I already
said that this blog, written with undeniable vocation of being published as a
book, was practically closed due to its excessive growth. I will only write new
entries in very specific circumstances. In return, they may have an extension,
in journalistic terms, more of article than of column. In some cases, like this
one, I will divide it into two entries (separated here by asterisks) somewhat
different in character, more general and descriptive the first one. Exceptionally,
I write them in English.
A recent
event, the arrest of former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, of whom I will
speak in due time, in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, in the extreme north of
Germany, next to the border with Denmark, has reminded me of that part of German
land —land and sea, I should say— especially dear to me and that perhaps I know
better than the rest of the country, for which I profess, as a whole and for
many reasons, an invincible affection. I enjoyed many times its beautiful
landscapes and the civility of its people. The idea that Germans do not make
much noise when they meet is one of the misconceptions that different peoples
have of each other. It so happens that in Spain we may all speak at once and
Germans do it more orderly, almost always one at a time. At the end, the
laughter, the approval or disapproval, the jokes and the songs may be even noisier
or louder than in Spain.
This
marriage of land and sea is well embodied in Schleswig-Holstein, German Land that I visited many times, almost
always in summer, in endless and unforgettable days, often in the last week of
June, at the time of the Kieler Woche,
an annual event famous worldwide, when hundreds of sailboats from different
countries participate in races and competitions of various kinds in the Kiel
fjord, more than one hundred kilometers from Hamburg.
In this
latter city, unthinkable without its port, its river Elbe and its commercial
and maritime vocation, another happening is also celebrated in summer, the
Hamburg Festival Kreuzfahrt, in which
at least seven major cruise lines arrive at the city in the same dates. The
frolic takes place in the immense port, at night, among dozens of fireworks and
with lovely games of light, led by renowned lighting designers (lichtkünstler), using spotlights and
other lighting devices, which fill and sweep the total area where the event
takes place.
The show
is unforgettable. Buildings and boats shrouded in light, with overflowing
masses of excited and happy people scattered everywhere, on the piers, on the
open terraces, on the decks of the innumerable ships of all types and sizes,
with their melancholic sirens shuddering the air and insistently calling to
enjoy the moment and this unique opportunity, setting fire into the hearts in
the warm night of the Nordic summer, so ephemeral. Wanting to capture the
fleeting beauty of the moment, which will not return until after two years or
until God knows when. With the need and the urgency to profit the good weather
season, the beautiful mallow sunsets, eternal in the summer in those latitudes.
United all in the innocent observance of the Latin Carpe diem; unknowingly following the ancestral and happy Dionysian
rites, which underlie all cultures. Trying to fix forever the fairy atmosphere
of the moment, to be able to remember it later.
Events
like this inevitably engender nostalgia, the fatal feeling that everything splendid
ends too soon, the realization that happiness occupies only a small part of our
lives. According to a chronicle of the event in 2014, six hundred thousand souls
from all over the world were there, looking astonished and incredulous to the
Elbe, transformed by magic into an enormous, beautiful and fugitive stage.
Similar festivals exist in other countries. Perhaps in northern Europe, with
limited summers that flee fast, people tend to take advantage of them with
greater vehemence, with more pressing desires. It is beautiful to see them so
determined not to let the elusive happiness escape.
These are
countries of land and sea, I said. Life on land cannot be conceived without
reference to the sea and many local songs tell us about it. One of the most
popular, Wo die Nordseewellen, is
sung in plattdeutsch (a West Germanic
language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the
Netherlands and that has some variants). Can someone not expert have an idea of
the subject? Wikipedia serves, at least, so that daring fools, who believe
that the world is simple and four ideas are enough to understand it, may stop a
little and meditate. With so many different languages and dialects, can any of
them be used as argument to justify a disintegration or separation? The process
would never end and could atomize any community, no matter its antiquity, its
birth process, its history.
I cannot
speak with authority about the musical taste of the Germans. But I have been
able to appreciate that soft songs, sometimes melancholic or sad, are cherished
in that country. I believe that German people, with the caution due in any
generalization, are serious, honest and romantic. As one of my goals is to
disclose realities that I have had the fortune of knowing, I will refer to some
typical or popular German songs, that my readers can even listen to with the
links that I show; they may be new for some of them. Of North Germany, to be
more precise, of the seafaring Germany, turned over to the sea for centuries.
