This is what we meanly have always been in Spain: people who care for other people. This is possibly what has alwas made our country a very attractive place and not such a good one for ultra competitive businesses.
I saw it very clearly when I was living in the US, my second home-country, to which and to whose people I am eternally grateful. It was in 2001, months before the Towers fell down, among excellent colleagues and mates that, at the same time did not know the meaning of the word solidarity: in literal words.
The experience I relate below is clearly an effect of the ultra-wilde-liberalism these friends had grown in. I understood many things of the culture and my friends behaviour and way of living values when reading this book at the Witherspoon Fellowship: Habits of the Heart. Americans are people who criticise and reinvent themselves for what they believe is better, that is why I believe in them and their vibrant country.
Back to Spain and its natural sense of community and caring: this feature of our nation is what our Judges are now showing in many cases when passing Court decissions against Banks. Banks which have followed, during the last decades, an inhumane behaviour , according to the rules of the wild, uncotrolled financial markets. In other words: dominated by the cruel power of money without heart.
Great example is last Court Decission passed at the same time we were waiting for Court Decission in Las Higuericas, Finca Parcs, June 2012, two months ago by the Appeal Court of Burgos: a clear punishment on banks for not caring for people´s deposits under law 57/68.
And it is just an example among many other beautiful ones in Courts. Powerful reasons for celebration as they are a proof of how human beings are very capable of justice and caring for other ones.
Maria
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"playa-bolonia-tarifa", Tarifa, Cadiz, South of Spain, by aferve, at flickr.com