Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 6

The Genius of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo

 

What separates genius from the good and even brilliant is the ability of a person to evolve with the passing of time, not just to mature, but to create anew,  and still be inspirational,to remain  a  clear cut above the rest.

In top flight football , as in other elite sports, the threatening awareness of mortality, the ease with which a player can go from his peak to a swift decline, from valued asset to beyond sell-by date, is only too common, sometimes with tragic consequences on the personal front.

Among the greats one thinks of  George Best, Ronaldinho, and Diego Maradona among those who squandered their talent and cut short their careers  by losing the desire for discipline, for improvement, for relevance, for regeneration.

Contrast  their relatively short professional  period of rise and fall with the more than ten years that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have not only continued to break every key  statistic in the game, but also give football fans around the world  continuing unrivalled entertainment and joy with their dazzling uniqueness. On Sunday, in El Clasico, they will once again be the global focus of the biggest football club show of the year. And no true football fan can afford to miss the event.

And they have kept themselves up there, among the pantheon of football gods, each  in his way measuring his ability to carve out a new role with his respective team and delivering on it in  way that retains the respect and admiration of a succession of managers, colleagues, and fans.

At Barca, Messi began as a  number 7, in a  junior support role for Ronaldinho (when the Brazilian was the star) , evolved into a ‘false’ 9 under Guardiola before assuming a less defined and free-range role, as playmaker and goal scorer.

At Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo arrived as easily the best Manchester United player. He found find himself having to cope with the legacy of Di Stefano. Fans did not warm to his narcissism but delighted in his work ethos, physicality, the speed with which he covered the entire playing field, cheeky step overs,  and goal scoring ability.

In recent days we saw Messi, aged 30,  let down by a team that has lost its collective sense of identity dating from the Cruyff era and urgently in need of renewal , and Cristiano , aged 32, confirming his evolved role as a striker in  a team that has strength in depth to provide generous support.

If Messi was unable to lift his team in a quarter final of the Champions League , and Cristiano was, it is because the Argentine has doggedly refused to rest all season, while Cristiano, wisely and tactfully handled by Zidane, has paced himself. Even if you a genius, rest matters when you reach a certain age.

 

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Barca’s Sad Night

Compared to the heroism of the ‘Remontada’ against PSG,last night’s defeat at the hands of Juventus was sadly a much more mundane affair.

It was huge of Barca fans in the Nou Camp to wave their flags and chant for the team as the final seconds ticked away, but the occasion did not really warrant it. Barca was crushed i their own stadium.You don’t expect that in the Nou Camp, let alone in the Champion’s League.

Last night’s match showed Juventus magnificently resilient in defence and Barca less that heroic in any position, firing a countless numbers of duds at goal- a performance way below the required standard of a Champion’s League quarter final between two of Europe’s great clubs.

With his ruddy beard, and face bloodied after crashing to the ground from Pjanic’s heavy foul (inexplicably not booked) Messi may have briefly morphed into the warrior king defiantly holding off the enemy, but Barca has longed ceased to be the Camelot it was in Guardiola’s era.

With the exception of Neymar’s brief flashes of brilliance, as when he danced away from four challenges before running into Chiellini, this was a Barca easily thrwarted, incapable of scoring, and generally lacking creativity, or a plan B. The failure of substitutes  Mascherano and Alcacer to have any impact on the game showed up the weakness of its bench.

What a contrast to Real Madrid a day earlier with a team battling its heart out and effectively against Bayern Munich, raising its performance still further with its substitutions, and having its victory delivered by Cristiano Ronaldo’s hattrick.

With Real Madrid on a roll, and Barca in need of recovring its punctured pride, the scene is set for a fascinating El Clasico on Sunday- although we know how these overhyped games never quite match expectations on the night.

Whatever the outcome this weekend, Barca needs to give some serious thought to renewing its squad and recovering its identity . This means a strategy that includes drawing on the best alumni from La Masia , stranegthening the mid-field , and having Messi as an influential,  elder statesman.

However  with Messi eyes on the Wold Cup in 2018-if Argentina qualify-it would be wise not to allow itself to continue to depend on him, and wise of him to accept he cannot continue to play in every game. He would be well advised to pace himself from hereon. Last night he did not look rugged. He looked old-and tired.

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El ejemplo de Churchill

A pocos pasos del terrorismo que ayer sacudió la ciudad de Londres esta una estatua de Winston Churchill,  corpulento en su abrigo de trinchera,  y con una mirada  enfocada y resuelta, toda una imagen de un pueblo que ha conocido  y sobrevivido, con orgullo  y victorioso , momentos  más amenazadores de  su historia.

En el momento que el terrorista empezó su paseo endemoniado a través de Westminster  Bridge, camino del Parlamento, me encontraba a cuatro cuadras después de haber almorzado en mi club cerca de Trafalgar Square con un amigo español que ya lleva varios años trabajando y viviendo en la capital Londinense.

El tema de conversación había sido, como no, ya que nos  ha tocado durante meses, el Brexit. Mi amigo se había mostrado pesimista de la posibilidad de una acuerdo. Yo con mi mezcla de Británico y español argumente  de que había ciertas temas de interés común que impulsarían un consenso, desde los intereses del sector automotriz y financiero hasta el tema de los residentes Europeos, y el papel clave que jugaba el ejército,  la policía, y los servicios de inteligencia Británicos en un frente común de la Europa democrática  contra el terrorismo Islámico y  las interferencias de Putin.

