The Age Of Consent

The Partido Popular has little time for thinking these days, dedicated as it is almost full time to the defence of the corrupt. It's not really what they do best anyway. So when the PP does take on other issues it soon becomes clear that they haven't really thought them through. This week we have had almost simultaneous proposals from the party that would reduce the age of penal responsibility to 12 whilst at the same time restricting access of the under 18's to social networking applications such as Facebook. The PP veers between a concept of purity and childhood innocence in some cases and regarding all children as potential monsters in others. On the one hand much of their opposition to the proposed abortion law reform is based around the suggestion that 16 year olds will be able to obtain an abortion without the consent of their parents. For the PP these are mere "chicas" who are clearly unable to make up their own minds on the issue of whether they want to be a parent or not. On the other hand the 13 year old who commits a crime is an evil monster who must be locked away for the good of society. I suppose it has the compensatory side effect that whilst you are serving time in one of the PP's youth prisons at least you will never have to receive the dreaded email message "Mariano Rajoy Added You As A Friend On Facebook".

Un Ajuste De Cuentas

The Spanish police didn't take long to reach conclusions about the murder of a Senegalese immigrant in the Almerian town of Roquetas de Mar on Saturday night. An “ajuste de cuentas” (a settling of accounts) we were told, probably involving drugs. I've often heard this given as the motive for a crime here. At first I marvelled at the rapidity of the police investigations, the bodies would barely be cold following a shooting and already the police had come up with the motive for the crime. Then with the passage of time I realised that this conclusion was hardly ever the result of any investigation at all, and seemed to simply be a way of explaining away crimes that might otherwise be difficult to solve; usually involving foreigners killing other foreigners. I even found that I could more or less guess when it would be used, with practice I have a fairly good success rate.

Those who know the victim of the weekend's events claim that he had no involvement of any kind in criminal activities, he had a job and was close to securing legal status in the country; the dream of all of those who continue to undertake the tremendously dangerous journey by boat from Africa to the Canary islands or the southern coast of Spain. Some press coverage has also focused on the miserable conditions in which many of these immigrants live as they collect the fruit and vegetables produced under plastic in Almeria and other areas on the Mediterranean coast. At the same time the native population does very well from the steady stream of cheap labour. One of the best columnists in the Spanish press, Javier Ortiz, writes eloquently on the subject today. The police crackdown in the town contrasts sharply with the events of El Ejido a few years ago, then the police watched with folded arms as the locals burnt and chased hundreds of immigrants out of their homes.

The Best Police Force Money Can Buy

We have discovered a revolutionary method for cutting crime near to Madrid this week - arrest the local police force. Coslada, a town not far from Madrid, has seen 26 of its local police officers placed under arrest, including the chief of police. The expected result of this is that the incidence of prostitution rackets and extorsion of bar or discoteque owners should decline dramatically. Almost every report I read about the case says that is was a "secreto a voces" , meaning that everybody knew about it but nobody did anything. The political authorities evade responsibilities by saying that nobody laid a formal complaint, perhaps understandable given that such a complaint might have ended up in the hands of the local police! The arrests were made in the end because of a police investigation launched from Madrid into a prostitution ring that turned to be controlled by members of the Coslada police.

Fago

I don’t normally watch many things on Spanish television apart from news, football and films. However, I’ve made an exception for a short series running on Monday nights on La Primera based on the killing at the beginning of last year of the mayor of a tiny village called Fago in the Aragonese Pyrenees.

The series portrays a village divided in two between those who support their mayor and those who hate him. The mayor himself, an outsider from the big city of Zaragoza, is clearly not using his powers in an impartial way and his refusal to register newcomers as residents in the village only helps to increase resentment. When he is murdered on an isolated road the list of suspects is not short as there are plenty of people with reasons to dislike him.

The odd thing about this series is not just that it is based on real events; it is also the fact that the man charged with the murder of the mayor of Fago is still awaiting trial. In Britain I think it would be completely impossible for a television company to produce a series about such events before the trial takes place; the principal difference being that the trial would take place with a jury. Here in Spain the series had to be approved by a judge after the Guardia Civil were sent to seize the tapes of the production before it could be shown. The family of the dead man wanted to stop the series being shown. Even though the names of the main characters have been changed, the name of the village is the same and it is completely clear that the fictional series is based on the actual events that occurred.

The village only has 34 registered inhabitants, and they got completely fed up with the invasion of journalists and the curious that they suffered following the killing of their mayor. It is a feeling that can only be reinforced by seeing their village portrayed in this way on prime time television every Monday for three weeks.

Hijacked!

