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Letter from Salamanca
President Aznar may support war, but the Spanish people do not
. . . by Sara Tedeschi
[photo by the author]

During my first two months in Salamanca I lived with a Spanish family that taught me how to lead a Spanish life: load up the plate at 2:30 with meat, meat, and more meat before resting for an hour and watching gossip TV. Thereafter I moved into an apartment with two Spanish girls in order to have the liberty to experiment in the kitchen. What remained constant between the two living arrangements was the view from my window. Salamancan apartments are built with sand-colored blocks and bear little decoration in the way of railings, window dressings, or decorative facades. This winter brought a new visual cue; draped over the banister of many a balcony and shut between the panes of windows are cotton sheets bearing the phrase No a la guerra (“No to war”).

Protestors young and old
This is a university town; the ancient University of Salamanca (founded 1218, rivaling the University of Bologna for the title of the oldest European university) is considered the main industry of a service-sector economy. While the student/citizen ratio is roughly one to five, anti-war activism is hardly isolated to the student population. Since January, the Plaza Mayor, a trapezoidal central meeting area, has filled to capacity three or four times—the first being February 15, the day of worldwide protest—with demonstrators bearing equipment not at all foreign to Brown: posters, T-shirts, and fliers crying against the outbreak (and now, persistence) of a war in Iraq. On February 15, I walked through the Plaza just as the crowd began to thicken. In front of me, a young mother walked with her baby carriage (not a wise idea given the human traffic); in front of them stood a toddler with his parents; behind me were several elderly couples. Then as now, cries against U.S. aggression in Iraq were targeted at Bush and his administration rather than at the American public.

Recently, the student movement has become the most visible in the city. Students have staged walkouts; a dozen-plus tents pitched on the law and science campus have housed 70 protesters for the past two nights; canvassers have handed copies of left-wing literature denouncing the imperialist motives of the United States. As at Brown, some protesters take the protest as an occasion for fostering love, peace, and friendship, which includes holding “workshops for peace” and having potluck meals on a campus lawn. It is possible to correlate the increased activity with the increasingly gruesome images published in periodicals and shown on television (especially during the lunchtime news shows—quite unappetizing). The Spanish press frowns incredibly upon censorship; the recent dismissals of Geraldo Rivera and Peter Arnett earned a full-page article in El País, a left wing national newspaper. As such, images of Iraqi children with amputated limbs earn front-page status, and cadavers of Iraqi citizens and troops litter the television screen. These visuals reflect and inspire the Spanish spirit in opposition to the war.

I find myself in a peculiar situation as an American student. Being enrolled in classes with Spanish students immerses me into youth culture, which is decidedly anti-war. As an American I must be cautious in expressing my opinions, be they pro- or anti-war; this is the stance of the Brown OIP, the U.S. State Department, my parents, my program directors, and to some degree myself. Members of my program have been warned several times to stay away from anti-war demonstrations, to not speak English in public when possible, and to not patronize clearly American businesses (McDonald’s, Burger King…yes, they are all here) in case the locals turn violently anti-American-icon, as has happened in Barcelona. It is logical that each of these authorities warns us; however, their advice has proven unnecessary to date in Salamanca.

The majority of Spaniards believe that their democratic government—a constitutional monarchy—currently is not representative of the popular will. President Aznar has aligned his nation with the U.S., making Spain the third leg of the Security Council triumvirate against Iraq. Yet the voices of 90 percent of Spanish citizens make clear that the populace is not in agreement with Aznar’s political alliance. Spaniards do not feel this war to be their own, do not desire involvement in it, and are already thinking about changing the reins of power in the next presidential election. Signs and rally cries indicate that the Spanish people link economics to U.S. motivation for the war, an association which provokes further criticism and reaffirms their view of American greed.

While they do not feel their president’s political maneuvers adequately respond to public opinion, most of the Spaniards who have asked me about U.S. public opinion assume that the majority of our nation is in favor of the war. An attempt to explain how the U.S. can propagate a war without a majority of public support—though to me the Spanish situation seems quite parallel—consistently leads to an explanation of the American voting system, and the fact that roughly 50% of the population participates in presidential elections; and that of those, 50% voted for Bush. In addition, most of the people to whom I have explained the geographic breakdown of votes are surprised at the rather disunited state of our United States.

¡No a la guerra! y ¡No a Bush!
Salamantinians do not express anger against U.S. citizens, as I have said, but rather attack the Bush administration. The city has a constant stream of foreigners running through it due to tourism, the university, and its great number of language acquisition schools; perhaps this is a factor in favor of accepting Americans as individuals, not as political enemies. At the same time, I feel as though my word is taken as representative of the entire U.S. public; my nationality is often seen as my first and foremost characteristic.

In a city with such a flow of foreigners, the easiest way to keep track of a person’s identity seems to be to resort to labeling such as “Michael the Brit” or “Kim from James Madison.” Whenever I voice an opinion, political or otherwise, I feel compelled to take pains to clarify that I am not the quintessential American and that my words should not be applied to the entire American public. The situation is still delicate; I am an American, and when Spaniards cry against our president I cannot erase the fact that they associate the entirety of the nation with the actions of its commander in chief. The idea of political representation is so different here—elections takes place directly so that the candidate with the most popular votes wins, and so much more of the population actually votes that people automatically associate the national leader with the populace. The only channel safely available to me is to speak to people on an individual basis and explain the differences in our two systems, and hope that they come to understand how the American populace is incredibly varied.

Popular arguments against the war seem in line with what I have read in U.S. periodicals. A flier drafted by the Colectivo Estudiantil Alternativo (CEA) before the February 15 rally stated (in Spanish), “Bush’s government is planning a new geo-strategic readjustment in the East, in which petroleum constitutes one of the key elements for world economic domination….At the same time, the U.S. is tying stronger relations with Israel….the goal in Iraq…is political domination of the country and control over petroleum.” Spaniards’ recognition of America’s political and economic dominance grows more evident to me as I listen to their personal interpretations of the war. As one graduate student told me, some agree that Aznar’s choice to align with the U.S. is wise politically given that America is the world’s supreme power. Of course, it is exactly this position of supremacy, and the maintenance of it, that Spaniards and anti-war Americans alike protest as inappropriate and insufficient motivation for a war with Iraq.

And so, it continues…
My roommates and I watch video footage of violent police backlash against protesters in Barcelona and Madrid. The experience in Salamanca is different; manifestations here are peaceful both on the sides of the protestors and the police. Day-to-day life still proceeds normally in Salamanca. The Plaza continues to host an hour of traditional Salmantinian dance on Sundays and its stone-laid floor is still packed with smokers and sunbathers (foreigners, the latter) on the occasional warm day. This past Saturday, trumpets and drums sounded outside my apartment. I rushed downstairs to have a look and saw that it was not a rally against the war, but rather a group of marching bands proceeding through the Plaza. Mobilization against the war will probably not molt its frequent anti-Bush/Aznar cries as winter turns to spring—I will not be surprised to soon see signs reading No a la guerra at the feet of a multitude of frisbee and guitar players. Perhaps the best indication that life continues in the Spanish style is a poster advertising a Common Picnic Lunch for Peace: an appetizer, first course, and dessert will be served, just as if it were at the family table.

Sara Tedeschi B’04 would like some meat with that.

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