Aun pensaba en la conversación cuando el autobús al cual acababa de montarme  se paró abruptamente. “Parece  que ha habido un incidente en Westminster Bridge,”me dijo el conductor al abrir  las puertas y dejarme  bajar a la calle. Más  de treinta años de experiencia  periodística en temas de seguridad y defensa , desde las campaña militares de la IRA y ETA hasta las bombas de Londres y Madrid, me quitaron cualquiera duda de que la realidad era bien distinta, y lo que había pasado no era un accidente.

Efectivamente la realidad  se confirmó una vez que puse pie a  la calle ya que me encontré con ciudadanos que huían del lugar del incidente y policías armados corriendo en dirección , opuesta, hacia el parlamento.

En las próximas horas fui testigo de cómo la policía y los servicios de ambulancia reaccionaron con gran profesionalidad, y en el caso del policía que fue apuñalado mortalmente, indudablemente heroísmo.

También conviví con  miles de cuidados- muchos de ellos ofreciéndose a ayudar a los heridos,  que supieron  responder con estoicismo al corte de calles y  otras interrupciones de su vida cotidiana, muchos de ellos,  teniendo que cruzar  medio Londres a pie.

Y entre el ruido mediático, tres imágenes resumieron este día en Londres: la primera, los cuerpos de los que fueron atropellados, la segunda la de un miembro del parlamento-un ex soldado- intentando salvar la vida del policía agonizante, boca a boca; el tercero- la primera ministra Teresa May con voz temblorosa y a la vez desafiante, asegurando al mundo de que el parlamento más antiguo del mundo quedaba en pie listo para retomar funciones , y que el Reino Unido no dejaría que su valores democráticos, de justicia y tolerancia, fuesen destruidos.

En ese instante la Sra. May parecía haber nacido para este momento, igual que la Sra. Thatcher supo relucirse  en momentos de grandes amenazas como las bombas de la IRA, y la Guerra de Las Malvinas.

Sin duda si hay un tema que la Sra. May conoce  mejor que muchos es el tema del terrorismo ya que antes de ser primer  ministra fue un muy eficaz Ministra del Interior manejando todos los secretos de estado y ganándose cierta reputación como otra mujer de hierro.

Sus actitud y sus palabras de ayer, a la puerta de su casa residencial oficial Numero 10 de Downing Street , a pocas horas de haber sobrevivido el ataque al parlamento, retomaron el hilo de una narrativa bien conocida por los que hemos sido educados en colegios y universidades Británicas- la de un pueblo que surgió victorioso de dos guerras  mundiales, y que está dispuesto  a defender hasta la muerta su vida parlamentaria, y un primer ministro que da confianza en momentos  de crisis.

Queda por ver como influyera lo que paso el miércoles y el terrorismo que aun amenaza, en la política de país, sobre todo en las negociaciones sobre la futura  relación del Reino Unido con la Unión Europea.

Sin duda la reacción has mostrado la  fortaleza del pueblo Británico y sus líderes ,  los valores liberales que sostienen  una ciudad   multicultural como Londres y el gran símbolo de democracia duradera que es el parlamento, además de una cierta solidaridad internacional en los ofrecimientos de apoyo por parte de aliados.

Al mismo tiempo lo que paso ayer ha servido para recordar una vez la  amenaza que supone el terrorismo Islamista y la necesidad de fortalecer la colaboración y intercambio de información entre el Reino Unido y el resto de Europa, y con Estados Unidos .

Ojala que estos  valores democráticos y esta  colaboración necesitada sirvan para reforzar el sentido patriotero y al mismo tiempo Europeo de una mayoría de Británicos, tal como  soñaba Churchill.

 

 

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Miracle in the Nou Camp

 

It was the kind of night when the Virgin of Montserrat, San Jordi,  Messi’s granny and the spirit of Catalan pride past , present and future converged on the Camp Nou.

Asked before the match how he saw his team’s chances of making up the 0-4 goal deficit against PSG, Neymar  rated it at one per cent, while Luis Enrique said, “If they can score four, we can score six.”

As it turned out Neymar proved one of the team’s  defining players, and Luis Enrique it’s most unexpected disciple and prophet , who, after a Damascian conversion from his own damnation, on the night it mattered,  led the Barca tribe out of its wilderness.

Of course PSG allowed themselves too easily to be walked over in the first half. But to claim Barca’s victory was by default would not do justice to a win that has no precedent in the history of the Champions League, in  the sheer scale of its recovery and the odds overcome.

Cavani ‘s goal for PSG in the 62nd minute had brutally interrupted the rising hopes of millions of Barca fans , puncturing the euphoria on the Nou Camp fuelled by the first three goals. For Barca now to score  three more goals in less tan half an hour, without conceding another, was just too much of another mountain to climb- or so it seemed. The stadium deflated.

But then came Neymar’s stunning  free-kick, bending the ball over the wall and into the left-hand corner from thirty yards out. Once he had scored, the  Brazilian picked up the ball,  held it close to his  chest and then  ran bak to the middle of the park, as if he intended to ensure that it stayed with him for the rest of the game.

And up to a point it did , just as it had done until then, for  if Barca’s fight back was a collective effort, Neymar’s relentless movement on and off the ball presented PSG’s defence with its most disruptive element.

