The Sobremesa Podcast

Last Tuesday evening as thousands of people were commuting home from work and many others continued at their jobs in supermarkets, cinemas, factories, beauty shops and restaurants, unprecedented flash floods hit the Valencia region.

That morning at 8am the Spanish Met office issued its highest warning level of maximum red, warning of extreme danger. But the right-wing regional government of Carlos Mazon failed to issue a civil protection alert to residents’ mobile phones until 8.15 pm that evening (a full 12 hours later)- by which time the worst of the flooding had already hit.

Serious questions are being raised about Mazon’s disastrous emergency management as rescue operations continue amid mass destruction and death. The death toll currently stands at 207 but is likely to rise substantially in the coming days while it remains far from clear when any degree of normal life can return to the region. Today on Sobremesa podcast we talk about the tragic events this week along Spain’s Eastern coast and the political failures and fallout from the floods.

This week Eoghan talks to financial journalist Gareth Gore. In his new book Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church Gore opens the lid on the extremist, reactionary sect Opus Dei. Opus was initially set up against the tumultuous backdrop of 1930s Spain and went to play a leading role in the Francoist dictatorship - both in education and then in 1957 with the appointment of three of its members to cabinet.

Gore traces how Opus went from Francoist Spain to playing a vanguard role in reactionary movements globally in recent decades - with its network of influence and patronage in Washington reaching its peak during Trump's 2016 presidency. 

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The island of El Hierro is at the centre of the Canary Islands’ current surge in irregular migration, receiving 13,000 refugees and immigrants this year – 2,000 more than its total residents. As hundreds die every month on the passage from West Africa to the popular tourist islands, the Spanish right are now weaponising the issue.

Leader of the far-right Vox Santiago Abascal denounced what he characterised as the “mass-scale invasion” of El Hierro by “illegal migrants” while conservative media outlets dubbed it “the Lampedusa of the Atlantic”, in reference to the Italian migration hotspot where a state of emergency was declared last year. “The far-right want to turn El Hierro into a symbol of division but they won’t succeed,” insists Amado Carballo, head of social affairs in the island’s local administration.

This week Eoghan and Catherine discuss the humanitarian tragedy on the Canaries and its politicization by the far-right. Please also see Eoghan's article: https://bylinetimes.com/2024/10/02/canary-islands-el-hierro-migrant-crossings/

This week Catherine talks to Sophie Turbutt about one of the most widely read anarchist magazines in 1930s Spain, La Revista Blanca,

Founded by the Montseny family, this anarchist magazine featured a novelty for the time, an advice column that offered answers to questions about gender, women's bodies, sex and sexuality. - topics that were limited in their discussion and clouded by taboos, rumours and misinformed practices in a Spain still very much in the grip of Catholic morality.

Catherine and Sophie discuss both the questions and answers of these advice columns, on topics such as free love, menstruation, bisexuality and abortion, and how, Federica Montseny, daughter of the magazine’s founders, would come to legalise abortion for the first time in 1936 as minister for health minister in Catalonia.

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Berna León, Javier Carbonell and Javier Soria join Alan to discuss to discuss the book La desigualdad en España (Inequalities in Spain) published by Lengua de Trapo.

The book includes a prologue from Thomas Piketty and over 30 - international and national - experts examine inequalities in Spain, from the historical and ongoing causes to symptoms and possible cures. The three editors discuss how the book came about and some of the Spanish specifics when it comes to inequalities.

You can get the book here

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This week Eoghan is joined by journalist Richard Fitzpatrick to discuss Spain’s incredible victory at the European Championships in Germany. Energised by its two daredevil wingers, Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, Spain won all seven matches at the tournament, while playing wonderful attacking, flowing football.

Yet if Yamal and Williams offered the world another, more multicultural image of Spain, the team also visualised a number of important social contradictions too.

Richard contributes to a number of outlets and newspapers, such as the BBC, The Irish Examiner and The New York Times. He is also the author of El Clásico: Barcelona v Real Madrid, Football’s Greatest Rivalry.

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Matthew Machin-Autenrieth, an Ethnomusicologist from the University of Aberdeen, joins Alan to discuss the world famous dance from Spain.

In recent years, the Andalusian Government has embarked on an ambitious project of developing flamenco as a symbol of regional identity. But in this episode, Matthew offers an alternative and more complex history of its origins and development - from early Arab influences to how it was used most recently in anti-austerity protests by groups such as Flo6x8. Matthew also gives some tips on how to get into flamenco.

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Heidi Backes joins Alan to discuss the haunted houses, silent spaces and traumatic memories often seen in post-Franco gothic fiction, such as in Carlos Ruiz Zafón's international bestseller The Shadow of the Wind.' Her new book Spectral Spain looks at how Gothic literature has become a leading genre in contemporary Spain - one capable of confronting the traumatic memories of the country's past.

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Books mentioned in the episode:

More about her book here

Link to publisher's site https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/spectral-spain/

Alan is joined by the podcast's new co-host Laura Seoane, together they talk with political philosopher Tim Syme about the results of the European election, Yolanda Diaz's resignation, the breakthrough of Se Acabó la Fiesta (SALF) and what a rightward shift means for the European Union.

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This week Eoghan talks to researcher and sociologist Iago Moreno about the evolution of online politics in Spain from the techno-optimist vision of the 15M movement in 2011, with its promise of networked democracy, to the rise of the contemporary fachosfera - the far-right and reactionary online eco-system. Iago also talks about the emergence of a new extremist platform to the right of Vox, Se acabó la fiesta, led by reactionary influencer Alvise Pérez.

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