Settled in Normal: Narratives of a Prozaic (Spanish) Nation1

L. Elena Delgado is Associate This private world of loony bins and weird people Professor of Spanish, Criti- which I always felt I occupied and hid in, had sud- cism and Interpretive Theory denly turned inside out so that it seemed like this was at the University of Illinois one big Prozac Nation, one big mess of malaise. (Urbana). A specialist in mod- —Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation ern and contemporary Span- ish literatures and cultures, Me habían dicho que es peligrosísimo dejar el Prozac she is the author of La imagen de golpe, sobre todo si uno ha estado tomándolo elusive: lenguaje y represen- años…y que podía sobrevivir una crisis seria, un epi- tación en la narrativa de Gal- sodio depresivo, que podía sobrevenir un brote dós (2000) and numerous esquizoide…. articles on nineteenth-cen- —Lucía Extebarría, Amor, curiosidad, Prozac y dudas tury literature, decadentism, and modernities. She was also …it is very conceivable that the sense of guilt pro- guest editor of “Imperial Dis- duced by civilization is not perceived as such either, closures” (Discourse: Journal and remains to a large extent unconscious or appears for Theoretical Studies in as a sort of malaise, a dissatisfaction, for which people Media and Culture, 2001) seek other motivations. and Re/Constructions (Jour- —Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents nal of Spanish Cultural Stud- ies, 2003). She is currently n his chapter dedicated to the essay, included in completing a book entitled the Cambridge Companion to Modern Spanish Cul- “The Normal Nation” on the ture, Thomas Mermall claims that after Franco’s cultural construction of Span- I death the issues of Spain’s national identity and Euro- ish identity. peanization lost their traditionally ontological and metaphysical dimension and acquired a more func- tional character (170). He argues, moreover, that the essay is precisely the genre that stands as concrete proof of Spain’s stable European intellectual location (172). Mermall’s contention, far from being controversial, aptly captures the general tone of recent analysis of

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 7, 2003 120 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

Spanish cultural and political identity, In order to attempt to answer some both inside and outside of Spain. Thus, of these questions, we need to turn our for example, noted Spanish historians Juan attention now to some of the titles pub- Pablo Fusi and Jordi Palafox argue that lished in recent years which, in one way when Spain became a member of NATO or another, deal with Spanish cultural (1981) and the European Union (1986), identity or the idea of the nation in Spain: it at long last became Western and Euro- Si España cae…asalto nacionalista al estado, pean, thus resolving the issue of national by César Alonso de los Rios; Nacionalismos: identity (Fusi and Palafox 442). And an- el laberinto de la identidad by Xabier Rubert other equally distinguished historian, de Ventós; España, una angustia nacional Javier Tusell, celebrated in 1999 the fact by Javier Tusell; La novela de España: los that the hagiographies of nationalism were intelectuales y el problema español by Javier in the process of being overcome in the Varela; Tragedia y razón: Europa en el pen- entire Spanish state (243). samiento español del siglo XX by José María If indeed Spaniards can now boast Beneyto; España, reflexiones sobre el ser de of having arrived “where her artists and España, edited by the Royal Academy of intellectuals have long sought so fervently History; España, evolución de la identidad to be—integrally in Europe” (Mermall nacional by Juan Pablo Fusi; La construcción 172) it would seem to be a logical con- de la nación española, by Mario Onaindía. clusion that the “anguish” over national All these essays received wide critical at- identity, so crucial a component of Spain’s tention within Spain and many of them modern intellectual tradition, would have became instant best-sellers. No less suc- ceased to exist. And indeed that is the cessful and publicized are essays that deal conclusion of such a lucid intellectual as more “explicitly” with issues of national- Eduardo Subirats, who remarked in the ism(s) and in particular with the Basque early nineties that in post-Franco Spain and Catalan nationalisms and their inter- “el tema de España,” so widely and bit- actions with the state. I am referring of terly debated in an essentialist and nega- course to works such as Mikel Azurmendi’s tive rhetoric during most of the twenti- La herida patriótica, Xavier Rubert de eth century “se ha dado […] por completa, Ventós’s Catalunya: de la identitat a la rotunda y definitivamente zanjado” (143). independència; Borja de Riquer’s Identitats But if in fact the question of Spain’s contemporanies: Catalunya I Espanya; national identity has now been resolved, Mario Onaindía’s Guía para orientarse en how does one explain the renaissance of el laberinto vasco and the now famous se- the political essay in Spain?2 Why have so ries of essays written by Jon Juaristi on many of those essays become unlikely best- the subject of Basque nationalism and in sellers and elevated their authors to the rank particular his by now classic El bucle of media personalities? And how should melancólico.3 we interpret the renewed prestige of essay Since I mention here only a small awards such as Premio Anagrama de Ensayo, selection of the many essays published on Premio Espasa, Premio Jovellanos or Premio this topic, it is obvious that the sheer num- Nacional de Ensayo, all of which carry sub- ber of existing works points to a need to stantial monetary and cultural capital? “explain” the nation and its evolution. L. Elena Delgado 121