One minute into extra time, it was Neymar who  made it all square on aggregate ,with a successful penalty kick,  giving players and supporters a final glimmer of hope that the impossible might just happen even if PSG was still ahead on away goals.

And so it was that faith, as Luis Enrique put it afterwards, prevailed with Sergio Roberto scoring the winning goal five minutes into extra time, an extention of the game justified if only for the cynical mind-game  PSG tried out by delaying its  emergence from from the tunnel  after the half-time break.

To have  Sergio Roberto, one of  the team’s youngest players and a product of the youth acedemy La Massia , score the winning goal was an ending made to measure for a club so obsessed with its sense of cultural  identity  but so often falling short of honouring it.

It also vindicated Luis Enrique’s trust in a player that has underperformed this season, despite the promise he showed in Barca’s youth team and as a young under-21 international. Sergio Roberto came on for  Rafihna  fourteen   minutes away  from full-time in what proved to be a crucial substitution..

This was a match that redeemed Luis Enrique  as a tactician, for it  involved the whole team pursuing a ruthless pressing game for all of  the first half and much of the second, which succeeded in  locking PSG down.

But for an occasional quick passing in mid-field, and a simply sublime back-heel by Iniesta that contributed to PSG’s own goal, Barca in its relentless hounding of the ball indivdually or in packs,   and fight back spirit played more like a traditional Real Madrid or Man United of the Fergsuon heydays, than a Barca of the Cruyff/Guardiola brand. Evem Mourinho would have appoved had it not been for Suarez’s occasional simulations. For the tactics were a means to an  end not an end in itself. From the outset Barca played to win-it was edge of the seat stuff but not beautiful to watch even if when it was over you felt , in the words of Pique, like making love-if you were a Barca supporter that is

Of the master crafstman , Messi, the most enduring image,was that of his face before he pounded his penalty kick into the net. With his ruddy reddish beard and maniacal eyes, he looked less an Argentine  street wise kid or pibe, more like a stocky Viking about to deliver the ultimate beheading on a bloody batte field. No grace or enjoyment or trickery just the silent, cold focus and utter determination of a war-leader –  Barca’s captain , on the night, mirroring  the ‘furia’ of the Real Madrid’s captain Ramos  the previous evening.

The rest of the Barca players were gladiators  rather than poets on the night, and they had God and other benevolent spirits on their side, just like Messi. The heavens were looking down on the Nou Camp. And football like life and death can be full of emotion, and is unpredictable. Miracles do  happen. Visca Barca! Visca Catalunya!

 

 

 

 

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Warsaw Diary

 

 

 

There was a long queue at passport control at Warsaw’s Chopin airport  on arrival from London. ‘Never happened before’ said a young polish lady. I and another British national   looked at each other with the thought passing through our minds- is Brexit already with us?

It turned out there were a couple of police officers who had turned up late for their shift and in the end we all swept through the EU lane relatively smoothly- but for a few minutes it  did make one think, how bad things could get if governments wanted them to.

*******

Poland is outside the Euro, but inside Schengen and the EU.  Poles are now the biggest immigrant  group in the UK having grown to 800,000 since Poland joined the EU in 2004. The Polish government wants their rights guaranteed. The man with the real power in Poland, Jaroslaw Kaczynski , the chairman of the  ruling Law & Justice Party, is much respected by UKIP and rightwing Tories. He is a conservative ideologue who is publicly opposed to the centralising tendencies of the European Union. Whichever way one looks at  it, Poland looks set to play a not insignificant role as broker or ally as the political dynamics of Europe shift with the Brexit negotiations.

******

During the late 1950’s and 1960’s when Poland was under communist rule  I shared  an English Catholic prep  and boarding  school education with several mainly titled Polish aristocratic exiles. However this is my first visit to Poland on a short but intensive publicity tour arranged by my Polish publishers. It  leaves me little time  between interviews to take in the city during  a packed scheduled of TV, radio, website, and newspaper interviews. But it’s enough to catch a glimpse, to take note, and yes to want to return.

The Poles I meet are warm and friendly, fiercely nationalistic, as well as cultured-,much as I remember my school mates. I am  struck,  on a first sighting, by  Warsaw’s small size and the generally low-key and unambitious architecture  and infrastructure of the city compared to other European capitals. It is not a rich country or a militarily  powerful one. I also made quickly aware of the extent to the  county’s historical experience  may make it understandably  concerned  about the future direction of Europe and its potential break-up. There is an enduring memory of Poland’s carve up during and after WW2.

My companion for the next 48 hours is , Piotr ,is  from Krakow . He  a young publishers’ publicist  whose grandparents and parents  survived  the traumas of Nazi and Soviet rule. Piotr by contrast has  grown up enjoying the benefits of democracy and being part of the European community.He tells me he feels reasonably relaxed about Brexit as long as it doesn’t end up making life worse for the Poles in the UK and those, like him, whose best future is linked to a prosperous and peaceful Europ. For  there is no doubt in his mind that  life in Poland has become  a great better since it joined the EU in 2004 . He hopes that  Britain and the EU will work out an arrangements that benefits everyone.

