This week’s Camino a Ítaca grew out of two events that, taken separately, might seem unconnected. The first was the debate in the European Parliament over proposals that would make it easier to deport asylum seekers to third countries with which they have no meaningful connection. The second was much closer to home: the decision…
A tiger, a pope, Bad Bunny, migration, hell, the Spanish left, and the curious tendency of otherwise intelligent people to mistake agreement on one issue for agreement on everything else. My latest essay, A Tiger in a White Cassock, was published yesterday in CounterPunch and has now also appeared in Spanish translation in Nueva Tribuna.…
A few weeks ago, I found myself following yet another local controversy in Cáceres, the small Spanish city where I live. At the centre of it was the Cruz de los Caídos (“Cross of the Fallen”), a Franco-era monument that has become the latest battleground in Spain’s never-ending wars over history, memory, religion, and identity.…
Every language reveals something about the people who speak it. As an English speaker who has spent years living in Spain, one of the things that continues to fascinate me is not simply the vocabulary of Spanish, but what that vocabulary suggests about the culture that produced it. Languages do not merely describe reality; they…
This week, Nueva Tribuna published my latest article, Fans Above Us: The Politics of “We Survived.“ An English translation appears below. For non-Spanish readers, some context may help. The article was prompted by comments from a Madrid government minister who suggested that extreme heat in classrooms could be a source of ‘inspiration’ and reminded everyone…
What do a dowser in rural America and a conference on “remigration” in Porto have in common? At first glance, not much. One spends his weekends walking fields with a metal rod searching for underground water. The other gathers politicians, activists and ideologues to discuss race, identity and the future of Europe. The connection, I…
Marx, Castro, Lenin and the Pope are at the racetrack. The communists are studying the odds; the Pope is down in the paddock asking after the horse that nobody wants. As the new Pope prepares for a visit to Spain, an odd political spectacle is taking shape. The same far-right forces that eagerly borrow from…
Spain is currently gripped by yet another political corruption scandal, and as always the debate has quickly moved beyond individual wrongdoing to broader claims about the moral bankruptcy of the left itself. That reaction prompted me to write Judas Lights. The piece argues that there is a crucial difference between a corrupt politician and a…
There are few things stranger than watching former colonial powers attempt to market conquest as a feel-good cultural product in the twenty-first century. This month, a taxpayer-funded delegation led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and accompanied by 80s pop-zero, Nacho Cano travelled to Mexico to stage an event titled Celebración por la Evangelización y el Mestizaje…
It began, quite simply, with reading Joseph Roth. But as I kept reading, and watching the news here in Spain fill with talk of “national priority,” something shifted. The distance between then and now began to feel thinner than it should. The phrase has been circulating in recent months, attached to new political agreements in…