Indeed, it could be argued that the very “indistinguishable” from other European preeminence of the “national debate” in countries, internally the different autono- contemporary Spain reveals precisely that mous communities that constitute the which the contents of the above men- Spanish state are irrevocably different from tioned works often negate: that the idea one another. The very expression chosen of the Spanish Nation or of its cultural in contemporary Spain to denote cultural identity might even today be problem- differences within the state, “hechos dife- atic. It is significant, for example, that the renciales” (“differentiating facts”) points rhetoric used in the very titles of these to a static and hierarchical, rather than works to describe the “Spanish non-prob- malleable and relational understanding of lem” is that same which, according to difference. For “fact” is a word that im- Subirats, had been displaced: labyrinths, plies certitude, immutability. Indeed, in tragedies, anguish, struggle. It could be Spanish the expression “es un hecho” is argued, and rightly so, that the focus of used in contexts that exclude ab initio any many of these books is to re-examine phe- sort of interpretive, ideological or even af- nomena of the past. But then we are faced fective variable. In this sense both the re- with the paradox of a supposedly by gone current claims of normalcy that charac- problem that is nevertheless re-examined terize contemporary analysis of the differ- over and over, in the midst of invocations ent Spanish cultures, as well as the equally to the present Europeanized and “normal- recurrent invocation of a fundamental, ized” status of Spain. From a merely intrinsic difference that disproves any narratological point of view, this imbal- similarity among them, point to an epis- ance points to a common narrative device, temological fissure, to an ambivalence that one by which the impulse driving the is in fact characteristic of all nationalisms narration turns out to be the same one (Nairns 348-49). If, as E. Balibar and oth- which the text eventually disqualifies and ers have demonstrated, the construction annuls. In other words, Spain may want of national subjects can never be void of to represent itself as a completely “nor- tension and contradictions, the insistence mal” European country with an unprob- on the part of Spanish politicians and in- lematic collective identity, but the con- tellectuals on stressing the seamless nor- cept that keeps turning up as the key ele- malcy of the Spanish national identity ment of the national narrative, the one acquires a “prozaic” dimension. By this I sustaining its interest, is precisely that mean that the sources of tension and con- denied yet ever-present “difference.” flict within the national body are not duly It would seem, in fact, that in con- acknowledged and dealt with, but sim- temporary Spain the essentialist use of the ply anesthetized and/or circumscribed to term “difference,” used during Francoism a convenient problematic symptom. to characterize the country as a whole, has Indeed, the narrative mode domi- not been erased, but merely shifted to re- nant in Spain in the 1990s has been said fer only to the “peripheral” (particularly to follow “the poetics of Prozac” due to Basque, Catalan and Galician) nationali- the predominance of an aestheticization ties. That is to say, the consensus seems of personal neurosis and narcissistic ego- to be that while as a nation Spain is now centrism (Fernández Porta). In poetry too 122 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies there is a clear tendency to favor a poetics In general, the representations of of normalcy and “common sense” that re- collective national identities in Spain (both jects all forms of social and stylistic mar- central and peripheral) tend to minimize ginality as extravagant and fosters “a lit- internal tensions and disruptions to fore- erature that is ‘European’ in the most ge- ground cultural (even ethnic) homogene- neric (or least specific) sense of the word” ity and historical continuity. Let us con- (Mayhew 242). As for the political and sider, for example, the essay by Xavier historical essay, much of what is written Rubert de Ventós, a lucid and justly re- today is characterized by a seamless dis- spected Catalan intellectual, whose latest course wherein both individual and col- book, From Identity to Independence: The lective identities are presented as uni- New Transition, makes a claim for Catalan formly consistent and comprehensible. It independence. In the essay, Ventós ac- is possible to have a “before” and an “af- knowledges that modern consciousness ter,” and in fact many well-known essay- emerges from the experience of belonging ists have publicly unveiled and renounced to different and distinct orders of reality: their pasts (among them Jon Juaristi, I am several things at once, ergo, I exist Mikel Azurmendi, Eduardo Haro Tecglen, (59). Thus, individual lucidity begins Mario Onaindía).4 But the rupture is pre- when one recognizes the fragmentary na- sented as definitive and unproblematical: ture of all identities and also the intrinsic “what I was then is not what I am now.” ambivalence that any adherence to a col- More than a process of personal evolution, lective identity entails. Addressing specifi- where there is an occasional overlap and cally the notion of Catalan identity, de tension between