Author Archives: Toni Sala

My home, your home

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We have to ask ourselves what gives the authors of the new Catalonia tourist campaign the right to so willingly give away the region to outsiders.

© Maria Corte

Let’s lay our cards on the table. If it were not for tourism, I would not be here writing this article. I am the son of hoteliers and the grandson of bar owners, on both sides. At home, I probably would not have experienced the opening up of horizons that the arrival of northerners brought about; I most likely would not have had an Italian girlfriend, and therefore trips to Milan; my parents probably would have not been able to pay for my studies. Without this business, the wealth of the Costa Brava would surely not be so dissimilar from that of the small inland villages, with less tourism.

Or maybe it would. Maybe some other type of industry would have sprung up, just as unexpected and prosperous as the cork industry once was. Who knows? People look for ways to make a living, and it often happens that one plant obstructs the growth of another. Let’s not waste time on this however, because in any case it’s too late: things are the way they are, with everything that entails, and I myself have experienced the way things are, which is why I can say a thing or two about the matter.

More than fifty years ago, the jourmalist and writer  Gaziel was sat on the stone bench of a viewpoint as he contemplated the bay of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, asked himself: “Should we treat the outsiders who come here from around the world like friends or like passers-by? Should we charge them honestly for our services, or try to empty their pockets the quicker the better?” This is an article dating from the year 1960. Gaziel had debated questions regarding tourism previously in his book on Florence, from the point of view of the traveller. Now he was dealing with the matter from the locals’ point of view, and he was shrewd enough to foresee the scope of the issue.

It was during the 60s that my grandfather, who worked in the transport business when horses were still used, had the idea of opening up riding stables in Platja d’Aro, the village next to Sant Feliu. It was a typical example of what many people in the area did. The riding stables lived off tourism, naturally, and he was soon able to add a bar. Then, above the bar, some rooms, which in the eighties were turned into a hotel. I was born sometime in between, and the first job I ever had was stocking the fridges with soft drinks and refilling the boxes with empty glass bottles. Another was to lead horses by the reins under the hot summer sun for thirty minutes or an hour around the ring, pulling along a foreign child mounted on the horse. Working for a child. Later, when I was a teenager, I got to ride the horse and act as a guide, and later still I was the hotel receptionist during those long nights. These are ideal jobs when you’re studying.

I want to tell a story that has do to with the questions Gaziel asked himself fifty years ago. My grandfather, who ran the stables, always encouraged me to wait for a tip from the customers. It is a sad and humiliating culture, that of tipping, but for a child… well, you know what I mean. He encouraged me to hold my hand out. To uphold my dignity, all I had, as is often the case with children, was the instinctive self-defence mechanism of embarrassment. I had a terrible time of it, and used to say to him “granddad, I’m embarrassed.” And his reply always comes to mind when I think of tourism. The reply was: “I don’t know why you should feel embarrassed – you’re never going to see them again”.

© Library of Catalonia. Gaziel Collection
The journalist Agustí Calvet, Gaziel, reflected on tourism many times in his work. In the image, Gaziel at the port of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, his birthplace, in August 1963.

In other words: pure exploitation. If you’re lucky enough to have some birds flying over your land, you get out the shotgun and shoot. A basic business notion, yet unthinkable in a bakery, a factory or a garage. Don’t worry about the customers, you’ll never see them again. I’m not saying that’s how tourism is, naturally. All I mean is that my grandfather would not have had this irresponsible idea in any other type of business. And the problem is that this exploitation doesn’t only apply to tourists, but to everything that revolves around tourism. The culture of exploitation does not only apply to tourism, of course, and a country’s level of development can be assessed by its degree of exploitation – we’ve seen it with the housing bubble and we’ve seen it in terms of political corruption. In cultural terms, were talking about anti-tradition.

Just like with pork, nothing goes to waste when it comes to tourism: you can make use of everything the tourist and the tourist site have to offer. There’s no need to create anything, just take what’s already there. You’ve got a beach? Then sand and sun. Wine? Enotourism. Some sort of monument? “Cultural” tourism. But the day will come when tourists open their eyes to the self-deception, to the massive ride they’re being taken for under the pretences of the virtues of travel. Homer would turn in his grave!

In times of economic crisis however, what can you do about it? In times of crisis you rent out a room in your house. In Barcelona this has reached dramatic levels with the problem of tourist apartments, but we are also familiar with this issue on the Costa Brava. I too occasionally had to give up my room so that tourists could spend the night there. Marina Garcés talks about the blackmail this involves, and she is totally correct, but is there anything that can’t be called “blackmail”? As with everything, it’s a question of to what extent. Reflecting on tourism is not an easy thing to do as so many of our livelihoods depend on it, and it is a question that currently touches on the very essence of our country. Tourism puts food on our tables and we are therefore highly conditioned by it; it reflects directly on us. We should have a first-class tourism observatory, cutting-edge, fully independent and with a regulatory role, to keep the matter permanently open to public debate.

