Booing? what booing? Everyone loves the King of Spain!

The Kings of Spain

On February the 21st a familiar scene happened again, during the final of the Basketball Spanish King’s Cup that took place in the Basque Country and faced Barça against Real Madrid (final result: Barça 80 – Real Madrid 61) while the Spanish anthem started playing on the PA the booing by the Catalan and Basque audience was so loud the anthem could not be heard. Below, the video.

This was a repetition of what happened last spring at the Football Spanish King’s Cup that faced Barça with Athletic de Bilbao. All this would just be in any normal country a fair protest that people could like or dislike but would definitely not be censored.

Last spring’s protest took the Spanish a bit by surprise and improvisation led to literally cutting the anthem (and the protests) from the live TV version. Someone in the Spanish TV was forced to resign, I believe more because they cut the Spanish anthem that because of the censorship to the protests.

But on February the Spanish had learned the lesson. Firstly, the King himself brought a special 30 second version of the anthem to make the situation as short as possible and secondly, the Spanish TV edited the sound mix on the live broadcast and didn’t show any images of the Catalan and Basque audience so that you wouldn’t notice anything. The commentator didn’t mention the booing, either. You can see the Spanish TV version below.

Let’s not forget that we’re talking about Spain, a EU member, one of the biggest economies in the world and what everyone thinks of as a “developed” country. On the other hand, not so publicized facts are that the so called “transición” to democracy didn’t involve any prosecution of the crimes committed during Franco’s regime or that the King of Spain was appointed by the dictator.

More on the King of Spain:

The above is a video of a speech from 2001 and is a clear offense to so many people in Latin America, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia, etc. that you’d think he should still be apologizing for it, nope. While other countries have apologized for their colonial past the King of Spain just reminds us that “Nobody was ever forced to learn Castillian (Spanish)” (sic).

Again, another fine example of the status of democracy in Spain, if reality is not to our liking let’s hide it. Everyone loves the King of Spain!

12 thoughts to “Booing? what booing? Everyone loves the King of Spain!”

  1. Wow, isn’t it amazing that all those people around the world just decided their languages weren’t any good anymore, better just to speak Castillian. It was what those nice conquistadors were speaking, after all.

  2. It’s called the “Spanish King’s Cup”! Don’t you have any respect? That is pure hypocrisy! If you don’t feel Spanish, and don’t feel you should respect the Spanish King, why don’t you just don’t play it?!? Amazing…
    Even if you don’t agree with Monarchy, or don’t feel Spanish, you don’t boo other people’s anthem. You just don’t, that is a lack of respect. And what RTVE was doing was to cut that lack of respect out of public display, not to censored it. Maybe same as in the World Cup a group started booing some countries’ anthem, it is disrespectful. It was in all Spanish newspapers the next day, so there is not censorship about it.

  3. I don’t respect it because Spain doesn’t respect Catalonia.

    On one hand, Catalan teams should not play it. On the other, hand it’s more fun to see how much the Spanish hate a foreign team winning their trophies year after year.

    I don’t respect the Spanish anthem because it is offensive for the Catalan and Basque nations for all the crimes committed against them and because Spain actively obstructs our right to have our own national teams play international competitions.

    Remember that the Bourbon is Franco’s heir and he never swore to the Spanish Constitution.

  4. Hi Albert. Thanks again for the response, although I think you are quite off in this one. Respect should be there ALL the time. You cannot expect to get it if you don’t show it. Period. And going to the argument of “but they didn’t show it first!” makes you look like a 5 years-old… you shouldn’t write in a blog then. Or I shouldn’t read it.