the present and the past, Ventós points out, rather humorously, that many Spanish intellectuals seem to have a non-conflictive identity where all the suffered quasi-religious, radical personal elements form a logical continuum (I am conversions. Nevertheless, the public a Catalanist, therefore I like sardanas, apostasies of so many public figures, the therefore I belong to the Barça, there- visceral political and personal attacks they fore…) is simply not an identity but a direct at one another, and the lack of self- “redundancy” (65). irony characteristic of their discourses For all his explicit pronouncements, could be interpreted as another symptom however, there is a slippage in de Ventós’s that under the surface certainties of po- argument whereby what is a personal, sin- litical normalcy there is a great deal of re- gular locus of enunciation (he defines him- pressed anxiety and guilt. At the same self as a white, male, bourgeois, Catholic, time, this “poetics of conversion and re- independentist Catalan [67]) becomes cantation” points to what Edward Said entangled with “general” pronouncements identifies as a type of narcissistic self-mu- on the Catalan identity, which is discussed tilation characteristic of an intellectual in the book as if it were one homogeneous discourse that has become suffused in or- category. For example, the parallelism be- thodoxy (113-20) and avoids self-critical tween Feminism and Catalanism is often reflection. repeated in the book, which underlines L. Elena Delgado 123 the still imperative need for both and the ever measures were taken in their name, manner in which both movements are since they live under totalitarian rule, it ridiculed by hostile critics. However, when is quite obvious that no international or- Ventós speaks ironically about the fact that ganization would dare to intervene in it is difficult to be a woman or to be a Ca- Catalonia, a Western European territory, talan (49) he seems to assume that all and enact the kind of military interven- women would identify as feminists and tions that are routinely practiced in Arab, all Catalans would identify as indepen- Latin American and other “Third World” dentists. Clearly, there are women who territories. Therefore, while de Ventós can not only do not fight the status quo but certainly claim the need for Catalonia to on the contrary, benefit from it. As the be constituted as an autonomous nation- massive bibliography on the subject at- state independent from Spain, with a tests, “woman” cannot be used as a ho- right to international representation, he mogeneous category of analysis based on should not do so by suggesting a “same- the sameness of their oppression.5 Simi- ness of oppression” between a prosperous larly, it would seem that the high ranking European territory and Kuwait; nor should Catalan politicians who serve in the con- he do so by implying that all Catalan citi- servative Spanish government of José zens would agree that their interests María Aznar and helped him win an un- would be well represented by institutions precedented electoral victory in Barcelona such as the United Nations or NATO. for the (Spanish Nationalist) Partido What we see in de Ventós’s line of Popular do not feel “burdened” by their argument in De la identidad a la indepen- Catalan origin—or at least not enough to dencia, then, is the involuntary homog- override their loyalty to a party obsessed enizing of Catalan identity, something that with preserving “national unity” and a very did not escape the critical eye of Pasqual exclusive notion of “Spanishness.” Maragall, who wrote a prologue to the Even more problematic is the claim Castilian translation of the book (11).6 In by de Ventós that Catalonia, as a nation de Ventós’s case, however, the ideological without a state, cannot count on the Unit- elision between “Catalans” as a discursive ed Nations to defend it as Kuwait did dur- construction and “Catalans” as specific ing the Gulf War (81). While the first part historical subjects can be explained due of the argument is acceptable (it is of to the quasi didactic nature of his book. course possible that the best interest of As Maragall himself shrewdly points out, the Spanish state might not coincide with sometimes it seems that de Ventós is over- the best interest of Catalonia), the second simplifying matters “for the sake of the is highly questionable. For it is well docu- argument” (12, in English in the origi- mented by now that the Gulf War had nal) since De la identidad a la independen- nothing to do with the international “pro- cia ends by acknowledging that: tection” of Kuwait “as a nation” but rather with the preservation of its oil reserves and los nuevos gobiernos nacionalistas de- the protection of its ruling aristocracy. And berán ser especialmente sensibles al leaving aside the fact the Kuwaiti citizens pluralismo interno, ya que su legitimi- themselves had no say whatsoever in what- dad se medirán, en último término, 124 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

