Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Zapatero, sinistra nella forma, destra nella sostanza

It should be recognised that Zapatero has been successful in his use
of this “left appearance”, both within Spain and outside the country.
The objective of this article is to show the most obvious
contradictions between this appearance and the real policies of the
Spanish government since the PSOE’s electoral victory in March 2004.
On May 25 the Spanish newspaper “Pùblico” published a dossier on
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In the dossier a cartoon
showed a conversation in a café between a man of “progressive”
appearance and prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero; the man
says “what a disaster if Berlusconi’s example spreads across Europe!”.
Zapatero responds: “yes, how can we do the same thing in a way that
looks left wing?” This cartoon is a perfect illustration of the
political methodology of the Spanish prime minister, confirmed by the
criticisms made of Berlusconi by several of Zapatero’s ministers while
Spain itself is employing a policy of increasingly tough repression of
so-called “illegal immigration”.
Zapatero was elected general secretary of the PSOE in July 2000. He
won a very narrow victory (41.6% of the vote against 40% for his main
opponent José Bono, who subsequently became minister of defence and
who is currently president of the parliament). He was until then a
deputy without great implantation or influence, which finally worked
in his favour: his victory was the result of an image of renovation
and a skilful (and exempt of scruples: among his main allies was a
corrupt current of the Madrid PSOE) playing on the internal divisions
in the PSOE apparatus, in open crisis since the victory by an absolute
majority of the Partido Popular (PP) led by José María Aznar at the
general elections which had taken place some months before, on March
12, 2000
Until the opening of the Iraq war, the PSOE led a fairly weak
opposition in Parliament with little relationship to the social
mobilisations which emerged against the increasingly right wing
policies of the government; it should be said however that these
mobilisations were not significant, except at certain very precise
moments: in particular during the general strike of June 2002,
controlled by the largest union federations, the Workers’ Commissions
(CCOO) and the General Union of Workers (UGT), and in the case of the
mobilisations against the oil slick after the wreck of the tanker
“Prestige” off the coast of Galicia.
Zapatero took the initiative in June 2002 of negotiating with the PP a
“law on parties” justified by arguments like “the struggle of
democrats against terrorism”, but which has been used since then
against any manifestation of dissidence in the Basque country,
qualified by definition as forming part of “ETA’s periphery”. Dozens
of social activists, without the least relation with the terrorist
actions of ETA, have been imprisoned thanks to this law, which the PP
has found useful in criticising the supposed weakness of the Zapatero
government in the struggle against ETA and its “concessions” to Basque
nationalism.
But the threat of a second Gulf war began to take shape and to
generate an enormous opposition in Spain. The PSOE understood the
depth of the rejection of the war and the possibility of strengthening
the opposition to the PP government; on the other hand the massive but
unstructured character of the movement meant there were no risks of it
spreading out of control.
When on March 16 Aznar joined the “Azores three” alongside Bush and
Blair, a month after the huge mobilisations of February 15 against the
war, the rejection was very large, but it expressed more a “public
opinion” than a social movement. In these conditions, it was easy for
the PSOE to be its “political expression” and the withdrawal of
Spanish troops from Iraq became the major issue for Zapatero at the
general elections of March 2004.
As is well known, these elections took place in the emotional climate
of the horrible massacre of March 11 in Madrid and under the effect of
a public rebellion against the shameful manipulation of the facts by
the PP government. An electoral majority for the PSOE signified above
all the possibility of throwing the PP out of government; that is what
Zapatero based his electoral victory on.
Cloudy ideology
Zapatero started from a position of weakness in the PSOE apparatus;
his basic support was among the “second level” leaders without any
weight in the traditional party families. For this reason he would
affirm a very strong personal leadership by creating a social base of
support identified, beyond the party, with his person starting from
which he has succeeded in establishing his control over the apparatus
in the medium term. He won this social base firstly through the
withdrawal of troops from Iraq and immediately after through the
different “societal” reforms (gay marriage, gender equality, law on
dependency and so on) which had a big popular impact at low budgetary
cost.
The control of this social base was a significant objective of
Zapatero’s policy, by revitalising thus the party structures in terms
of feminism, local organisations, youth organisations and so on and by
seeking subordinated relations of collaboration with the world of
ecology or the NGOs, through political agreements without great
breadth and a skilful use of public subsidies. The
institutionalisation of the big union federations, the CCOO and UGT,
meant there was no point in having a specific policy towards these
latter, particularly the UGT given its privileged relations with the
PSOE.
Zapatero has promoted a vaporous ideology inspired by the most
moderate ideologues of “republicanism”, in particular Philippe Pettit.
The function of this ideology was purely ornamental, for statements
and speeches; Zapatero loves the flattery of the personalities of the
“neodem” media intellectual sphere (from the entourage of the US
Democratic Party and in transit to the latter from European social
democracy, his electoral programme for 2008 benefitted from a
“committee of sages” formed by Pettit, George Lakoff, Joseph Stiglitz,
Jeremy Rifkin among others, whose work seems to have mainly involved
being photographed with the prime minister).
