911 days removed

Traveling overseas and spending time with people from foreign lands with unique customs can be an life changing experience. When I visited Spain for about 3 weeks last year in December, the similairities in custom and in architecture between it and where my mother's family resides, Cuenca, Ecuador, were hard not to notice. I always loved the familiar, laid back atmosphere of towns in South America, and to see where it all came from was amazing. At that moment I developed a unbreakable bond with Spain and it's culture.

Of course to say that is very simplistic. Spain is a mishmash of different romance cultures and languages (excluding the Basque language whose roots can't be traced at all), but as a friend of mine explained to me once: You can have a Castillian, a Basque, a Gallego, and a Catalan on a plane or in a bar, speaking to one another about football or wine or politics and they will all use similar gestures and use similar ways to show off their wit, which Spaniards love to do.

When March 11th happened I was in the same exact state I was in when 9 11 happened, I was fast asleep. Until very recently me and mid mornings hadn't seen each other in a long time. When I awoke and my father told me: "Algo paso en Madrid" my heart sank and the adrenaline raced just like if he would have said "Algo paso en Puerto Rico-or in-Cuenca".

Seeing those first images of gaping holes in the sides of train cars and people running about with blood and tears streaming down, left me with a feeling of helplessness. I starting thinking "How many people, of those 190 that were killed and hundreds injured, did I know? How many did I share a drink with in passing while I was there?" Its an awful feeling.

Then the feeling of rage took over. Not toward the bombers though.

I hate what they did and these fanactics are criminals of the lowest order, but, I can't ignore the fact that there is a war going on either. A war that Jose Maria Aznar chose to be bogged down in against the will of the people of Spain. A war between Imperial powers trying to control the flow of the last drops of the 2nd most precious liquid on earth, who are in effect fundamentalist capitalists, and a grouping of those against it's policies. Headed, as luck would have it, by one of the most culturally backward groupings out there, fundamentalist religionists. Life is irony.

The rage within me was at Aznar when he ignored the evidence of bombing being the result of his policies and tried to blame the bombing on Spain's long time nemesis, ETA. He did this for no other reason but to save face before Spain's election 3 days later, in which Spain's population decided that it did not want to participate in another fruitless imperial adventure. That election made me hold out some hope that democracy can work, although it took a rather unique set of circumstances for it to have such a radical effect.

Although I don't agree with everything Zapatero has done, he is by far one the most exciting leaders in the world today. He stood up to the US in many ways. He has done the same with the Catholic Church, which in Spain has had a very negative and fascistic influence. Now Spain is innovating and liberating their culture and trying to throw off the shackles of old thinking and its own fundamentalism. Of course all this is not happening without a fight and the reaction from the old guard is coming fast and thick. We shall see what emerges.

Enjoy the new playlist with of course a Spanish kick. Most of these artists are from Spain and are leading the way in revolutionizing their country and culture.

ciao...