por la heterogeneidad que hayan sido are intended to counteract the perceived capaces de asumir. (169) “state of siege” being sustained on the Spanish nation by peripheral national- It is rare to find, however, an overtly Span- isms.7 ish nationalist discourse with a similar A paradigmatic example of this unequivocal affirmation of the acceptance Spanish nationalist revival is the re-edi- of internal heterogeneity as the basis of tion of the controversial book España, un political legitimacy. On the contrary, the enigma histórico, by Claudio Sánchez Al- overt manipulations and omissions of the bornoz, originally written in 1957 as refu- present Spanish nationalist discourse tation of Américo Castro’s España en su point to a renaissance of a narrow concept historia. According to the new back cover of Spanishness—now euphemistically of the book, the purpose of Albornoz’s called “constitutional patriotism”—which book was to investigate “nuestra misteriosa emphasizes, precisely, the purported cul- y compleja vida histórica en los albores de tural and political homogeneity of the nuestra identidad” (my emphasis). The a- nation-state. The true nature of this pa- problematic “we” addressed in this de- triotism is evident in the recent revival of scription can also be found in the “Note a type of historiographic production from the editor” that introduces the vol- marked by a perennialist (as opposed to ume, where it is affirmed that it is im- voluntarist) understanding of the nation. perative that: Such a view, predominant in Spanish historiography since the nineteenth cen- la Historia con mayúsculas pero sin tury, is characterized by what Américo artificio elitista, no las historias o las Castro defined as “retrospective panhis- historietas, sea también una lectura panism” (30): the desire to see Spaniards normal, habitual de todos y no de unos and a Spanish nation where there existed pocos, y cumpla así esa misión de forja- but a precarious collection of very differ- dora de hombres libres. (V, my emphasis) ent political systems, which only are identified a posteriori with nationhood. This The messianic rhetoric of the sentence is “panhispanism” is of course inseparable consistent with the ideological charge of from the persistent use of inadequate and its content: the normalcy of the type of obsolete historiographic categories, in- history envisioned by Sánchez Albornoz, cluding the term “Reconquest” to desig- consists precisely in its singularity, in be- nate the brutal and traumatic expulsion ing History with a capital H; a history of Muslims and Jews from the Peninsula, that should nevertheless be written in an or “Descubrimiento” to characterize the accessible style compatible with its mis- encounter with non-European civiliza- sion of forging free men. The argumenta- tions. The political usefulness of an his- tion of the unnamed editor is, of course, torical analysis framed as teleological nar- consistent with the ideological tenets of rative is explicitly acknowledged in many Sánchez Albornoz himself. As is well state-sponsored publications. Thus, pub- known, the historian’s main thesis was a lications like Reflexiones sobre el ser de repudiation of Americo Castro’s notion España or España como nación, both ed- that the Semitic element of Spanish cul- ited by the Real Academia de la Historia, ture is an absolutely essential component L. Elena Delgado 125 and what marks its uniqueness. For Sán- moted by the conservative ruling party chez Albornoz, Spain’s “unidad de desti- policies. no,” forged on Christianity and Castilian Clearly, the central government is prominence, both precedes and transcends not the only one entangled in an identity the presence of Arabs and Jews, whose politics rooted in essentialism and polar- contributions he considers inconsequen- ization, for similar tactics characterize tial. Ironically, the prologue to the new many of the public pronouncements of edition alludes to the acrimonious con- the different autonomous governments. In frontation between these two intellectu- fact, one of the most unambiguous ex- als, characterizing it as a: amples of the Eurocentrism and narcis- sism that often typifies the positions of contrapunto inolvidable a la prohibi- both the central and autonomous govern- ción de toda polémica real—es decir ments is the now infamous publicity cam- de pluralidad—que denominaba en paign devised by the Basque Department la España sometida a la dictadura de of Justice in 1998, one of whose adver- Franco. tisements proclaimed: At the same time, however, it is immedi- He nacido blanco, soy vasco y soy eu- ately noted that the evolution of national ropeo. Una cuestión de azar, pero tam- historiography has turned such a contro- bién de suerte, porque hoy por hoy el versy into “a thing of the past” (IV). It is origen de los seres humanos marca worth pointing out, in this regard, that definitivamente el futuro. Muchas España, un enigma histórico, was re-edited veces me pregunto hasta cuándo ten- in the year 2000, the same year that a drá que ser así. (“Enfrentamiento”) very controversial report by the Royal Academy of History about the teaching The scandal and debate unleashed of Spanish history came to light. The en- by this statement was such that it em- suing caustic exchanges between “national” broiled all of the national press. Natu- and “peripheral” historians, prompted by rally Basque politicians complained the report’s methodology and ideological (rightly) that the indignation of the biases, led to a national debate about the Madrid press and the ruling right-wing (im)possibility of teaching a common and Partido Popular often concealed an agenda unified Spanish history. In such a cultural that had nothing to do with sensitivity climate, the Sánchez Albornoz re-edition to racism and much to do with their op- is extremely timely. As the book of a Re- position to Basque self-determination, publican historian who lived in exile dur- which was the primary objective of the ing the Franco regime it has impeccable campaign. But even accepting that Span- democratic credentials; yet its main the- ish “chauvinism” was at play, this does sis about the “unity of destiny and iden- not excuse the