4 January 1992
I met Gary at the cathedral square to watch a Catalan regional dance. Barcelona is in the region of Catalan and has a different language and a strong regional pride and a secessionist movement (but not like the terrorism thats going on right now in the Basque region). During the reign of Franco, the government tried to squash regionalism and this dance was outlawed. Still, it was performed secretly in basements. Now it is performed twice every Saturday and three times every Sunday and holiday. Young people have coaches and take part in competitions. Its amazing. Its a very subtle dance. Gary is interviewing one of the dancers for his article and thats how he knows all these things and he told me about it while we watched the dance. Its very interesting to see a city with the input of someone who is researching it.
This whole thing brings up, again, the issue of boundaries, which I keep finding is so important in Europe. Again there is evidence of some arbitrary unification and an underlying sense of arbitrary distinctions. In history class they always make unification sound so glorious! Of course, when its a unification that doesnt reflect the current, obviously superior, "divine right" borders, its called "occupation" or "imperialism" or some such thing. So why is it sometimes glorified? I guess just to justify todays arbitrary borders. I had no idea that history was that politically propagandistic. I mean, I had some idea, but I thought it was mostly just smart-ass defiance and paranoia and other weird vague anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment ideas, I never realized it in such concrete terms.
Here is the sticker they gave us for donating money to pay for the band, which we didnt actually do, but the man Gary was interviewing did and he gave us each a sticker. |