It is good news that the socialist candidate for the Andalusian regional elections is focusing her discourse on the defense of public services instead of that initial announcement of a “law of Andalusian languages.” For those of us born and living in that land, it is difficult to conclude that the Andalusian dialect is threatened for any reason and needs more protection than that persistently given to it by regional, provincial, and municipal institutions, backed by the tireless collaboration of Canal Sur. Since democracy was restored, numerous personalities, with Felipe González at the forefront, have dignified their accent, giving it a course of normality; and they have done so without affectation, combating clichés and complexes naturally, without that forced stamp so notorious on regional television and radio. Far behind is that caricatured identification of Andalusian traits with inculture and exclusion, as could be observed in old translations of Carson McCullers’ novels or Flannery O’Connor’s stories, in which the black people of the southern United States spoke as if they were from the Huelva coast or the Sevillian countryside.
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In Andalusia, there is hardly any trace of nationalist parties because all political forces, whatever their ideology, have adopted Andalusianism in one way or another. However, that pride in the autochthonous has not always known how to distinguish between popular culture and populist folklore. Because if the former is valuable, the latter obeys opportunism. In a region where the separation between Church and State is more than diluted, as corroborated by the fact that it continues to be the second community with the most students taking the Religion subject in a national context of decline, there is no Holy Week, drunken pilgrimage, or religious-popular festival in which mayors or officials do not appear with a virgin’s medal hanging from their neck, presiding over a procession staff in hand, or officiating ceremonies side by side with ecclesiastical and, often also, police and military representatives. This widespread image is particularly shocking when such politicians belong to left-wing parties that supposedly defend or should defend a secular approach to public activity.
And that is perhaps the cliché that the socialist candidate could combat, instead of focusing the debate on the Andalusian dialect, by self-critically acknowledging how much her party has contributed and continues to contribute, whether from the Junta, the provincial councils, or the city councils, to cementing the stereotype of a Spain, more here than anywhere else, still so devoted to Frascuelo and María. Thus, while President Moreno Bonilla attended, immediately after actively participating in Malaga’s Holy Week, the inauguration of the bullfighting season in the Maestranza bullring in Seville (where, incidentally, the emeritus king was cheered), a few meters further up, on the same Paseo de Colón in Seville, the city’s symphony orchestra continued to struggle to maintain its program due to insufficient funding and audience, with hardly anyone paying much attention.
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But there is a second reason why María Jesús Montero is right in her defense of the more substantial public sector, and it is that, behind the gentle kindness and approachable manners that Juanma Moreno, as he prefers to be called, exploits, and which are appreciated, given the circumstances, lies a management that rigorously responds to a criterion of private efficiency. The breast cancer screening scandal reaches such magnitude not only because of the irreparable harm caused to those affected, but because it perfectly reveals the effects of understanding public health from business parameters: the consequences of cuts and their increasingly less disguised “outsourcing.” Reversing this seemingly unstoppable process is urgent, but to denounce it credibly, it is also necessary to self-critically examine the first steps taken by Susana Díaz’s last government in that direction and remember its price.
Similarly, María Jesús Montero’s criticism of Moreno Bonilla’s commitment to private education, as shown by the creation of a General Directorate for Concerted Education, the closure of lines in public schools due to declining birth rates, or the proliferation of private universities and Vocational Training cycles, is accurate because it clearly reveals the PP’s consistent attitude in this matter: behind the more or less authentic cordiality are policies that, however much they try to camouflage themselves, stem from ideological premises. Andalusia is a region that likes to boast about its tradition. However, there are many traditions. And one would like its land to remember the best of its past more often: its hardworking humility, its Cortes de Cádiz, and Antonio Machado; and to aspire to a modern enlightenment that favors the silence of bike lanes over the noise of brass bands and tambourines.
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