ultimate irony of the mat- tity” of the Spanish people (a thesis which ter: that a government might not be able was in fact very much in line with the to recognize a racist, classist or sexist ideological tenets of the Francoist regime message. Because the problem with the itself) fits perfectly into the concept of polemical text is that it assumes a premise patriotism and “españolidad” being pro- which should by now be obsolete: that 126 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies gender (in Spanish the piece is enunci- What can be ascertained from the ated in the masculine gender, which examples that I have just presented is that therefore is aligned as such with privi- the constant invocations to “European- lege); race (white) ethnicity (European, ness,” modernity and normalcy present in Basque) are “definitive” locators of our the political and cultural discourse pre- “place in the world.” Equally significant dominant in the Spanish state are not ac- is what the message excludes by impli- companied by a rigorous intellectual in- cation: not only the opposite categories terrogation of those terms. What is being of those found in the ad (I am poor, I am alluded to and what is elided/concealed illiterate, I am a homosexual, I am an when one refers to “Europe” and “moder- immigrant) but also the combination of nity”? And why are we not even consider- characteristics: “gypsy Basque” or “Black ing the possibility of studying those two Basque.” Are those unthinkable and un- signifiers as ideologically charged construc- utterable categories in the context of soci- tions, rather than as unquestionable axi- eties where whiteness and Europeanness oms? How can we define and analyze what are unambiguous signifiers of privi- establishes the boundaries between “nor- lege?—societies where, moreover, gender mal” and “abnormal” national histories and and racial privileges are interpreted as a trajectories? What are the inherent dan- mere accident of luck and not as the clear gers of “normalizing” policies? And finally: and methodical consequence of concrete why do we encounter the persistent nar- political, social and economic ideologies rative reiteration of a journey already con- in which both the Spanish and the Basque cluded? That is to say, if Spain (or the governments are complicit? Basque country, or Catalonia) are, as it is The final irony is that the ad was so often claimed, already firmly located part of a series commemorating the fifti- in a “normalcy” consistently equated with eth anniversary of the Declaration of Hu- European (post) modernity—why the man Rights. Rather than locating Basque compulsion to revisit again and again the ethnicity on the side of European privi- sites of (past) differences and anomalies? lege, a more appropriate campaign could In an insightful analysis of Jon Jua- have deconstructed that pairing in order risti’s “nationalist sagas”—in particular his to confirm the Basque government’s com- monumental hit, El bucle melancólico. mitment to foster an inclusive society in Historias de nacionalistas vascos—Joseba which luck and chance are excluded as de- Gabilondo posits a series of questions simi- termining factors in attaining what should lar to the ones I have just articulated my- be legitimate human rights. The Basque self in reference to Spanish nationalism: government ended up requesting the ar- why would a critic return again and again bitration of the non-profit organization to the same topic, in this case the con- SOS Racism, a gesture that in fact repre- structed nature of nationalisms in general sented the clearest, and perhaps more ac- and Basque nationalism in particular? And curate, message of the campaign: that in why would a successful writer and profes- matters of racism neither the Basque nor sor of Hispanic Philology choose to re- the Spanish government could offer an visit and discuss so publicly his own tran- honest and unbiased opinion. sition, from his early membership in ETA, L. Elena Delgado 127 to his subsequent dissidence from the is in fact a crucial fracture in the founda- group, to his present role as spokesperson tion of the contemporary Spanish nation- of the conservative ruling party’s policies? state, while at the same time shifting the Endorsing the Freudian dictum that the responsibility for it safely from the ideol- compulsion to repeat is the first sign of ogy of nationalisms (in general) to a par- trauma and that the repetition itself indi- ticular kind of nationalism (the non-cen- cates the place of resistance (the subcon- tral). So that now instead of the perennial scious), Gabilondo asserts that there is a “Spanish problem” what we have is “the repetitive, irrational excess in Juaristi’s Basque problem” or “the Catalan prob- analysis that prompted him to write “half lem.” Thus, if in 1943 Gerald Brenan saw a dozen different accounts of the same all of Spain as a “labyrinth,” that same nationalist fallacy;” and although the metaphor is now used by Mario Onaindía analysis itself has expanded and grown, to characterize specifically the Basque the object of denunciation remains essen- Country. Such a shift is consistent with tially the same (545). The fact that El the often mocked explicit political pro- bucle meláncolico could have had such nouncements by José María Aznar: “Spain widespread resonance in Spain precisely is doing just fine” (“España va bien”). at a moment when “the Spanish state is Aznar’s proclamation, part of the same set on a course of Europeinization and predominant “Prozaic political discourse” globalization” (Gabilondo 541) can be is nevertheless a symbolic