One of
them is the aforementioned Wo die
Nordseewellen. I give the link to Youtube
and translate some words of the beginning: https://youtu.be/oBM_2GsWsKU: Where the waves of the North Sea bathe the beach, / where the yellow
flowers bloom on the green earth, / where seagulls scream in the storm. / That
is my home (Heimat is the word
used in German), there I feel at home.
One’s home
lies in very different places and can therefore be in the sea. Heimat, the German word in this song,
designates the terroir, the homeland,
in a deep and kindly sense. The world is full of such gentle homelands, intimate,
welcoming, small and definite spaces anchored in a preterit time that is often that
of childhood. There is so much beauty in our world that we all receive some of
it and I have always thought that excessive and exclusive love to homelands are
unjustified and vacuous. Exacerbated nationalisms are perverse. When I run into
one of those extreme nationalists, I want to laugh, then I feel like crying. In
the end, I want to run away. Not because they are dangerous, although they may
be so —they have been, infinitely, throughout history— but because I fear them.
I'm afraid because they bore me, they bore the sheep.
Another
song is Seemann, deine Heimat ist das
Meer (Sailor, your home is the sea) and was composed by Werner
Scharfenberger. The link is http://youtu.be/B-SVP6i9tbk. I translate the initial
words: Sailor, forget your dreams, / do
not think about your house. / Sailor, the wind and the waves / call you. / Your
home is the sea, / your friends are the stars. / Your love is your ship, / your
nostalgia is distance. / Only to them you have to be faithful / your whole
life.
Another
song, very sad and that does not come from the regional area that I'm sticking
to, is Abba Heidschi Bumbaidschi (I
have seen the title written in various ways). It is a very old song of
Austro-German origin, perhaps dating back to the fifteenth century, with a text
that speaks of a mother who dies and leaves her little son alone. It was
originally a lullaby, but it has become a Christmas theme, without the words
having changed. The title is untranslatable and the link for the version of
Plácido Domingo is https://youtu.be/80n6JTscWBU. I offer in Spanish
only a few words, very simple: Abba Heidschi
Bumbaidschi, sleep peacefully, / your mother has left / and will be out / for a
long time.
These
Germans from Schleswig-Holstein, of whom I am speaking now, are serious and yet
warm people, show honesty, restraint, consideration for the law, the institutions
and the servants of order. It is not fear, I know it very well, it is respect,
as if they understood without effort that their work is necessary and important
for any society. I will briefly tell an event, which happened while I was
there. A rather elderly lady fell at home and broke the bone of her elbow, the
olecranon, a part of the ulna. Only by lightly exploring the injury could you
hear the crackle of the fracture. Almost in front of the house there was a
traumatology clinic and I wanted to take her there, although there was no
urgency in fact. It was impossible, because the lady argued that she had to go first
to her family doctor, who also lived very close, so that he could write the
pertinent request to the specialist.
Perhaps
these Germans are even somewhat different from those of the South of the
Country. They themselves joke a little about the latter and consider them less
formal people, of more erratic behavior. In the north, for example, it is not
usual in restaurants and breweries to share a table with strangers, what is, in
contrast, very common and almost obligatory in Bavaria. It is a minor detail.
In Schleswig-Holstein, I met people of very diverse condition, from university
professors to workers of varied trades. I never had any problem with these
people of simple and unsophisticated likings, who have fun in a calm and placid
way.
*****
In my
first summers there, they were very popular the so-called Butterfahrten, 'butter trips', which ended in 1999. They were boat
trips of four to five hours, which could be decided and started as soon as the
weather seemed right and the body asked you to breathe more closely the marine
winds. They had an almost symbolic cost, half German mark (0.25 of the current
euros), and many of the passengers were retired people, without haste, without
time constraints. The boat navigated until passing the German jurisdictional
waters, their limit in the sea. Then you could buy products in the ship's shop,
such as alcohol, perfumes, tobacco, especially butter, exempt from taxes. The
trip was a delight with seagulls constantly on our heads, almost threatening,
attentive to the food that could fall or be thrown next to the boat. People
—many knew each other for their frequent coincidence in the trips— were
chatting, eating, joking, never having an argument or a brawl. Old people,
educated, legal people, as someone would say now.
