Last week I wrote an article called “5 facts that will completely destroy your opinion of Spain”. The title was purposely sensationalist; I’ve been reading BuzzFeed long enough to know that unless you have a provocative title, you just don’t get the clicks. I could very easily have written “5 facts that show you some negative things about Spain that you might not be aware of” but that wouldn’t have pushed up the readership by half as much.
The article was never intended to make people hate Spain, but rather to point out some uncomfortable truths about a country which is so often portrayed as nothing more than sun, sand and sangria.
I posted links to this article on Facebook and got two extremely different reactions. From people living in Spain: “yeah, that sounds about right- this just confirmed what I already know” and from travel bloggers: “How on earth could you write something like that! How could you ever be so negative about Spain?”
I was accused of being a liar and “letting Scousers everywhere down” (God knows what my hometown has to do with anything). I was told that I had “no right” to be so negative and biased.
I then had a series of people trying to prove that I was just plain wrong, especially regarding the fact that Spain is the second poorest country in the EU. People sent me rants of their personal experiences "disproving" this (no statistics provided) and several people sent me links to lists of “European Countries by GDP” on Wikipedia to show me that I’d obviously got it wrong because “look, look Kosovo is much poorer than Spain!” By this time, I’d lost faith in travel bloggers altogether and was getting sick of explaining that a low GDP does not equal poverty.
But what I found most surprising in all of this, apart from the people who can’t seem to understand that Europe and the European Union are not the same thing (Kosovo IS poorer than Spain, but it's not in the EU; this does NOT disprove my research), was the general anger that the article produced. Real anger. How could I ever write something so negative about a country? Maybe I broke some sort of unknown blogging law. I don’t know. But as a resident of Spain (I have the 72 documents to prove it) and as a person who, you know, has freedom of speech, I do, actually, have the right to write negative things about Spain. Especially when they’re all verified facts backed up by academic sources such as OECD reports.
But the question remained; why would I write such a list of negative things about Spain? Well, simply, it’s because I live here, and the negatives affect me much more than the positives. Yes Spain has better weather and nice food and friendly people. But what affects me most is the political, economic and social reality around me.
Recently I, and many people I know have had our salaries cut. Not just stagnated and not increased in line with inflation. Cut. This happens every day to good, honest people who work hard. I see employees’ rights disappearing with every new bill passed through parliament whilst the bankers and politicians get richer and more corrupt. (Just look at what's happening with the the Black Card thing at Caixa Madrid right now).
Then there's the bike lane thing. In the past month bike lanes have been erased and innocent people fined in order to make a quick profit for the council (see previous post about a three-year-old on a tricycle being fined). Now that I’m forced to cycle in the road behind buses I no longer have the wind in my face, but rather exhaust fumes. Cycling, which used to be a simple pleasure for me, is now not only dangerous (having a bendy bus just pull out in front of you when you're cycling at full speed is terrifying) but damaging my health (if you think I’m being melodramatic try cycling directly behind a bus- it’s really not pleasant to breathe in those toxins).
The negatives affect me more than the positives because I’m an immigrant not an expat. Because I live in Zaragoza and not in Fuengarola. Because I’m politically aware and I’m the type of person who writes to my MP and reads OECD reports for fun. Because I can’t stand social or political apathy.
Many of the Travel Bloggers told me that Spain is one of their favourite countries and that I have no right to be so negative about it. But to them I say, walk a mile in my shoes, stop travelling Spain and live it. Live in a barrio with Gypsies. Work on a daily basis with university graduates who can’t construct a logical argument. Walk along streets where healthy thirty year olds are holding cardboard signs saying that they are looking for work, can’t find it, and have no other option but to beg on the street to feed their family (there’s no such thing as Job Seekers Allowance here). Watch as a population sits idly by as it is fucked over by its government. Then tell me I can’t say negative things about my adopted country.
But my favourite comment was “if you’re not happy in Spain, just leave”. I had this a few times and it’s actually laughable how naïve such a comment is.
Not all of these apply to me, but leaving a country is never an easy decision to make. What happens if you’re in a serious relationship and one partner wants to move abroad and the other doesn’t? What happens if you have financial security in a country and wouldn’t be guaranteed this if you moved? Would you risk leaving everything behind; your career, your promotional prospects and your guaranteed income on a gamble that you might get a job elsewhere? What happens when you don’t speak the language well? When your qualifications won’t be recognised in another country?
Choosing where to live is never so black and white. It’s not an easy decision to make. And it’s not one I’ve taken lightly. I’m in my mid-twenties and, looking towards the long term, I have asked myself: is Spain the country where I’d like to live forever? Is this the best country for my career? Would I like to raise a family here? I’ve thought long and hard about it and the answer is no.
But I can’t just pack up my bags and leave on the next flight home. I’m not a traveller. I’m a resident. I’m a real life adult with responsibilities.
So I deleted the link from the Travel Bloggers group. I’ve learnt my lesson. There are certain people who only want to read about how great countries are. There are people who will get really angry and defensive when you show them statistics from a reliable source that go against their own preconceptions. There are people who think they have the right to tell others "to go home".
No one has the right to tell me “to go home”. Especially people who don’t know me. And especially, especially those who think that Europe and the European Union are the same thing.