locator of his explained in part because Juaristi, the ul- own political beliefs and attitudes towards timate Basque insider, offered Spanish non-central nationalisms: “Spain” is do- nationalism the means to safely criticize ing fine. The “others” are the ones who Basque nationalism, therefore implicitly have a problem. justifying the state’s attempts to control There are, of course, notable excep- and reduce it (552). I would also propose tions to the quasi unanimous chorus of that by speaking of nationalism and na- intellectual voices that sing the praises of tion-building processes in psychoanalyti- Europeanization and modernity. One of cal terms (including such expressions as them is the Catalan essayist Eduardo “primal violence,” “melancholia” and Subirats who in his well known essay, “trauma”) Juaristi brought to the forefront Después de la lluvia, maintains that the cult the unresolved conflicts and tensions that of Europeanization which has character- the “normalizing compulsion” promoted ized Spanish cultural politics during re- by Spanish official political discourse cent years is intellectually superficial, and wanted to efface. Because the reality is that that the omission of Spain’s own histori- while most citizens of the Spanish state cal realities has desensitized intellectuals would certainly like to consider themselves to the profound and dramatic conflicts “normal” and “European,” it is quite clear that have accompanied the process of that a significant number of them do not modernization of the last few decades consider themselves part of the “Spanish” (145). And what are some of those pro- nation. So what Juaristi’s and other books found, yet unacknowledged conflicts that on “peripheral” nationalisms do is to ac- emerge as ghostly reminders of an unwel- knowledge (unwillingly of course) what come past? 128 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

One possible answer is that moder- European discursive location, the trauma nity presented Spain with a compulsory of five centuries of exclusions and choice based on a dualistic logic, between marginalization could be erased. The cur- a modernity perceived as foreign and a rent “normalizing” obsession of the Span- constructed authenticity that galvanizes ish state betrays its insecurity over the very a false national cohesion (usually in the components that constitute it and that name of religion). This is, as Kevin Robbins do not fit into the “modern European” articulates, an impossible choice imposed paradigm: gypsies, Arabs, Jews, but above by the hegemony of the European West all the “bastardly” and contaminating mix- (63); a choice that promotes what ture of them all. Daryush Shayegan calls a “schizoid disor- Historian Carmen Iglesias has shown der” in the collective identity, a condi- that as early as the fifteenth century Spain tion prompted by the realization that cer- was already considered by other European tain nationalities can only survive “by sub- countries an “impure” and feminized cul- traction,” to use Roberto Schwartz’s felici- ture due to its oriental and African ele- tous expression. The fact is, in order to be ments. This disqualifier did not apply ex- truly “European” and modern, without clusively to the Southern regions of the problematizing both terms, one must country, as would happen in the nine- cease to be “Spanish” (or Turkish, or Rus- teenth century. On the contrary, it was sian, or a Gypsy).8 Moreover, one must originally used against the Catalans who be a certain kind of Englishman, German as late as the sixteenth century in Italy or Frenchman, since even in those coun- were identified metonymically with all tries the promises of modernity were not Spaniards and were “accused” of having a equally met for all citizens. This would population where Jews and converted Jews explain what so many critics call the “split exceeded Christians (Iglesias 394, 400). consciousness” of Spanish intellectuals: Thus the opinion crudely articulated by torn between the utopia of modernity and Spenser in “A View of the Present State of the awareness that this very modernity Ireland” that “of all nations under heaven condemns them, as members of a second- […] the Spaniard is the most mingled, rank nation marked by its Semitic heri- most uncertain and most bastardly” (qtd. tage and “primitivism,” to remain outside in Mariscal 7) only synthesizes a consis- of its paradigm. This phenomenon is not, tent and extended European prejudice of course, exclusive to Spain. It is, rather, towards Spain based on fear of, and con- a situation characteristic of all the “periph- tempt towards, racial, ethnic and cultural eries” which have been discursively and miscegenation.9 Unfortunately, that same politically excluded from the modern bigotry and intolerance would also be the European utopia. Therefore, the necessity guiding principle of Spain’s domestic poli- for Spanish writers, historians and critics cies, and the devastation created by Spain’s to “repeat” the narrative of Spain’s transi- internal racism is still, to this day, mini- tion from difference to normalcy betrays mized or justified in the name of political two different sentiments. The first is clearly causes, nation building or, once again, “so- one of insecurity, as if by virtue of reiter- cial normalization” ( qtd. in Mariscal 15). ating ad nauseam their newly acquired It should not be surprising, therefore, that L. Elena Delgado 129 the current European invocations made What we now see in Spain is a by the different Spanish cultures are ac- double movement: on the one hand, the companied by very public outbursts of