******

My hotel  is not among Warsaw’s current best  but it’s functional, central, and one that an enterprising local publishing house can afford for a visiting author . It was built under communist rule. It is gracelessly decorated and bureaucratically run, its long corridors  and box-like rooms, a less famous legacy of communist rule than the nearby iconic , socialist realist 231m high Palace of Culture and Science. This ‘gift of friendship’  from the Soviet Union is nicknamed Stalin’s penis, Piotr informs me, an  Orwellian monstrosity some Poles  wished had been torn down  long ago but which has lived on as a tourist attraction , Poland’s highest building. It dwarfs  any 21st century building in Warsaw, a reminder that the communist legacy still hangs heavy on modern Poland, alongside an enduring nationalism that has shown itself as prone to  authoritarianism as well as liberation.

******

 

When I ask Piotr , a Catholic, what he thinks of Pope Francis, the subject of my latest book published in  English, he tells me that he knows of one priest who likes him but many Polish conservative Catholics  don’t. In Poland, a majority of bishops and priests and regular mass goers find it difficult to come to terms with a Pope they regard as a socialist politically and a  liberal theologically and doctrinally. By contrast, John Paul  11nd, himself a Pole, endures as their most loved Pontiff. Despite Pope Francis’s call for less clerical and a more compassionate Church, Polish largely conservative bishops and many priests are  fervent supporters of the   current right wing government and its uncompromising assault on liberal sexual morality  and curbs on Muslim refugees.

******

 

The latest book of mine to be translated into Polish is about the politics and history of  Spanish football. It coincides with the publication of a new edition of  an earlier book on FC Barcelona which focuses on the relationship between the club and Catalan nationalism and its rivalry with Real Madrid. Football is popular in Poland and the literature of Spanish football has attracted a particular strong following.  Poles are fascinated by the way nationalist politics plays out in the rivalry of FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, and the endurance of a  sport whose popularity has survived revolutions, civil wars, and dictatorships.

During one interview, I am asked why it was  that Catalans are sometimes called Polacos  (Polish in Spanish). To the interviewer’s surprise and barely concealed consternation I tell her that its used in a derogatory fashion  by Castilians or radical Real Madrid fans against Barca fans on the grounds that the Catalan language is as incomprensible as Polish. The conversation then switches to whether what Catalans and Poles have had most in common is  their nationalism or their sense of victimisation at the hands of a  foreign power.

 

******

 

In a Greek restaurant in the centre of Poland I watch FC Barcelona play Sporting  Gijon on a giant screen together with the manager, a Barca fan with an uncanny resemblance to Hristo Stoichkov, the Bulgarian player who once played for Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team.

FC Barcelona seems to have a  bigger following in Poland than Real Madrid, with Barca’s Polish fan club the Catalan’s club’s largest in Europe, a fact that my Polish publishers have so intelligently exploited by having 5,000 names of local Barca followers printed  on the  inside cover of my book as if they had assumed collective ownership.

 

******

On my one and only night out in Warsaw, a local journalist called Karol walks me through the city’s old quarter to his favourite beer haunt . Being a weekday on the first day of Lent, the neighbourhood is  emptied of  tourists and local inhabitants, which gives it a strangely surreal  feel . We wonder across its restored market square, in and out of medieval alleyways, and small courtyards, its monuments to  brutally repressed uprisings, its markings of the wall separating the Jewish ghetto, its grand imposing Churches, and aristocratic  buildings, some of them rebuilt with the original stone or brick , so many ghosts of the past in our midst, and yet a testimony to man’s ability to rise again from even the most appalling devastation, and all inexorably linked to Poland’s past and struggling sense of collective identity.

******

 

Among the Polish journalists who interviewed me several spoke Spanish better than in English. Some had benefited from EU Erasmus grants in Spanish universities and work places, others had learnt simply from following  the Spanish League La Liga on the internet. Leaving Frederic Chopin airport, I remember that another airport I had flown in and out of recently – Funchal in Madeira- is about to be named Cristiano Ronaldo airport. Another of my Polish interviewers,  one of the country’s top radio journalists, himself a Real Madrid fan, had told me he hoped Poland’s best player, Bayern Munich’s  Robert Lewandowski might end up with the Spanish club soon.  There is much excitement at the prospect. No one has suggested, as far as I know, that  Warsaw airport should be named after him. Polish culture goes deeper than that, thank God. Compared to Chopin’s Nocturnes, even the best CR7 performance is ephemeral.

 

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Barca’s Disgraceful Night

Watching FC Barcelona crashing to defeat in Paris last night gave me  a distinct  feeling of déjà vu.

This was no ordinary defeat, but an abject surrender by a team with some of the best players  in the world and Messi representing  a club that prides and markets  itself  on the basis of its  integrity.

Not since the Allianz Arena in April 2013 had  Barca been more humiliated by a better European team and its own total lack of moral fibre.

There is a justifiable   sense of desolation if not betrayal among Barca fans around the world  this morning. The fact that  last night’s  match saw a Qatar owned PSG easily beat Qatar sponsored Barca left many happy bunnies captivated by the moral desert  of football business.

Last night as then, this was not defeat, at the hands of the home team (in this case PSG not Bayern) , suffered through poor referee decisions or fluke opposition goals. This was a comprehensive thrashing by a team that on the night showed themselves superior across positions and in every aspect of the game with only Neymar last night seemingly trying to the best he could in the circumstances.  For those with longer memories, there was a sense of having been there before-back in  1994, when Johan Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’ were beaten  by AC Milan in the  Champions League final  in Athens.But then that threw Barca into the doldrums  for several years.

