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Saturday, April 08, 2006
Klansmen and Krosses
Now that the Semana Santa (Easter Week) holidays are under way - the big exodus started from most Spanish cites yesterday afternoon - what does it all mean? GC PHILO is sensibly escaping to Morocco this year, but he wrote about the Easter processions in Cádiz last year and assures us that none of it is religious. No, no, we kid you not.
"After all, Spain’s a deeply Catholic country, right? Wrong. The country that gave us the Inquisition and Jesuits may have been deeply Catholic back during the days when Columbus first set sail, but not anymore.", explains GC.
Especially in small villages, all events and culture - basically all entertainment - revolves around the church. People turn up because it's a "get together" and there is likely to be free food! For those reasons, these traditions retain their importance and, to a certain extent, they are followed by rote, because people once HAD to do so. But hardly any do it with any measure of religious devotion, which may seem surprising to those of you who think Spain is a Catholic country, but isn't so difficult to grasp when you understand the history.
Remembering that Franco launched his campaign from Tenerife and that the island suffered some of the first and worst effects, a good example too is the blasphemous Burrial of the Sardine parade that is part of the Carnaval celebrations here on the islands.
Described by Julie Burchill in Carnaval queen, she says, "On the night the sardine is laid to rest, you realise how irretrievably the Catholic church's backing of Fascism during the second world war has damaged its reputation in its heartland. I knew that the Catholic countries of southern Europe now boast the lowest birth-rates in the world, but I never realised how complete their contempt for their religion is until I saw the burial."
Klansmen and Krosses