recent propagation of and emphasis on the racism consistent with the increased vis- valorization of a “decaffeinated” difference, ibility of openly racist movements in motivated by and completely integrated other European countries. Highly pub- into the space of transnational capital. The licized events like the civil unrest created existence of this “safe” difference, the one by harassment and persecution of Mo- behind the commercial success of Celtic roccan migrant workers in the Anda- or generally “ethnic” music and the pro- lusian town of El Ejido; or the parental liferation of “magic realisms” in Galician withdrawal of 650 children from a Basque and Basque narrative, helps to forget the school owing to the government-man- reality of that “other,” more threatening dated integration into the same school difference that cannot be simply enjoyed of 3 gypsy children (who had to be es- as aesthetic artifact and subsumed by the corted to school by the police) are only commercial. But just as disconcerting as the most public and violent incidents the superficial commercialization of dif- provoked by an intolerance towards eth- ference is its essentialization: the emphatic nic, racial and religious difference that has affirmation of isolated otherness that is been invoked far too many times within articulated in the same polarized language and by the Spanish state as the essential of the politics of homogeneity, thereby component of national cohesiveness and perpetuating a self-absorbed discourse cultural identity. incapable of coming out of itself in order Thus, Spain’s current, almost obsesive to establish fluid and relational catego- fixation with the notion of “normalcy” ries. points perhaps to what Slavoj Zizek calls In his well known book Nacionalis- “the traumatic kernel of jouissance struc- mos. El laberinto de la identidad X. Rubert turally unassimilable into [the subject’s] de Ventós established that post-state, as- symbolic universe.” “The real” in Spanish sertive nationalism is to be distinguished cultures would be, then, precisely that from nineteenth-century “defensive” na- (apparently) reviled difference that sepa- tionalism by its concern for defending rates Spaniards but also distinguishes them collective identity, while at the same time culturally and politically from other (Eu- rejecting proselytism and the appeal to ropean) cultures. In this sense, that mel- universal principles such as Truth or Rea- ancholic curlicue that adorns many recent son. Significantly, Ventós characterizes this historical national (re)constructions, re- collective identity by using the fable of veals not only trauma, but rather a cer- Narcissus, through which nationalism is tain enjoyment in maintaining/negating defined as the reflection of a “we” defined an “essentialist” notion of “difference.” dialectically with respect to the “others” This interpretation, which Jon Juaristi from whom “we” demand recognition applied so successfully in his studies on (Nacionalismos 140). The allusion to Nar- Basque nationalism, is in fact true of all cissus in relation to a “merely assertive” nationalisms, including (certainly) the (micro)nationalism is meaningful, given Spanish one. that the obsessive preoccupation of Span- 130 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

ish intellectual discourse with the defini- (Wounded Letter) Amat tells how after her tion and characterization of the nation has mother’s death she rejected the Catalan also been called “narcissistic” by non- language which she identified with her Spanish historians (Russell). Ventós him- bourgeois father and chose to speak and self recognizes that the conflict between write in Castilian, which she character- Catalonia and Madrid is becoming more izes as follows: narcissistic, in the sense of the little differences of which Freud spoke (De la Es híbrida. Es bastarda. Es mestiza. Es identidad 101). We need, therefore, to ask catalana (¿blanda?). ¿O pura y dura ourselves if it is not a narcissistic melan- castellana? Es española (tibia). Es ára- choly which emerges from the persistent be (me llamo nur-ia). Es gitana. Ca- (re)definitions of national identity that are nastera. Enfebrecida. Dicharachera. Muda. Deslenguada (eso me gusta). taking place in Spain today? A desire to Es tímida y a veces huérfana. Es polé- re-visit sites of past (imperial, national, mica. También rebelde. Es andaluza local) glories, when we were truly “differ- (¡Olé!) y moreneta (¡Visca!). Es de mar ent” (i.e. “better”)?10 Moreover, should we y de montaña. Es impura. Y atravesa- not need to review the myth of Narcissus da. Muy latina (mi apellido la canta). to determine if this is really the most ad- Y por ello hispana. De Colombia, de equate metaphor to translate a “new” ver- Perú, Nicaragua y Argentina. Es ga- sion of nationalism, or if this metaphor chupina. Y sorda. Y rara. Y de virgen arises precisely because of our tendency negra o violada. Es libresca. Copiada de los libros vivos. Robada a las nove- to operate within the paradigms of a given las sabias. Y francesa (por demasiada epistemology? It is noteworthy, for ex- lectura). […] Popular. Desobediente. ample, that Ventós himself suggests the Herida. Poemática (¿existirá esa pala- necessity of psychoanalyzing the state “for bra?). Desterrada. Judía y alemana. our state id-entity to reconcile itself to the Perdida. Desgraciada. Luminosa. Rica ego” (71). However, Leo Bersani has al- y pobre. Le gusta depender de instan- ready shown the ego to be the enemy of tes. Asombrar las ideas. Comerse los difference and desire, and others have sug- minutos. Africanizarse