arising out of Britain’s possession of even a small piece of the Spanish mainland, that the Spaniards are an inferior race and the British a superior one. That the new current of sympathy between Spain and the United States will bring with it requests for help is inevitable, particularly this year, when General Francisco Franco has started far reaching wage increases, housing schemes and other developments. This new, heavy expenditure is going to put a certain amount of strain on an economic framework still in the process of reconstruction and there is no doubt in which direction Spain will look for help if critical moments arise in her new programme of national expansion. To acquire valuable strategic air bases, a loyal ally and a' sincere friend, implies, the Spaniards feel, an obligation to help an under-developed land to a better way of life.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19570501.2.165

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 16

Word count
Tapeke kupu
981

Changing Face Of Modern Spain Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 16

Changing Face Of Modern Spain Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 16

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