This season Barca has reached the final of the Copa del Rey, a tournament  that increasingly means nothing in football terms to nationalist Catalan Barca fans other than an excuse to make a political protest against  the Spanish state. Meanwhile it is  trailing  Real Madrid badly in La Liga, and the men in white now looker stronger contenders in the Champions League.  Certainly there is a sense today, as there was back in April 2013  , that, barring a miracle in the second-leg at the Nou Camp,   FC Barcelona may  have reached the end of an era of unrivalled international supremacy.

And yet even if this  may turn out to be a disastrous  fall for Barca- it may recover next season with a  change of manager and players  as it has done before. Let’s not forget that after Munich, Barca won the triple in 2014-2015 and the Copa del Rey and la Liga last year, after being beaten in the  quarter finals of the Champions League by Atletico de Madrid.

The trophies achieved since Munich had Barca managed by Luis Enrique and its three  star trio of Messi, Suarez and Neymar, clocking up  record of goals between them. But Barca we have always been told is a club that believes passionately in its identity  and style and it’s not just about silver ware.

That explains  why Enrique has never managed to win the hearts and minds of  purist Barca fans . He stands accused of over dependence on  his star trio while  foregoing any Plan B or development of creative  team work. Personally I have felt total underwhelmed by the spectacle of Barca for most of the time since Guardiola took over.  I’ve taken to reading Cryuff’s memoirs and watching old videos of the Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola era , to remind myself of what I used to call poetry in motion as opposed to the unattractiveness  disjointed style which all too often bypasses midfield and relies exclusively on the talents of three players.

Messi and Suarez were generally nonexistent last night. Because  of his  status as the  best player in the world and possibly history, Messi’s culpability was the most striking. He looked and played like someone who couldn’t care whether Barca won or lost. He failed to register a single touch in the opposite box in a Champions League game for the first time in the season, and gave a goal away after  losing a ball and walking away. There was no flowing posession football in any area  of Barca’s play and not one memorable strike at goal.

Messi and Suarez have hit this kind of form  before and bounced back. They will do so again. But other players show that they simply have not got the quality to meet the demands and expectations  of a club as big as  FC Barcelona. And here I would list Samuel Umtiti, Rafinha , and Andre  Gomes. Meanwhile on a good day Iniesta and Busquets remain  invaluable   as play makers. Last night was not one of them.

As for Luis Enrique he must take responsibility for the broader collective  lackluster performance, and for seemingly lacking any ideas of how to correct it during a game during which Barca came nowhere near to clinching the away goal that might have given them a better chance of recovery in three weeks. The knives will be out if Barca lose La Liga after , as seems likely  now, they crash out  of the Champions at the Nou Camp.

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La Sra May: Entre patriotismo y nacionalismo

 

La perspectiva de la otra ribera  escribe Jimmy Burns Marañón

 

 

Escribo declarando al principio mi ‘status’ de ciudadano Europeo, nacionalidad  británica, nacido en Madrid de una madre española y padre británico, educado en el Reino Unido, que desde 1953, cuando naci,  he pasado  la vida compartiendo  culturas,a  nivel personal, profesional y políticamente.

Por lo tanto, desde esta posición por lo menos  híbrida, permítanme intentar formular algunos pensamientos personales sobre el discurso de la señora May, y lo que podría producirse para el futuro de las relaciones entre el Reino Unido y España.

Como ejercicio de formulación y entrega de discurso político, tanto la retórica como la postura de May  apelaron a un sentido de identidad británico arraigado en la historia con un desarmante sentido de confianza en sí mismo.

Escucharla era oír ecos del mas famos ‘speech’ de  Churchill en el cual ofrecia nada mas que  Sangre Sudor y Lágrimas “y un ” Nunca nos rendiremos “cuando Gran Bretaña se levantó para defender a Europa en sus propios términos. Tambien May nos record con su estllo de mujer de hierro ademas de sentimiento a la Sra. Thatcher haciendo de su forma de gobierno y su” un pie en y un pie fuera ” de Europa algo que otros miemebros de UE pudieran ser obligados  a tolerar, y en el caso de sus políticas económicas, emular , todo menos salir de  la Eurozona y  el Mercado Unico..

Para entender mejor este discurso  de May , me baso en la sabiduría del ensayista británico George Orwell, que al tratar de explicar las emociones generadas por la Segunda Guerra Mundial 2 escribió así en sus notas sobre el nacionalismo publicadas en 1945:

“El nacionalismo no debe confundirse con el patriotismo. Ambas palabras se usan normalmente en una forma tan vaga que cualquier definición puede ser cuestionada, pero hay que hacer una distinción entre ellas, ya que dos ideas diferentes e incluso opuestas están involucradas. Por “patriotismo” me refiero a la devoción a un lugar determinado y un modo particular de vida, que uno cree que es el mejor del mundo, pero no tiene el deseo de obligar a que otras personas lo accepten. El patriotismo es de su naturaleza defensiva, tanto militar como culturalmente.

El nacionalismo, por otra parte, es inseparable del deseo de poder. El propósito permanente de todo nacionalista es asegurar más poder y más prestigio, no para sí mismo, sino para la nación u otra unidad en la que haya escogido hundir su propia individualidad “.

El discurso de May, según sus entusiastas menos extremos , estaba infundido con valores patrióticos de decencia, juego limpio y apertura al mundo, incrustado en ese concepto personificado por el hero britanico  mas universal James Bond 007 – que nadie lo hace mejor.

