Feeling privileged (Me siento privilegiado)...

The Sydney Opera House

Being a Sydney boy, I’ve always felt privileged to hail from a city that can boast a building as wonderful, iconic and unique as the Sydney Opera House. I remember always doing my best to take the bridge rather than the tunnel as I crossed the harbour on the way to work each day, just to get a glimpse of it.

Of course during the last 15 years, I’ve only had the opportunity to lay eyes on ‎Jørn Utzon’s masterpiece once in a while and then only as a visitor to Sydney-town, which always left me feeling a little wanting – I suppose removed.

But now that I am a resident of Barcelona, that privileged feeling has returned.You see, I’m lucky enough to get to see Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família church just about every day, usually as I walk the dog through the two parks on either side of it.

I’m not exactly sure if I’ve yet worked out just what grabs about it: it’s impressive bulk, that somehow makes it look tall and squat at the same time; the schizophrenia of the styles of the two main facades – the gothic and naturalist of the “Nativity” or the angular and austere of the “Passion” (it's probably a little controversial to say this, but the Passion is my favorite – there’s just too much on the Nativity side for me to take in); the wonderful ceramic “fruit-bowls” that adorn the sharp peaks of the buttress; the glimmering tiles that clad the spires, the lizards and snakes clinging to the outside walls of the radiating chapel; or the simple fact that just when you think you see a part of it that seems “cathedrally” conventional, you look again and see that it is anything but.

The Passion facade - my favourite

The "fruit bowls"

The glimmering towers

The lizards and snakes clinging to the walls

Not that everyone is a fan of the Sagrada Família. A very good friend of mine visiting from Madrid told me in no uncertain terms that he didn’t like anything about it. And others, perhaps more versed in art and architecture than him have labeled it vulgar, pretentious, a circus attraction, even “the most blatant mass of half-digested moderniste clichés”. Even Cataluña-loving George Orwell, having seen the building while he was fighting with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, called it “one of the most hideous buildings in all the world”.

I do get why it is polarizing (I think my description above of what I like it is explanation enough of why others might not) but I have to say I fall firmly on the side of those who love it. And then there is the inside.

If you’re ever in Barcelona and tempted to be satisfied with viewing the Sagrada Família just from the outside, resist. Do yourself a favour, brave the crowds and go inside (book your entrance online so you won’t need to line up in a queue that sometimes just about wraps around the entire block).

A forest of geometric wonder

I only saw the inside for the first time a few months ago (it was still a building site when I first came to see it in 2000) and it made my jaw drop. The sheer height of the vaults (60 meters in parts), the imposing columns of sandstone, granite, basalt and porphyry, clearly reminiscent of a forest of giant trees complete with branches and the magnificent geometric detail of the ceiling are just some of the highlights for me.

I also love the back-story of the place: the important Modernista (Art Nouveau) outbuilding that was the school Gaudi built for the children of his workers; the way Gaudi captured the forms and flows of nature for his designs using shapes suspended with string and viewed in a mirror (you can clearly see the results of that in the design of the anterior); the fact that anarchists during the Spanish Civil War burned many of Gaudi’s designs and they had to be re-created via photographs and (later) computer-aided design; or, as an engineer friend of mine visiting from Australia explained to me not long ago, that Gaudi was so far ahead of his time that we’ve had to wait for engineering technology to catch up with some of his plans in order to actually build them!

So yes, I do feel very privileged to be able to enjoy this building every day, even if only for (or perhaps because of) the mundane reality that the dog needs to have a walk and do his business.  And I look forward to returning one day in or after 2026 to see it completed – although I imagine I’ll find it a little odd minus all the cranes that are the only way I’ve ever known it and that have become, for me, part of the building.

These days, for me at least, the cranes are part of the Sagrada Família

In the meantime, thanks to the wonder of computer animation, we can get a glimpse into that future. Check out the video below:

“Rosaries out of our ovaries!” (“¡Fuera los rosarios de nuestros ovarios!”)

As I write this post, a fierce social argument is raging in Spain. Well, the truth is, after six years of brutal economic crisis and all that comes with it: unemployment (26%, rising to 57% for the under 25's), massive cuts to health, education, social services and pensions, increasing homelessness, etc, it’s not nearly the only one. But I wonder if this one might eclipse all others in it's potential for divisiveness. And it has nothing to do with the economy. 

Spain's Cabinet - el Consejo de Ministros - has recently approved a new abortion Bill. If passed into law, it will not only remove the free choice that women here have had since 2010 to abort in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, but also make it harder for them to have an abortion than it was back in 1985, when Spain's first abortion reform was introduced following the dictatorship.

The new Bill recriminalises abortion in all circumstances except two: 1) in the case of rape and 2) where it can be proven (by two doctors or psychologists) the pregnancy will cause serious physical or psychological harm to the mother. 

In the 1985 reform there was also a third exception: malformation of the foetus. This is not in the new Bill, which is one of the reasons why there is so much opposition to it. 

Other arguments against it are that it will push woman back into the dark-old-days of backyard abortions and the risks that go along with that; an increase in inequality amongst Spanish woman as those who can afford it will simply go to Portugal, France or the UK to abort (which they used to do en-masse); or the conversion of doctors and psychologists into the moral guardians of Spanish women.

All these are important and valid reasons for opposition to the Bill, but in my opinion, they are not the core reason why this Bill has the potential to be so divisive.

The Spanish are very proud of the way their country has modernised (industrially, politically and socially) in the 30-odd years since the end of Franco’s dictatorship. These gains many Spaniards feel where very hard fought and so the idea of going backwards is abhorrent to them.

Furthermore, we’re talking about abortion, so it’s intrinsically linked women and their place in society. Back in the Franco’s day, a woman’s place was in the home, “cómo Diós manda” ("as God commands"). Women could not even open a bank account or apply for a passport without the permission of their husband (or if she didn’t have one of those, her oldest male relative). 

So you can imagine how many women here now feel about being told they are going to lose a right they currently hold to make decisions about their own bodies. 

Also, as the title to this post suggests (it’s one of the catch-phrases being used in demonstrations against the Bill), there is the Church. Although the connection of the Church to power in Spain goes back much further than the dictatorship (just think about the Inquisition), in Franco’s Spain, the Church was both protected by the State and its great defender. Franco named his form of government “National Catholicism”, thus cementing the Church’s undeniable connection with the State.

Spain’s democratic constitution of 1982 separated Church and State, so many Spaniards feel that this Bill is a concession by the government to the Church, which threatens that separation.

So why do I wonder if this fear - and anger -  of going backwards (in rights and as a society) has the potential to trump the divisiveness resulting from the economic measures the government has put in place to combat the “Great Recession”?

Don’t get me wrong, there is great opposition to the government’s spending cuts (in 2013 alone there were 25,461 recorded demonstrations in Spain, mostly to do with these cuts) but it seems to me that a lot of people are still prepared to give the government the benefit of the doubt that they are essential to get the economy back on track.

But the abortion Bill is not about the economy. For a great many Spaniards it is about cutting a personal liberty that will take their society more than thirty years into the past. And in that, they’re not prepared to give the government the benefit of the doubt.

Some demonstrators’ slogans, L-R: “Vagina armed, vagina respected”. Actually the word “coño” is more akin to our C-word. but it is not nearly as offensive in Spanish. In fact, the Speaker of Parliament here has been known to use it from time-to-time when trying to cool down the House during the more fiery debates. “Illegal abortion = the dealth of justice & equality”. “Take your rosaries out of our ovaries”.