Interview. "Politicians are very dangerous animals. They have thick skin"
Towards the Iberian Federal Republic
seems like the title of a twentieth century manifesto, a mixture of idealism and determination.
It is, but it is not only that.
In its 334 pages (Espasa), its author, the Hispanicist Ian Gibson, narrates the history of Iberianism, includes a personal diary that begins with Franco's exhumation and ends in the March confinement and drops some autobiographical pages.
In its own way,
everything connects
and leads to a final page in which
As Lusiadas
,
Don Quixote
and
Tirant lo Blanch
In Iberian brotherhood, let's start with the political manifesto.
The thesis of
Towards the Iberian Federal Republic
He says that the problem with Spain is that its national project is based on the delusions of imperial grandeur of Castile.
"That's why these terrible tensions that we experience," says Gibson.
In his opinion, the best way to undo the detachment among Spaniards would be
expand and dissolve the country at the same time
in a federation of Portuguese, Catalans, Castilians (in a linguistic sense) and Basques united in fraternal and republican equality. It is not by chance that the two great Spanish Iberianists of the 20th century were two writers
catalanists
: Ignasi Ribera iRovira and Joan Maragall, figures parallel to Pessoa and Saramago in Portugal.
At the opposite end, Madrid's Ortega y Gasset appears
.
"In
Invertebrate Spain
Ortega says that a nation that has no mission is not a nation, "explains Gibson.
«Spain was built on the imperial mission of Castile.
Well: let's now think of an Iberian cultural mission.
Let's think about taking to the maximum the potential of this Peninsula, its immense cultural wealth that is being squandered. ”The idea, deep down, says that
Portugal can save us Spaniards from ourselves
and lead us to a better democracy.
I'm Irish.
I would like Ireland and the United Kingdom to become a federation of the Northern Isles
that, among other things, heal the English once and for all of the loss of the Empire.
But I will never see that. ”And if we were Portuguese, what would be the reason to believe in that federal Iberia?
«
In Portugal, the percentage of support for a federal relationship with Spain is quite high ... as long as it is not an absorption
.
For Portugal it would be an enormous cultural enrichment. ”The problem with this thesis is that many Spaniards will not understand that“ the delusions of grandeur of Castile. ”To put together that idea, Gibson includes in his book a diary that, in short, portrays the Spanish right at its worst: «
The right of Spain comes from the Franco regime
and it does not want to recognize the criminality of the regime.
It is the worst in this country.
There is a deliberate amnesia towards an atrocious reality ", says Gibson." The biggest problem in Spain is the 100,000 shot who are in the gutters.
If that is not resolved,
How are you going to talk about the future?
That thread leads to Vox.
"I
I always believed that it was better for the extreme right to have its party instead of for it to be in the PP
.
I wanted them to be seen, to know what they were proposing.
Tell them what they are.
And that the PP assumed itself as a center-conservative party.
What has surprised me is its strength, the deep neo-Franco nostalgia that it expresses ».
Against Vox, Gibson recommends looking at Pessoa, looking at his idea of an Iberian essence based on Greece, Rome and Al Andalus, while the support for Pedro Sánchez has hardly any cracks, despite Gibson acknowledging that the alliance with Podemos is difficult.
“When Pablo Iglesias says that Spain is not a full democracy ... I don't think he really thinks it.
I think it is a phrase that comes out in an electoral context and that he drops it without thinking, it is Iglesias's problem:
He has a good word and says what comes to mind
because he sees himself capable of defending it brilliantly. ”We only need to talk about what the book has in memory.
"Spain has been a wonderful adventure in my life. I immediately fell in love with physical Spain. I came to a Spanish course in Madrid when I was 17 years old. I arrived in the summer, I didn't know a little more than the language.
I will never forget the train ride
: Pancorbo, the Plateau, the African immensity of which the French speak.
And then, get to Madrid, learn something of the language, little by little, understand the war, the dictatorship, see the grays.
The visit to Toledo, the Tagus, the house of Machado the sun, the wine and the food, the friends.
The teachers who told me about Garcilaso, about Bécquer.
It was shocking.
Then, when I returned to Dublin, I found a group of Hispanists who
it was out of the ordinary
.
In a small, passionate department that allowed personal contact.
There was a course by Rubén Darío that was very important to me.
All that influenced.
Ornithology, nature ... Spain had it all for me, then the discovery of Lorca was what changed my life.
I came in 1978, in the year of the Constitution.
It was a risky decision, because one thing is to do the race and another thing is to come here and try to live from your pen and your work.
I came here to get a chair in Stockholm, which must be the best job in the world, with a good salary, with guaranteed retirement ... I did the opposite.
It was a risk for me, for my family. "Did that decision lead to fatigue in Spain? Did it lead to a pinch of disappointment?"
A little fatigue is normal
, because day to day is not the same as being a remote scholar.
But I wanted to live here from day to day, including the inevitable problems that this entails.
We have survived, I speak for myself and my wife.
We're a team.
I do not regret anything".
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