With this ideology, and still in ornamental fashion, but at the
international level, Zapatero has promulgated the “alliance of
civilisations” as an alternative to the “clash of civilisations” of
Huntington and the US neoconservatives. The proposal, which has drawn
support from the secretary general of the United Nations, Erdogan’s
Turkish government, Ayatollah Khatami and Tony Blair, has generated
little more than costly international meetings which have not won the
expected media echo.
Finally his programme for government rests, beyond the “societal
reforms”, on three pillars:
— reform of the statutes of autonomy, attempting to update the state
pact arrived at during the Transition (the project has been called the
“second Transition”) and in this way to form a framework for a medium
term alliance between the PSOE and the Basque and Catalan nationalist
parties essentially;
— the solution of the so-called “Basque conflict” by negotiation with
ETA;
— the continuity of a strictly orthodox neoliberal economic policy.
Promises and realisations
To develop a critique of the main themes of Zapatero’s policy would go
beyond the limits of this article. But I will sum up several facts:
— Zapatero ordered the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq
immediately after having been named prime minister. This decision has
given him a capital of credibility that still brings him dividends.
But this was the first and the last significant divergence of his
foreign policy in relation to that of the United States. In
Afghanistan or the Middle East, in Colombia or Mexico, Spanish
diplomacy has acted with a strict “Atlantic discipline”.
The strengthening of the political and military commitment to NATO has
been accompanied by the support of numerous public funds for the arms
industry, thus continuing the policy developed by the Aznar
government: currently Spanish arms companies owe 26,000 million Euros
to the state.
— On March 22, 2006, ETA announced a new truce (“permanent
ceasefire”). A representation at the highest level of the government
and the military organisation would lead to negotiations which had
greater perspectives of success than their precedents, above all
because at this time ETA was very weakened by repression in France and
Spain. The government accepted significant proposals from ETA, such as
the ratification by state institutions of decisions which would be
taken by the autonomous institutions of the Basque county. It amounted
of course to a pure negotiating tactic: without any doubt, the
government, if that happened, would make a “reading” of the agreement
which would have eliminated the least aspect leading to the right of
self-determination of the Basque people.
In practice, the government made no significant gesture of relaxation
during the negotiation process, for example, in the area of prison
policy towards ETA’s c. 500 prisoners. Finally, a brutal bombing by
ETA at Madrid airport on December 30, 2006 interrupted the de facto
truce and the perspectives of negotiations for a long period. The
government has recuperated and strengthened the traditional anti-
terrorist policy, very similar to that of the Aznar government, while
ETA has resumed armed activity. Effectively the “Basque conflict”
currently lacks a political horizon.
— Zapatero undertook publicly to support any proposal to reform
Catalonia’s statute of autonomy which would have been approved by the
Catalan autonomous parliament. But the proposal for reform of the
statute, approved at the end of September 2005 by a very large
majority of the Catalan Parliament, was considered as
“unconstitutional” and led to a political and social conflict
throughout the entire Spanish state. “Anti-Catalanism”, a basic
component of the most reactionary Spanish nationalism, used in good
part by the PP but also with significant support inside the PSOE, re-
emerged. After significant changes to this draft reform, in the sense
of transforming it into a purely technical change without political
importance, the text was approved in Catalonia by a referendum in
which less than half the electorate participated.
— Since then, the “second Transition” has been thrown in the dustbin
and Zapatero has disputed with the PP the standard of Spanish
nationalism, presenting the PSOE as “the structuring force of the
unity of Spain” and as guarantor of constitutional orthodoxy faced
with Catalan and Basque national demands.
— Some of the societal reforms carried out by the government merit
support, for example the legalisation of gay marriage or the legal
reforms in relation to “gender violence”.
— But others have had more purchase in the media than in reality. For
example the government has presented the law of aid to dependent
persons as a “social revolution”. In reality, in the best of cases,
the new legislation will grant subsidies to some 40% of dependent
persons, who will be responsible for 33% of service costs. On the
other hand this aid will not lead to any improvement in public health
services which are subject to a very serious pressure seeking
privatisation, especially in the autonomous communities led by the PP.
— The economic policy of the Zapatero government has remained in the
framework of neoliberal orthodoxy and has not significantly corrected
Spain’s “social underdevelopment”.
The share of wages in national income reached in 2006 a historic level
of 46.4% of GDP, or a fall of 3.2 points in ten years; the operating
surplus increased by 0.2% to 45.1% and net taxes on production and
imports, essentially borne by the workers increased by 2.9% to 11.5%.