At the last FITUR tourism trade fair, Mariano Rajoy called the tourism industry the “flag ship” of the Spanish economy, because that is what it is. Whether or not this is something to be proud of is another matter. There’s something slightly humiliating about running after people like a bazaar hawker: ‘look what I’ve got! Who wants it? If you don’t want beaches, I’ve got mountains! And if not, I’ve got…’ But we’re in an economic crisis, it’s common sense.

In that same edition of FITUR, the Catalan Government invested more money than ever before in a tourism campaign: 3.8 million euros. The campaign was run under the slogan of “Catalonia is your home”. The singer-songwriter Sisa himself has assigned the rights of Qualsevol nit pot sortir el sol, a song that has become such an intimate part of our culture, so a version can be made for the adverts.

“Catalonia is your home”. Here lies the problem. My home is your home. Is it not pertinent to ask ourselves what gives the authors of the new tourist campaign the right to so willingly give away the region to outsiders? What authorises them to offer my home to someone else? Isn’t Catalonia mine, then? Have they thrown me out? Was it ever mine? Have they sold it? Do I not have a say in the matter?

This is another anecdote, but it explains more than grand ideas. If I believe that someone else’s home is my own, I can do what I want there, I’ll be allowed to  exploit it however I like. Coming soon, a competition to see who’s got their wits about them, who can exploit who best.

‘Keep calm and read Espinàs’

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  • Una vida articulada [An articulated life]
  • Josep M. Espinàs
  • Edicions La Campana
  • Barcelona, 2013
  • 504 pages

In Una vida articulada, abridged and divested of all specific dates and titles, Espinàs’ articles have become like a mix of memoirs and chronicles, of mis­cellany and in the style of a practical philosophy book, in the best sense of the word. Having read the 500 pages – selected from a pile of 36 years, 11,000 columns – I can draw a couple of conclusions.

The first one is that Espinàs is the broad, functional and unavoidable bridge that unites the classic Catalan article writers – Carner, Sagarra and particularly Pla – and the writings of Monzó, Pàmies and Moliner: modern and civic article-writing, born of the society of abundance – with or without crisis – where common sense is permanently on guard against empty words and facile clichés, article-writing in an era of audiovisual and global audiences, availing itself of nuance rather than spectacle – and very often there is nothing more spectacular than nuance.

Espinàs eschews Pla’s vitriol and encyclopaedism; he is more naked, less bookish, but equally conservative. He has the same narrative skill, power of observation, of making absolutely the most of everything, of piquing your interest. He has the irony of that friend you wish was always at the table, which is why this book is something to savour. An utterly smooth read.

The second one is that these articles are all underpinned by a tenacious philosophy. A wisdom honed over numerous generations and the etymology of words and which, based on the innate scepticism of the newspaper, that permanent school of reality, leads us to an optimistic and convincing vision of human existence. Optimism lies at this book’s core. As of this, as Saint Thomas said, “good spreads itself”, and what more can you ask of a book?

Espinàs accomplishes all this by divesting the person of all transcendence, by putting him at the forefront of the composition. Not like the Romantics, who displaced the person, pushing him towards nature, but rather finding him in our vicinity, in civilised life, in our immediate setting, never far away. Espinàs is our special envoy to everydayness. Like a landing net that seeks out the imprecise silhouette of the human condition. Hence this fixation with immediate surroundings, with children, animals – particularly small ones  – insects, trees and objects, details and the myriad of tiny things that comprise the environment where a person is forged: the circumstances that are our silhouette. Gratuitous things, because “free and gratuitous acts define the human being”. And that is so right: gratuity is the cornerstone of freedom. He barely has to move, things come to him, he is defined more by what he is not rather than by what he is, which is why he always says that when he sits down to write, his immediate environment disappears. Espinàs disappears, and thanks to that he becomes everyone’s mirror. Of course he disappears; he becomes the silhouette, the void, as if the world’s outline were his skin and as if the inner realities, the truly intimate ones – this fixation with time, for example, which shoots through us – as if the innermost and most intimate realities were on the outside. He thus describes the void that takes us in. A void with human form.

It is a trap we fall into gladly. However, the fact that it is anti-transcendental does not mean that it does not transcend. A void – an ambience – it is a mirror rather than a mould. We observe Espinàs the observer, we see ourselves in his “periodical exercise of depersonalisation”, we learn from him and we thank him, above all, for his example of serenity.