And the
gentle winds caressing us. They were refreshing and friendly winds, like those that
some Arabian pilots kept in silver tubes and opened when, already elderly and
forced to retire from sailing, had longing for the sea. Good and happy winds.
How do we know that a wind is good? Reader, the heart knows; when we are happy
and the wind invites us to get after the world and love it, that wind is good
and you should only care that it is not bad for anyone. In the fourth book of Gargantua and Pantagruel, an Island of
Wind is mentioned, where live people who neither eat nor drink and feed only on
the wind. They clustered around the wind vanes and breathed it there. We
breathed it in our journey in peace and harmony. Francisco Umbral writes in Las ninfas: “So much loneliness inclines
me to abandon myself in the wind”. We felt in happy company and also took
shelter in the winds, which greeted us in the friendly, boundless sea.
Those
stout people from the North love their climate and their winds. When I was
there, in summer, and came a somewhat cold wind, which surprised me a little,
my companions were happy and told me, smiling: Frische Luft, eh, Frank, schöne Luft! (Fresh air, eh, Frank,
beautiful air!). For them it is like that. I also finally came to like it. Am I
going to discuss winds, their legends and stories? The Arab pilots, in the
times of the caliphate of Baghdad, believed that by means of hidden magic
certain winds could be tamed to always have them abaft, to arrive at the places
where the heart demands you to go. There are no winds like that, so constant
and docile. Life consists in taking advantage of them when they blow in favor
and avoid them when they are contrary.
People of
the world are very different and by recognizing it —but really, without
restrictions— we win a lot. I see myself in those summers of North Germany, in
a beautiful beach of fine and white sand, with a fresh and clean air, that can
be invigorating and pleasant, but that makes bath impossible for a majority and
forces to hide in the Strandkörbe,
those huge baskets, authentic shelters. Some of my German friends confess to
me, in the most sincere and friendly way, that they could not live in a country
with a climate like ours. In fact, they usually spend their summer vacations in
latitudes even further north, in Norway, towards the Arctic Circle, etc. On the
other hand, it is true, others buy their houses in Mallorca or the Spanish
Levante and adore the Sun. The world is diverse and anyone loves what he wants
or what he can.
It is
clear, reader, that I like Germany and its people. I will bring here, as an
exordium, some words that should make many think, among them the Catalan
separatists, and thus I begin to unveil the recent event that I mentioned at
the beginning of this post and of which I said that I would speak in due time.
The quote is from Tzvetan Tódorov, a linguist and Bulgarian-French literary
critic, who died a short time ago: “The
man who finds his country sweet is nothing more than a tender debutante; the
one for whom each floor is like his own is already worthy of consideration; but
only he for whom the whole world is like a foreign country is perfect”.
I have it
very clear that I belong, at least, to the second category. I feel the German
land as my own. This breadth of horizons is not reduced only to Germany,
something similar happens to me with other countries and cities in which I
lived: New York, Bologna, Lausanne, etc. The memories of these places —of my
youth spent there too, but that is another story—, always haunt me and still
help me to be content. The third category, defined more ethereally in the last
sentence, the most beautiful and literary of the quotation, is less strictly
logical, more vague. What is really meant? Literature is just that: the
vagueness, the insinuation, the mystery... Well, I also sometimes feel like a
foreigner in this world of ours, so you know it.
Returning
to my story, the recent event I mentioned at the beginning is none other than
the detention on German soil of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont,
imprisoned in Neumünster, in the Land of Schleswig-Holstein, not far from the
free Hanseatic city of Hamburg. He is there awaiting the decision that the Land
authorities adopt on the international arrest warrant issued by the Spanish
justice system.
I
know that area well and I already said that I have a high regard for the people
who live there. They seem serious, noble, honest, reliable and, as one would
say in German, nette Leute.
Curiously, the opinion that was held of Catalans in my youth was somehow
similar, although it has changed enough in the latter decades. All this makes
me think about the matter and try to give some advice to the illustrious
prisoner.
My advice
for him would be to impartially observe his fellow inmates in the prison. He
should for some time not to pay attention to his lawyers or the people of Catalonia
who may visit him or write to him in these days of imprisonment. I am sure, Mr.