On the other hand taxation represented in 2007 41% of GDP, or four
points below the European average; Spain is 15th in this area among EU
countries. Despite this, Zapatero maintains a policy of tax cuts, with
a specifically stupid argument: “lowering taxes is left wing”; his
immediate objective is to eliminate taxes on wealth and all this at a
time when according to the Bank of Spain’s “family financial survey”,
the gap in average income between the poorest 20% and the richest 10%
of the Spanish population went, between 2001 and 2005, from 1:12.03 to
1:17.4.
On the other hand, projects for reform of Social Security inspired by
the policies of privatisation developed by the World Bank are
underway. The Social Security Reserve Funds, which have accumulated a
wealth of 40,334 million Euros, can now invest on the Stock Exchange,
not only on the public debt as was the case until now (at a fixed
rate), but also on income at a variable rate.
It is not astonishing that the 35 biggest Spanish companies registered
profits of 24,508 million Euros in the first quarter of 2007, or 34%
more than during the first six months of the previous year. Between
1999 and 2006 Spanish companies increased their net profit by 73%, or
more than double the EU average (the EU of 15, that is without the new
members) but wage costs have increased by only 3.7%, or five times
less than the EU average (18.2%). We understand better why Zapatero
was the preferred candidate of Spain’s employers at the last general
election.
– Returning to the initial theme of this article, it is in his
immigration policy that “the management of appearances” by Zapatero is
the most obvious. For example, the government is developing a policy
of externalisation of frontiers with the African countries from which
a very small part of the “illegal immigration”, barely 1%, originates.
The firmness of the immigration policy is enveloped in the politically
correct language according to the rule of appearances. Thus, Spanish
naval patrols intended to block the boats which come from the African
coasts receive the official name of “Noble sentinel” while the
straitjackets imposed on immigrants who resist are called
“immobilising restraint garments”. The subsidies to African
governments to buy their services as frontier guards are called
“cooperation in development”. In this respect the Zapatero government
is proud of having substantially increased the quantity and quality of
official development aid. It is true that there has been a
considerable increase in relation to the management of the PP, but the
quantitative increase, to 4,200 million Euros in 2007, should be put
in relation to the subsidies to the Catholic church (5,060 million
Euros) and the money the immigrants remit to their countries (more
than 8,000 million Euros). The qualitative improvements are limited to
certain aspects (contributions to the non financial international
institutions of the United Nations system, subsides to certain NGOs
and so on) while the processes of integration of private enterprises
in the management of cooperation funds thanks to the “public-private
alliances” is strengthened.
Strengths and weaknesses of Zapatero
In conclusion, three factors have contributed decisively to support
the action of the Zapatero government since 2004:
— A prolonged period of strong economic growth, of the order of 3.5%
per year, based on a dizzying growth of the property sector and
massive indebtedness in mortgage credits; more than 70% of Spanish
families devote more than 40% of their income to the payment of
mortgage credits on their housing, But the economic crisis is already
seriously affecting this growth. The effects of it will be
considerable and very dangerous without a social and political
response.
— The aggressiveness of the opposition of the PP, supported by the
hierarchy of the Catholic church and powerful press groups, frequently
expressed by massive social mobilisations in which the presence of the
far right and a renascent social Francoism has been obvious. Fear in
the face of the PP’s threats, in particular of its possible return to
government, was an important card in Zapatero’s hands. But after its
electoral defeat, the PP has entered a very deep crisis; in these
conditions, its threatening character is weakened and thus also the
use the PSOE can make of it.
— The concrete absence of a left parliamentary opposition, given that
Izquierda unida has simply been a lobby, politically subordinated to
the PSOE, constituted of professional politicians without political
influence or social credibility, at the mercy of the socialist
establishment. But after the elections IU has gone into a terminal
crisis. Perhaps it can maintain a weak institutional presence in
certain Parliaments and municipalities, but neither it nor its
currents will have any significant social influence.
In these conditions a fourth factor can play a much more important
role than in the preceding stage. It should be recognised that the
Zapatero government has benefitted from the weakness of the social
movements and organisations and the alternative left, which has no
longer had an autonomous significant existence since the failure of
the unification between the MC and LCR more than 15 years ago.
In accepting the fact that the point of departure of the social
movements and the alternative left is very modest, is it possible that
a joint revitalisation, because it can only take that form, would have
a significant short term influence on the anaemic political situation
in Spain?
I think that one can reasonably hope that in the not too distant
future the efforts and experiences already gone through — among other
organisations and currents by Espacio alternativo — raise this
possibility.

 It should be recognised 
Perchè non metti la fonte? Te ne vergogni? E dai, anche i 
quarto-internazionalisti sono creature di Dio. Che non esiste.
-- 
http://inminoranza.blogspot.com

 Perchè non metti la fonte?
non c'è? Presto fatto...io dei compagni non mi vergognerò mai, voi
poodle bushisti un po' di vergogna a pretendere di essere considerati
di sinistra dovreste avercela
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1508