Spanish nobility continued.

7 Oct. 2011

I wrote about the Duchess of Alba yesterday, but news associated with Spanish nobility continues today.

While today was rather uneventful, I did get to see some of the preparations for the Volvo Ocean Race. This event, which starts in Alicante, is a sailing race around the world. The actual race doesn't start until the end of the month, but today the Prince and Princess were here to support the Spanish team. Apparently, the Princess was named the godmother of the boat in a special ceremony.

If you didn't know (I actually didn't know this until I studied abroad in Spain 2 years ago), Spain has a constitutional monarchy. I'm going to give a brief description of the events that lead to this change. However, this description won't really do justice to the complexity of the transition to democracy in Spain. I actually took an entire course that was just devoted to the Spanish Civil War.

After the Second Republic fell in 1939 and a bloody civil war, Franco ruled the country as a dictator for nearly 40 years. During that time, he pushed for Spanish unity and nationalism through curtailing regional autonomy and prohibiting the use of regional languages. After Franco's death, Juan Carlos (the son of the former king) became the king of Spain. It was assumed that Juan Carlos would follow the doctrine of Franco. Instead, Juan Carlos made the push for Spain to transition to a democracy. This transition was not without bumps in the road. However, it was relatively peaceful and continues to this day--which given all the turmoil in Spain in the last few centuries is hopeful.

As a result, Juan Carlos is a figurehead and symbol of Spain. Based on my experience, he's really popular with Spaniards because of his role in the transition to the democracy. Polls show that people have more confidence in Juan Carlos than they have in the monarchy itself. So this leads some people to question what will happen to the monarchy when Juan Carlos is no longer its head.

He's maybe best known in the US as the guy who told Chávez to shut up when he interrupted President Zapatero at a Ibero-American Summit. Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Kzbo7tNLg.

Part of Juan Carlos' job is to serve as the personification of the monarchy as well as the nation. In fact, last week, Juan Carlos made an appearance at the meeting of the Spanish Congress. He was asked to comment on the economic situation in Spain, and he was rather honest (and really blunt) in his response. He said that the future would require many sacrifices. While most people think that Spaniards have made enough sacrifices, I got the impression that people respected the king for not trying to feed them propaganda about the economic situation.