Why are Latino women so charming and beautiful? Is love a productive emotion? Why is the latin spirit so encaptivating and fascinating to someone from a drab, lifeless and protestant country like England?
I'm in love. My girlfriend is so utterly gourgeous. I cannot help but say that she makes me happier than a German World Cup win (you know what they say is the best aphrodisiac, well it aint football). The latin feeling emnating from her smile is just immeasurable. I have not felt like this in my whole life. This country has given me so much in my life.
Ayrton Senna, Ronaldo, Bossa Nova, the soft portuguese language, Gustavo Kuerten. Everything that comes from this country seems to be inspiring to a man starved of passion and liveliness whilst growing up in a reserved, homecountry private school. I never really identified with the British need to conceal every conceivable outpouring of emotion and sentiment. The insincerity and desire of most of my peers to hide and distort all types of conceivable genuine affection was extremely frustrating and in my view, unhealthy. Thats why Brits drink so much.
This is a ramble, but I think this country has so much to give the world, and not just to me. I see this country with its soft socialist government and free market macroeconomic policies as the next model country. The rich and landed classes will need to relinquish some of their power and wealth for Brazil to succeed. This has been the traditional problem for all Latin American states, to modify the class inequality, provide a basic social safety net for the poorest, help foster a middle class through investment in education, build sustainable ecosystems, modernise infrastructure and recalibrate taxation to increase the burden on the richest. Then, and only then will Brazil solve its socio-economic deficits and its longstanding problem with organised crime.
The poverty that is evident in Brazil has been structurally existent since the birth of the nation and initially institutionalised through slavery and its belated abolition. However, if it contains to use centre-left remedies and tackles its usual corruption problems then I see Brazil conquering the world with samba, caipirinha, bossa nova and beautiful women of course. And then everyone will love Brazil.
Donnerstag, 16. Juni 2011
Montag, 14. März 2011
My Homage to Catalonia
A little time has passed now for me to muse on my brief stay in Catalonia where George Orwell wrote his oh-so-moving account of his time fighting for the disjointed and ultimately fledging republican cause.
Unfortunately Cafe Moka in Las Ramblas did not exude any of the feeling I expected from that period. It has been revamped and completely modernised severing any evokation of the 1930s.
However, the positivity of the city is what has stayed with me since then. The Mediterranean feeling of warmth and optimism can be felt wherever you walk in the city from park to park and street to street whilst people chat from balcony to balcony. It is not the most cultured of European cities - its passions revolve more around its numerous sports clubs rather than the arts. The Picasso museum does not boast his most accomplished work and the architecture, though still fabulous, never really reaches the grandiose climes of Madrid's inner city.
To speak of Barcelona as symptomatic of Spain and spanish culture would be obviously to display huge cultural ignorance. The movement to gain Catalan independence is fully visible and almost all businesses have managed to insert "Catalunya" or "Catalan" somewhere into the title. However, the problems that afflict Spain as whole are also noticable - the overdependence on tourism, the lack of drinking water and the gradual desertification of its arable land. To speak of Spain as an economic powerhouse for the rest of Europe would be wholly misplaced. Though not poor, prospects of great future economic progress do not seem that tenable given the structures of the spanish economy.
Barcelona and Spain are both places of great exuberance and Latin temperament. The future though not overly positive does not dent the general mood of openness and cordiality of Catalonia and its people. If only the food was better, but thats another matter...
Unfortunately Cafe Moka in Las Ramblas did not exude any of the feeling I expected from that period. It has been revamped and completely modernised severing any evokation of the 1930s.
However, the positivity of the city is what has stayed with me since then. The Mediterranean feeling of warmth and optimism can be felt wherever you walk in the city from park to park and street to street whilst people chat from balcony to balcony. It is not the most cultured of European cities - its passions revolve more around its numerous sports clubs rather than the arts. The Picasso museum does not boast his most accomplished work and the architecture, though still fabulous, never really reaches the grandiose climes of Madrid's inner city.
To speak of Barcelona as symptomatic of Spain and spanish culture would be obviously to display huge cultural ignorance. The movement to gain Catalan independence is fully visible and almost all businesses have managed to insert "Catalunya" or "Catalan" somewhere into the title. However, the problems that afflict Spain as whole are also noticable - the overdependence on tourism, the lack of drinking water and the gradual desertification of its arable land. To speak of Spain as an economic powerhouse for the rest of Europe would be wholly misplaced. Though not poor, prospects of great future economic progress do not seem that tenable given the structures of the spanish economy.
Barcelona and Spain are both places of great exuberance and Latin temperament. The future though not overly positive does not dent the general mood of openness and cordiality of Catalonia and its people. If only the food was better, but thats another matter...
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