Walking through the Plaza de España in Madrid yesterday afternoon, I came across a demonstration of people affected by the massive fraud that has been perpetrated by a couple of investment companies (Forum and AFINSA) specialising in stamps. It’s actually one of the first issues that I blogged about here on South of Watford. The strange thing about yesterday’s demonstration is that it wasn’t immediately clear it was about the stamp fraud at all, as the whole event seemed to be aimed at the government and at Prime Minister Zapatero in particular. At the front of the march were people handing out small leaflets claiming that the Partido Popular (PP) was going to compensate all of those affected by the scandal, and the chants of those behind the main banner were a straight copy of those used on so many of the PP inspired anti-government marches we have seen in Madrid in the last couple of years. The placards being waved were also almost entirely aimed at the government.

Given all of this, it is perhaps useful to clarify what has actually happened here. A couple of private investment companies appear to have defrauded thousands of their investors, something which is a crime and which will hopefully lead to the perpetrators being punished. These companies were operating under a regulatory framework put in place by the last government (run by the PP) and it seems quite likely that a large part of the fraud took place under that administration. Now clearly a large number of those affected seem to believe that the current government should compensate them for what has happened, a point of view which is understandable but arguable; as it amounts to the government guaranteeing all private investments. Frankly, I don’t believe that the PP will repay all of the money that these people have lost, and even if it is true it still is not an excuse for their cause to be turned into yet another thinly disguised PP anti-government protest. The current government is not responsible for their situation, and the original fraud they justifiably complained about has now been converted into a political fraud. Those affected almost certainly encompass people of all political opinions; sadly they are poorly represented by those who have hijacked their cause.

ETA Kills Spanish Policeman?

A member of the Guardia Civil has been shot dead, and another seriously injured this morning, in an attack that is being widely attributed to ETA. There are two odd things about the attack, the first being that it took place in France and not in Spain. The members of the Guardia Civil are said to have been part of a cross border surveillance group working in cooperation with the French police. The second odd thing, at least judging from the intial reports, is that the attack did not take place in response to any move by the police against those they were watching; instead it looks as if those responsible knew about the police presence. As usual with these incidents it probably pays to wait a while to find out more, but in the meantime terrorism returns to the top of the political agenda. If ETA is indeed responsible it also goes against their traditional reluctance to carry out attacks in France, even if the victims are Spanish.

The Circus Comes To Town

I rarely post about issues from outside of Spain, but my reasons for not having written anything so far about the McCann case go beyond that. I felt very uncomfortable from the beginning with their campaign to find their missing daughter Madeleine, run as it was by professional spin doctors who seem to regard the whole thing as a test of their promotional skills. I couldn't really fathom what would make a man looking for a daughter supposedly abducted in Southern Portugal go to New York on tour, and I couldn't see the usefulness of it. I also have to admit that I dislike the way in which cases like this can attract so much attention, while so many other cases of equal suffering go completely unnoticed. Anyway, I'm going to limit this post to the impact of the case here in Spain. I’m aware that this is potentially a very slippery slope; I started writing about the Madrid train bombings because of a piece of invented nonsense I saw about a washing machine timer, and ended up dedicating an entire blog to the issue. This time I will be more careful.

The other day, whilst reading a typically sensible post on the issue over at El Siglo de las Luces, I noticed a link in the comments to a blog called Escepticismo Criminologico which turns out to be entirely about the McCann case. The blog is written by someone called Elvira Saez de Alberola, who states that she is a professional with 15 years experience in the study of forensic science and criminology. I was almost immediately struck by the ambiguity of that description; it could mean she is a permanent student, an internationally respected expert on criminal behaviour, or just a chartered accountant with a passion for crime novels. Whatever, the way in which the blog is presented led me to expect a cool, serious, fact-based analysis of the McCann case; isn’t that what scepticism is about? Well unfortunately, that’s not what you get if you turn up at this page.

What you get instead is Elvira’s theory on the case, and it doesn’t take too long to work out that Elvira finds Gerry and Kate McCann guilty on all counts for the disappearance of their daughter. Fine, if you have facts and proof to back it up, but that is precisely what we are all lacking in this case which is still so much of a mystery for most of us. In this respect Elvira is no different from anyone else, despite whatever professional training she has, she still has to rely on the same scraps of often unreliable information emerging on the case that everyone else gets. Despite this apparent drawback she has no doubts, there are frequent assertions featuring our old friend “I knew there was something funny about this case from the very beginning”.