Ciertamente, en ningún momento  de su discurso  afirmó May que  lo ella estaba preparando para Gran Bretaña era una receta para emular por el resto de la UE. Por el contrario, se declaro abierta a una cooperación permanente con Europa y el mundo en pos de un acuerdo consensuado que fuese ventajoso  para Gran Bretaña y que tambien funcionase  en el interés de Europa.

Al mismo tiempo, el discurso de la May  fue una manera de querer recordarnos que la cultura política de Gran Bretaña –representada por cierta sector de la case politica y muchos de sus ciudadanos anglo-sajones -nunca se ha sentido en deuda con la UE como sienten los otros países de la UE por el tema de  democracia -y por lo tanto puede prescindir de algunos de los compromisos vinculantes , reglas y regulaciones, que condiciona la soberanía nacional en otros lugares.

 

El problema que tiene May es que su discurso no neceramiente convenze en Europa entre  los que se sienten comprometidos por razones políticas y económicas a ser miembros de pleno derecho de la UE . May argumenta que Gran Bretaña es un aliado necesario que sin embargo debido a la historia, la geografía y el temperamento merece ser tratado como un caso especial.

Lo que me lleva al ejemplo del editorial en El País de hoy  argumentando que el objetivo declarado de  May de abandonar el Mercado Único y su discurso en general reflejan un “vergonzoso nacionalismo xenófobo”.

Esto es una crítica dura y que me gustaría creer es ademas injusta y prematura, a pesar de que el Sr Nigel Farage , el extremonacionalista del partido  UKIP afirmó que la May le habia copiado su guión.

No olvidemos que lo de la May fue un discurso pronunciado antes del inicio de las negociaciones que van para largo, no una posición final, y que muchos Britanicos han celebrado por ser posiblemente más conciliador que desafiante.

Tambien es verdad que el discurso no entro en detalle sobre  importantes cuestiones  que afectan al comercio de bienes, servicios y personas entre el Reino Unido y la UE , ni cómo podría afectar a las relaciones bilaterales .

Aquí hago una mención especial de los españoles que viven y trabajan en el Reino Unido, y los británicos que viven y trabajan en España, por no hablar del comercio, turismo y relaciones comerciales que se han desarrollado gracias a la UE , no a pesar de ella.

El hecho de que May ofreció ciertas garantias a los ciudadanos de la UE residentes en el Reino Unido, siempre y cuando la UE27  haga los mismo con  los ciudadanos británicos,  fue positivo, pero apenas concluyente.

En el verano pasado vote en contra de Brexit en el referendum. Ahora sólo espero que todas las partes involucradas en las negociaciones lleguen a un consenso que beneficie a la UE y que mantenga a Gran Bretaña como un país abierto al mundo, gobernado por demócratas y no por nacionalistas extremos.

Como el Fincancial Times , que también se opuso al Brexit, lo puso en su editorial de hoy, el reto político más difícil en una generación “implicará sangre, sudor y una dosis de buena suerte”. FIN

 

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Mrs May between patriotism & nationalism

 

 

I  write as a British national, born in Madrid to a Spanish mother  and British father, educated  in the UK,  bit  who since 1953 has spent is life straddling two cultures, personally, professionally, and politically.

So from this hybrid position , let me attempt to formulate some personal thoughts on Mrs May’s speech, and what it might auger for the future of UK-Spanish relations.

As an exercise  in political speech making and delivery, May’s rhetoric and poise  appealed to  a British sense of identity rooted in  history with a disarming sense of self-confidence.

To listen to her was to hear echoes of Churchill  ‘blood . sweat and tears’ and ‘WE shall Never Surrender’  speech when Britain stood up to defend Europe   on its own terms,  and later Mrs Thatcher making of her form of governance and her ‘one foot in and one foot’ out relationship with Europe others were forced to tolerate, and in the case of her economic policies- emulate them but for her and her successors to enter the Eurozone..

But in  trying to make sense of it, I draw on the wisdom of the British essayist George Orwell who in trying to explain the emotions generated by  the Second World War 2 , wrote thus in his notes on nationalism published in 1945  :

‘Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction  between them, since two different and even opposing  ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism  on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding  purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.’

Mrs May speech , her enthusiasts will argue, was infused with patriotic values  of decency, fair play, and openness to the world, imbedded in that concept personified by James Bond 007- that nobody does it better.

Certainly a at no point did she claim that was she was laying out for Britain was a recipe to be emulated by the rest of the EU .  On the contrary declaring herself open to an ongoing cooperation with Europe and the world working towards a consensual agreement that would be good for Britain and work in the  interest of Europe..

At same time underlying  Mrs May’s speech was a sense that Britain political culture has never been in debt to the EU as say that of other EU countries do because it does not owe its democracy to it- and therefore it can do without some of the binding rules and regulations , that conditions national sovereignty elsewhere, but prevents us from controlling immigration.

 

The problem  is her convincing European counties that feel committed for political and economic reasons  to being full-fledged members of the EU   that Britain is a necessary ally that nevertheless because of history, geography, and temperament deserves to be treated as a special case.

Which  bring me to the  example  of the editorial in  Spain’s El Pais today arguing that that Mrs May’s declared aim of leaving the Single Market and her speech in general reflected a  “shameful xenophobic  nationalism”.

