The improbable speech

Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for the US Presidency, did recently pronounce a speech on the symbolic location of the Brandemburg Gate, Berlin, which was considered by many as historical. The partnership between Europe and the US, the ever closer alliance between the two sides of the Atlantic after the Bush era and the fight on terror were the major issues. Some political commentators begin to consider whether there is consistency behind Obama's emerging global figure, probably the first global leader, or not. [The Economist, though, pointed out that "the listeners were mainly European, but the real audience was in America"] The thing is: could this speech have been delivered in Spain? Obama gathered some 300.000 people despite saying no word in German. Fully in English. The answer to the question is no. Why? According to a recent poll by Funcas (Association of Spanish Saving banks), only a 50% of Spaniards can speak a foreign language other than Spanish. Amongst them, the Andalusian people fall down to the last place: only 64% of them can speak a foreign language.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/I/m/sorry/solo/hablo/espanol/elpepusoc/20080728elpepusoc_2/Tes

If Madrid and Spain as a country want to stand out as an international political actor and catch up with its remarkable and successful multinational companies, the language issue needs to be adressed soon.

The birth of Big Ben

I have just said it in Spanish, but I should put it in English language: Big Ben is born as a result of a big desire to adress the widest public, both in Spanish and English. Not only because of a pragmatic need, but as a means to pay homage to the United Kingdom, where I lived for a year and whose daily affairs are still quite important for me. All English-speaking readers of this blog should understand Shakespeare's language isn't my native one and I will be making mistakes, but I promise to try my best. Big Ben is also an homage to the London landmark par excellence. For me, it represents old Europe's politics as no other continental place or building. It means democracy, liberalism, parlamientarism, debate, freedom and all these things relatively familiar for European people, in some degree, from Portugal to Estonia. Long may it live. And happy Christmas to you all. PD: As the previous post, it was written on December the 24th, but was placed in its current location two weeks later.