Puigdemont, that despite being confined in a penitentiary, you will find there
those quiet, solid and reasonable people I speak of. Surely they will be more
exemplary and judicious than those who cheer you in your native country and
urge you to continue committing crimes. And that your prestigious lawyers, who
fight eagerly, spurred by fabulous profits, to obtain your impunity in front of
your crimes.
I am happy
to know, Mr Puigdemont, that you consider good people your fellow prisoners in
Germany, as you recently stated. In that we can agree. In what follows it is
not likely, because I sincerely believe that they are more prudent and better
people than you. Look at them and, if you can understand each other, speak to
them and tell them what you intend and how you intend to do it, tell them the
truth of what you have done so far. Tell them the story of the past thirty
years, especially the last few months, the times you have ignored court
warnings, the times you have broken the law, the various crimes you have
committed. With simple words, without half-truths, without hiding anything.
They will listen to you politely and will know how to form an opinion. That is
the only international acquiescence that you should look for.
Mr.
Puigdemont, you and your followers have become a bad example for everyone. Your
well-organized and orchestrated campaigns may find an echo in small sectors of
population of some country and in radical groups, fundamentally dedicated to
creating any of the infinite variants of chaos. In any meeting of people like
the ones I have known in the region of Germany where you are —and whom you can
approach now if you continue some time in jail—, they will not arouse any
enthusiasm or understanding. Because these people are, in general, compliant,
lovers of order and law, not fond of excesses and with a noble and just sense
of social coexistence, of life in common.
Molt
Honorable Carles Puigdemont, I sincerely believe that in the prison in
Neumünster there will be people much more honorable than you, even if they have
also made mistakes. Nobody will have committed the very serious fault that you
have committed: to break a country, to divide it perhaps already without a
possible solution, to face one half of its inhabitants against the other half.
All that, after years of dirty, dishonest, unfair play, adorned, in addition,
with an infinite arrogance, fatuity and a stubbornness worthy of a better
cause. Talk to your fellow prisoners, try to acquire that respect for the law
and order that they most certainly still retain. And try, when you can, the Kieler Sprotten, those delicious little
fish (sprats) smoked from the region.
On the
verge of publishing this second part of my entry, the news comes, Mr.
Puigdemont, of your release, what unfortunately deprives you of the
detoxification cure to which I am referring. Do not get too puffed up, or throw
bells on the fly. Already in our Spanish Golden Age it was said that “doblones
doblan leyes” (money bends laws). I do not allude to any suspicion of
prevarication, but to the mere effect of having a legion of flexible,
understanding, tolerant and seasoned lawyers, masters of legal
prestidigitation, some of them with a penalty of years of imprisonment in their
history. In spite of everything, they cannot stifle the feeling of true
justice, which I am sure beats in the hearts of the good people of
Schleswig-Holstein and other places of the world; that justice without futile
“considerations, exemptions, attenuations, etc.”, that springs natural, pure
and accurate from the deep foundations of human beings.
Thus, it
turned out that there was no violence, none of the infinite variants of it.
Neither more or less innocent preparation for violence, nor possibility of
violence. And nothing illegal was done. My eyes saw and my ears heard how a
republic was proclaimed in part of my Spanish land and a crowd was inflamed by
the event, although disappointed shortly after. Nothing of that existed,
everything was a fallacious reverie of my mind, a collective hallucination,
anchored in pure symbolism. There were no transition laws, nor lists of
citizens to implement fiscal taxes to the new country. Neither festive and
ostentatious acts, which were sad and like doomsday for those who did not share
the same feelings. They derogated the Spanish Constitution and the Catalan
Statute, voted laws without qualified majority, ignoring half of the members of
Parliament, deprived of their legitimate faculties. They systematically
violated the law to impose, with the strength of the people in the street and
no reason, a unilateral secession imposed by way of the fait accompli. And in spite of everything, they talked about a
‘government coup
d’état’, referring
to Madrid’s government. One of the most popular quotes —absolutely apocryphal
because it is not, nor is there anything like this, in Don Quixote— says: Cosas veredes, Sancho, que farán fablar las
piedras (You will see things, Sancho, that will make stones to speak). This
has been the case here, in its most absolute nudity. Unfortunately, the stones
rarely speak, and when they do, nobody pays too much attention. That is how the
world goes.
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