This is indeed harsh criticism and  one which I would like to believe is unfair and premature even if  Nigel Farage of UKIP claimed   that Mrs May owed her script to him.

Let us not forget   this was a speech made before the start of negotiations  not a final position , arguably more conciliatory than defiant , and one that kept important matters of detail affecting trade in goods, services and people between the UK and the EU and how they might affect bilateral relations unaddressed, not east the issue of the status of EU nationals.

Here I make special mention of Spaniards living and working in the UK, and British living and working in Spain, not to speak of trade, tourism , and business links which have developed thanks to the EU not in spite of it.

That Mrs May offered certainly to EU citizens resident in the UK as long as the EU27 reciprocate on British citizens was positive but barely conclusive.

I voted against Brexit. Now I just hope that all sides involved in the negotiations  will reach a consensus that benefits the EU and holds Britain together as an outward-looking country, governed by democrats not  extreme nationalists.

As the FT, who also opposed Brexit,  put it in its editorial today,  the most daunting political challenge in a generation  “will involve blood, sweat and a dose of good luck”. ENDS

 

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‘Silence': A film worth discernment

I am grateful to Father Nye,  a wise old Jesuit friend for advising me to go and see and make my own mind up about Silence which arrived at my local London movie house on New Year’s Day. ‘Only don’t expect  humour. It doesn’t have any’, ‘he added.

Up to that point a reading of some reviews  had led me to thinking I might avoid it.  The suggestion was  that this was an overlong and dark  film, with a somewhat leaden dialogue, a miscast central character, and containing scenes of torture and execution of such brutality  and despair which I could well do without as I put behind me  a pretty awful 2016 (Brexit, Trump, relentless terrorism,  and a good friend dying of cancer just before Christmas) and, with Christian  optimism, looked forward  to a better 2017.

The much commented on largely male on male violence on screen was enough to put off my wife and daughters but Fr Nye’s timely advice, the day after the film’s first screening in the English  capital,   left this Jesuit educated layman instinctively booking a back row seat in a half empty cinema.

In fairness I also owe a debt of gratitude to Anthony Quinn, film critic of The Tablet that in my view has managed to capture the essence of Silence in a way few of his colleagues have managed.

I found the film worthwhile and absorbing, stimulating all sorts of reflections with  its story of two missionary Jesuits who travel to Japan in the 1640’s in the midst of a mass persecution  of   local Christians , in search of their mentor, an older priest who allegedly apostatised.

This is as Quinn rightly notes a journey into a heart of darkness.The opening shot of Christians  crucified and tortured with boiling water is harrowing but not gratuitous, leaving it up to the viewer to imagine the nature of the pain suffered by the victims, in the absence of excessive blood and gore.

The imagery of this and other  tortures and executions  that occur in the film  raise  the  central moral question  posed by the film-to what extent should one embrace the pain or allow others to suffer on behalf of one’s faith, when the human option is of love,  to stop the suffering and ensure life if  possible. And with this an associated question  to do with Christian witness and conscience- is martyrdom necessary to save one’s soul?

For me the film provoked other thoughts about the nature of religion and its capacity to evolve beyond fundamentalist dogma. The story takes place at a time when Christianity  was outlawed in Japan as being an alien faith with which  Buddhism, the official religion of the Japanese,  had nothing in common- or so the Japanese warlords at the time insisted.

For much of the  film, the Japanese martial enforcers act with a disciplined brutality that recall World War Two prisoner of war films rather than than the gentle meditative  religion of incense, and soothing mantras we associate with modern day Pagodas and other Buddhist places of spiritual wellbeing.

Yet the head  enforcer’s title as The Inquisitor can  hardly fail to remind us of the brutality which  Christians acted against each other and other faiths in the  same century and the ones that preceded it.

In so doing I was reminded of the  English and Scottish Jesuit martyrs that were so venerated at my Jesuit school Stonyhurst and have continued to form part of my religious imagination  ever since. The stories of their hanging and quartering in London public places were narrated in contemporary accounts with more graphic detail than anything depicted in Silence.

And that led me to thank God for enlightened Buddhists and Christians who, as history progressed,  moved towards  each other not against each other-  , in mutual respect for each other’s spirituality, just as Tolkien dreamed.

It also prompted me to  reflect on the terrorist violence that continues to be used in the name of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam  in modern times, still stuck in the 12th century- and the plight of those who suffer it, even if most of us witness it only on screen.

I emerged thinking how right the alleged apostate priest was advising the younger Jesuit that he would be better off serving God showing love for his children by saving them than allowing them to suffer on  his account.

A different story which comes to mind is that of Alfred Delp the German Jesuit executed by the Nazis in World War  Two for refusing  to renounce his priesthood.  During his six-month incarceration, he wrote of his fear, sadness and anger and then about  his transformation from an ‘unholy character into a saint’ in a series of prison letters he smuggled out.

In the end Depp did not seek his martyrdom aggressively, but reflected on his  on his love of God, sense of peace and surrender.