Now everyone is entitled to believe what they want about the case, but what I find striking in the case of Elvira’s page is the sheer determination shared by her and many of those who comment to hold the McCanns responsible. It also emerges from reading the blog that the reasons behind this are not, ahem, entirely professional. Elvira seems visibly upset by the image of devout Catholic parents that has been presented to us over the last few months. She strikes a blow at that one by pointing out that the McCanns have used in-vitro fertilisation and therefore can be struck off the list of “good” Catholics. If we throw out those who have used contraception too, at some point the churches might get dangerously empty. Who the hell still confuses being a good Catholic with being a good parent anyway? Perhaps the same people who confuse scepticism with speculation?

My reference earlier to the Madrid bombings was not entirely accidental; the reasoning process that Elvira uses in the presentation of her case against the McCanns is very similar to that used by the conspiracy theorists like Luis del Pino who have floated so much garbage about the train bombings. Not because she accuses the police, as Del Pino does, of having been involved in committing the crime. Far from it, Elvira currently admits no criticism at all of the police or judicial system, we’ll have to wait and see whether her stand survives a result that doesn’t suit her theory. No, the similarity comes from the methodology. You start with a hypothesis as any good scientist should, but instead of testing that hypothesis against the available evidence to see whether it holds water, you set about moulding the evidence so that it fits your hypothesis. Facts which do not support the theory are simply brushed aside as irrelevant. Any gaps in the narrative (and in this case there are many such gaps) are then filled with speculative opinion that fits perfectly into the false premises on which the hypothesis now rests. So we are treated to imaginary snippets of conversation on how the McCanns could have decided to use their medical training by administering medicine to their children to make them sleep. This may be a depressingly common approach; it is also unfortunately a bogus one.

I don't know if she has any connection in her professional life with the prosecution of alleged criminals, but with this methodology I sincerely hope not. The difference with the train bombings conspiracy theories is that there is at least the possibility that Elvira could end up being right about the case. That does not mean that the way she has arrived at her conclusions is also correct, all it will show is that her number came up when they span the wheel of probability. Any result that doesn't support her hypothesis is unlikely to lead to an admission of getting it wrong, it never does with this kind of reasoning. Indeed, with references to the lawyer the McCanns have contracted as a specialist in getting the guilty freed, perhaps she is already preparing the escape route. A curious judgement for a professional to make on a defence lawyer, there have also been many references to him having defended General Pinochet - now there was a good Catholic for you! One thing I have never bought is this kind of "I'm a professional so my speculation is better than yours" attitude. A theory without proof remains that even when it is proposed by a Nobel Prize winner.

Yesterday, our blogging professional approvingly posted an email she had received from a Portuguese policeman on how to tell whether someone is guilty or not. The policeman informs us that someone who is unjustly accused of a crime never cries. As a criteria for judging the guilt of someone it’s almost enough to bring tears to my eyes, it’s about one step above ducking suspected witches. Whatever happened to evidence? I wonder how many innocent people have been jailed because their reaction to an accusation is not what the policeman expects it to be. Some of the comments being left by readers on an increasingly surreal blog are simply astounding. Anyway, the British can rest assured that Napoleon was wrong when he called us a nation of shopkeepers, according to many of these comments we are instead a nation of cold, distant, calculating child killers. Presumably, the man who shot his 18 month old daughter in the head a few weeks ago near Madrid did so because he was a "hot blooded Latin". Isn't it amazing how easy life can become when you stop doing your own thinking? Many others of those who comment are full of these "who would react this way if their daughter had been kidnapped" judgements that very few of us are ever likely to be in a position to make. One beautiful comment today compared Elvira to Agatha Christie. Indeed, file under “F” for fiction.

Of course the behaviour of the British tabloid press has been equally pathetic, but what's new about that? The coverage in some other British papers such as the Guardian is actually considerably better than that of the Spanish press. In the age of Google Reader you quickly become aware of how much "news" you read that is a rewrite of the same story from another source. Especially if you link to feeds from different countries. I have no theory on the case myself, there are quite simply still too many things we don't know, and the information we receive is often appallingly unreliable. Whatever I might think about the way the campaign has been organised on their behalf, if the McCanns did no harm to their daughter then I wish them no harm. Unfortunately, the backlash the campaign has produced leads many people to be far less even handed in their judgements. Over at Elvira's the case is practically closed and the lynching posse is saddled up and ready to ride. I suppose that we can at least be grateful for the virtual nature of mob law on Internet. There is a kind of grisly fascination in the way in which this feeding frenzy grows, it is tempered by the realisation of just how hugely popular this kind of exploitative stuff is. I am also aware that just by writing this post I've become part of the circus.

It’s been a long post, perhaps too long but sometimes you can’t deal with an issue in 20 lines of text. My closing question is this. Just how much impact on global warming would it have if we were to make a bonfire out of all the speculative rubbish that has been written about this case?