But for all Spaniards' atavistic ways, there is tangible evidence that the old, introverted Spain, isolated from Europe and the rest of the world for much of this century, has gone for good. While it is still serving an apprenticeship at democracy, Spain is now a significant exporter of some of its tenets. The secretary-general of NATO is a Spaniard. Spaniards are making nearly 65,000 cars a year for Mercedes-Benz, they are running bus services in Beijing, and are the biggest foreign bankers in Latin America. Even the man at the helm of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation is Spanish-born Luis Rojas Marcos, a psychiatrist from Seville.
Next year marks three important anniversaries for Spain.
Next year also marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who wrote so potently of Spain as a land of beauty and blood, and who was executed by firing squad in Granada in the first year of the civil war. It's a birthday the rest of of Europe will pass by, but this young constitution signifies a sea change many people, Spaniards included, thought to be an impossible dream. For Spain, one door has shut, another has opened.