As Thomas Merton the monk and poet has observed about Father Delp’s prison writings:  “In these pages we meet a  stern, recurrent foreboding that the ‘voice in the wilderness is growing fainter and fainter, and it will soon not be heard at all. “

After watching Silence it  was the final frame that lingered in my thoughts: of the small wooden cross cupped in the priest’s hand as he is cremated as a Buddhist. I asked myself the question , what right did I have to expect that the young Jesuit in  Japan  himself should in conscience  seek martyrdom as some of his brothers  had done, instead of deciding not to? This a film not about saints or sinners  but about  sharing in our fragile humanity and doubt and our need for reconciliation.   In death as in life,  however much the world may seem to sink into godless despair, it is  faith in  a loving God that ultimately should and does  prevail.

 

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Cristiano vs Messi: An imagined rivalry?

Cristiano vs Messi: An imagined rivalry?

When it comes to sport, there is nothing like an iconic rivalry to fuel  the global popularity of football.

This past weekend, Cristiano  Ronaldo and Lionel Messi fought their latest battle to  be considered the world’s best player  in war of attrition that has lasted more than a decade.

But this was no gladiatorial duel  consciously played out in a  frenzied colosseum,  but  a commercial construct which had the two star players separated  over   a distance of thousands of miles and playing in  different matches before a global audience that followed the episodic contest on satellite TV and the worldwide net.

The opening shots were fired in Yokohoma where Real Madrid played Japanese Champions  Kashima Antlers in  the Club World Cup final. This is a  FIFA competition created almost exclusively as a commercial vehicle but with  limited claim on the enduring memory of the discerning fan.

The match of course had its importance  for  the Japanese and their  opponents on the day.  The global reputation  of the still relatively  nascent Japanese professional football  is based on the global brand and marketing reach of the country’s multinational  corporates while  the executives of a commercially-minded  major European club like Real Madrid takes to this kind of competition like a duck to water.

Indeed for  Real Madrid and its celebrity star player -Cristiano Ronaldo-the event provided a perfect platform to engage with the lucrative Asian market, and  secure a Christmas bonus, adding to a recent trophy chest  which has included Champions  League and European Super Cup and for Ronaldo –European Nations Cup and  Ballon D’Or player of the year.

In football terms, the Club World Cup final had very little else to commend it other than the Japanese minnows displaying their  reputation for courage.  With the European champions trailing 2-1 in the second half, Ronaldo leveled with a 60th minute penalty and scored the two further goals in extra time to seal a  victory.

Up to that  point Cristiano had put in a lot of show and little  substance. Not one of his best games by any means but one his critics would caricature as part of his DNA.  As Jose Samano of El Pais put it, “the Portuguese showed off some insignificant arabesques, a lot of bicycle kicks  without a chain, and irrelevant spurs, cinematographic gestures in the land of Oliver and Benji but ineffective.”

His more understated colleague Benzema played better but then he didn’t win the match- nor could he ever be Cristiano Ronaldo,who is  never shy of hugging the limelight, and determined to be recognized as the best player in the world, as voted days earlier in the Ballon D’Or.

And if football was all about trophies –then indeed  he would be the best without question. Only one other player, the Spanish international and Il Grande Inter Milan  Galician born Luis Suarez Miramontes has conquered  the European Cup, the European  Nations Cup and the Intercontinental Cup in one season and that was back in 1964.

But let us return to the latest battle between icons as played out across cyberspace for football memories are based on goals as well as championships and Sunday was a day when a more ordinary fixture turned into something worth remembering.

The Real Madrid- Kashima encounter  was followed later in the day, as European time caught up with Japan’s, with a popular derby of the  Spanish La Liga played at the  Nou Camp between FC Barcelona and Espanyol.

It was a  match potentially without consequence but which turned into something  worth being recorded. After a lacklustre performance for most of the season, FC Barcelona showed  skill and grit against a decent opposing side  with key players giving it their  best, not seen since the heyday  of the Guardiola years. Barca’s opening goal  came from Iniesta producing  a prerectly weighted and angled  diagonal long ball for Barca’s Suárez to effortlessly pick up and knock into the far corner with one touch.

But it was Messi who,  as the game developed in the second half,  produced a sensational all-round performance both as creator and goal scorer, to help his side win 4-1.

Two mesmerising solo runs from Messi helped Suarez score Barca’s  second  and Jordi Alba the third  before he countered a late rally by Espanyol,  rounding off the match with a sublime finish following Suarez’s clever chipped pass.

It was Messi’s  assists  which will be remembered as one of the great moves of football history.The  first had him picking up the ball inside his own half on the right, passing to Iniesta, who passed it back, opening the way for a masterclass. His footwork, reminiscent of Maradona circa Mexico 1986,  had him going leave  six Espanyol players for dead, before his shot was spilled by the substitute  goalkeeper Diego Lopez for Suarez to follow through. A minute later, Messi produced another breathtaking run, nutmegging four Espanyol players inside the box before laying off the ball off for Alba to score.

López briefly silenced a jubilant Camp Nou with an Espanyol a well worked counter but Messi rounded off the match  with a goal of his own, off a pass by Suárez .

After yesterday’s ‘duel’,  other players talked  about Messi being  from  another galaxy or play station, and Cristiano talked about himself,  about what a memorable year it had been, winning four trophies. Of all them, winning the Euro championship was the best because it was the first for Portugal (and because it won him the Ballon D’Or, he might have added).

Meanwhile geeks will continue to ponder over statistics , while the purists among the football  fans will resist  being drawn into answering the  question they regard as not only irrelevant but an insult to the beautiful game : who of the two is the best?

As long as  Cristiano and Messi can play top flight football, why not just sit back and enjoy it.

 

 

 

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