    Hatred only generates more hatred. Maybe you can learn from other parts of the World where people were in much worse situations, like South Africa and the Apartheid. Today they coexist all together and although there is space for improving, they are working towards it. You (and by you I mean just you, not a lot of other of my Catalonian friends), on the other hand, are stuck in space and time and cannot move forward. I am pretty sure you barely lived under the Franco regime, so probably do not know what you are talking about in the first person. And the King was his successor, not heir (learn the meaning of words). Are you trying to establish a parallelism between the two? Similarities? I think you are just trying to grab whatever argument you can without a reason. The King was a key instrument to establish a bridge between the Franco regime and the democracy. He designated Suarez as president under the agreement that the latter would select a group to write the Constitution:

    http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitución_española_de_1978

    Why he didn’t swear the Constitution is more obscure and I am not a historian, but if I recall correctly he had sworn to Franco certain things that would be in contradiction with swearing the Constitution. I think it is just a formalism to remain coherent. Has he gone against it? No. Then, again, what is the big deal?

    I think the spread of incorrect ideas and hatred is wrong and, moreover, dangerous, so I would ask you (beg you) to inform yourself (some reading, some clases, I don’t know) before continue with this nonsense. Please be fair and more correct in your posts, because this might influent people (hopefully not many) and put wrong ideas in people’s heads.

  5. And you are not a foreign team… and you don’t even realize the complications that having Catalonian teams playing international competitions is. For starts, all your super-stars (Pique, Puyol, etc) already played in the Spanish national team, therefore they cannot play for another national team (FIFA regulations).

    Your argument is old and badly based. Germany committed real atrocities against humanity and you don’t see everybody booing their National Anthem. Please start moving forward, this is becoming retarded…

  6. Thanks for your comments which only confirm that it is impossible for Catalonia ever to fit inside of Spain since you guys don’t understand us and don’t want to.

    The King of Spain is the heir of Franco and a prove of that is that in Spain the crimes committed by Franco’s regime have never been prosecuted. I don’t want to be part of such a country.

    Having Catalan national teams is dead easy. In fact we already have several sports where Catalan national teams play international competitions but with our own state it’ll be automatic in all the mainstream sports.

  7. You have the argument skills of a 5-years old. If I were to judge Catalonian people based on you I would say all our stupid, so please don’t even think about judging all Spanish people based on me, these are just my opinions. I won’t do that, because thank god I have many friends there that are very intelligent people. “You guys don’t understand us” that’s what my little brother uses when he is angry… hahahaha.

    Every side of every war commits crimes, better inform yourself before speaking. There is a book from Cesar Vidal “Checas de Madrid, las carceles republicanas al descubierto”. Around 11.000 people were murdered in Madrid by the Democratic Frente Popular, la izquierda. Around 110.000 didn’t die in combat, but in this “civilian trials”. The way to move forward starts by accepting that, and move forward. But slowly people are asking to revive this “memoria historica” and you are wrong. Since the 90s and most even in the last decade, “la Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica, desde el año 2000 han promovido la apertura de las fosas comunes y en septiembre de 2008 el número de cuerpos exhumados era de 2.317″[↑ a b Juicio a la barbarie, Luis Gómez y Natalia Junquera, El País – Domingo – 14/09/2008.] It takes time because it is quite recent history, although again, I must say, I think you are speaking from 3rd person, because I seriously doubt you personally suffered any Franco-era crime. The King didn’t stop any investigation, stop creating ghosts and telling lies. It takes time for a country to heal and be able to look back. In the case I was citing of the Apartheid, much worse than Franco’s crimes in my modest opinion, it has taken some time as well:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_apartheid

    Teams: unless you plan on changing FIFA regulations, say bye bye to your Catalan soccer stars because the already played for Spain so they cannot switch. I was referring to your supposedly “national football team”. The Spanish national team played happily together, you want to split them up? Sure, then none of us will probably ever win, great idea! Did you ever heard of the concept of team effort, or joining forces? No, you are just stuck on “we are different”. Whatever… grow up… Many of the crimes were committed in Catalunya BY Catalonians:

    http://www.hazteoir.org/node/16908

    So then, as your comment, nobody should be want Catalonian either… or German, or French, or American… awesome reasoning!

    EDUCATE YOURSELF BEFORE KEEP ON SPREADING NONSENSE

  8. Albert said: Thanks for helping me show the world the true colors of Spain.

    Paolo, I have to say I think Albert is right. Your comments don’t really help peoples perception of Spain. Although, I do personally know some spaniards who do have more of an opened mind.

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