y, entonces, ser gested the necessity of displacing the ego, más corrosiva y amplia. O empeque- allowing non-identitarian positions to ñecer las sombras. Desaparecer y re- sucitar de nuevo. Borrarse del mapa y come to the surface in its place (Lane 11). extenderse. Es tuya y mía. Es, por Not doing so means perpetuating a di- supuesto, prestada. Por eso la invento vided national consciousness in which, in cada día como si fuera una lengua per- order to make a positive affirmation (that sonal, semisecreta y desclasada. (Amat which is “truly” European, Spanish, Basque, 162) Catalan), we must subtract the part which does not fit into that paradigm. It is meaningful that in both her A good example of how those cul- theoretical and her creative work, Amat tural and psychological subtractions op- explicitly rejects official hegemonic Eu- erate can be found in the work of Catalan rope in favor of “the wounded Europe” of writer Nuria Amat. In her collection of marginalized groups while referring to the essays entitled, significantly, Letra Herida writer’s profession as an “oficio de frontera.” L. Elena Delgado 131

Amat’s deconstruction of “Europe” as ho- acknowledges the permeability of bound- mogeneous signifier is refreshing, as is her aries and categories, rather than inscribes recognition that Castilian is not only “la their rigidity” (Enders and Radcliff 5). lengua de Franco” but also that of many This would allow us to start a debate who fought against him and were subju- about cultural identities that rearticulates gated by his regime. Indeed, Castilian, like the categories of history and geography, most languages, has been an instrument time and space, memory and localization both of orthodoxy and repression and also while at the same time demanding new of rebellion and change. However, need- geo-historical categories to displace those less to say, the same logic applies to constructed by modernity (Mignolo 691). Catalan which is not only the language of So that, instead of lamenting the “split entrepreneurs and businessmen but also psyches” of so many Spanish thinkers, art- of peasants, workers and, of course, im- ists and writers, we could interrogate the migrants. Amat’s public proclamations persistent articulation of what is consid- justifying her literary use of Castilian and ered the “Spanish national identity” in her public stance towards/against the terms of oppositional binaries and mutu- Catalan language can certainly be inter- ally exclusive choices. Such an interroga- preted as a shrewd marketing ploy on the tion would in turn lead us to a radical part of an author who simply wants to be questioning of the normalization of cer- able to sell more books in a wider market. tain spaces—national, cultural and aca- Given her specific explanations regarding demic—as spaces of exclusion and why she decided to switch to Castilian, marginalization (Mignolo 692). however, her choice can also be taken as precisely the symptom of a split psyche: that of an orphan child who somehow This is her home came to the conclusion that she had to This thin edge of make a choice, between two parents, be- Barbwire. tween two houses, between two languages. Hers was truly an unnecessary and ulti- —Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La mately self-mutilating choice. Ironically, Frontera the historical refusal on the part of the Spanish state to acknowledge its non- From exile in Mexico, the poet Luis Castilian national identities led the Cernuda lamented in a beautiful and bit- Catalan nationalist Francesc Cambó to ter poem that he was Spanish because he proclaim in 1916 that Spain itself was “un could be nothing else. Implicit in that ser incompleto, un ser mutilado” (qtd. in sentence is the notion of nationality as Tusell 237). almost a religious sacrament or DNA, So how can we go beyond prozaic something that leaves an indelible im- certainties, beyond the narcissistic, relent- print, and that cannot be altered, com- less search for tokens of identity without bined, bracketed. In holding on to that choosing to stay in a state of wounded belief, Cernuda was, unwillingly of course, unconsciousness? We would need, first of upholding the very essentialist notion of all, “a new historiographical grid, one that Spanishness that placed him (a gay man, 132 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies a Republican) outside the normative na- many others) it is his association with the Francoist tional narrative.11 Had he understood na- media. tional identity in a less messianic and over- 5 It would be impossible to summarize here determined way, perhaps he could have the massive bibliography on the subject, but I am lived his years in exile differently. Perhaps thinking of critics such as Cherríe Moraga, bell hooks, Teresa de Lauretis, Marnia Lazreg, S. P. he would have then understood what Mohanty and Judith Butler, for example. Theodor Adorno, writing after Auschwitz 6 Maragall picked up on the weakness of de and Hiroshima, put so succinctly: that all Ventós’s “feminist” comparisons and pointed out intellectuals should be in permanent ex- the obvious: that a woman would suffer much ile for “it is a part of morality not to be at more discrimination for being also black, poor and home in one’s home.” (qtd. in Said 57). an immigrant (11). Or, as Cervantes, writing after Lepanto, 7 Incidentally, the qualifier “peripheral” is mine, during the Inquisition, claimed: the since according to the ideologues of Spanish na- writer’s only homeland is “el feraz territorio tionalism the only true “nationalists” are the de la duda” (the fertile domain of doubt).12 Basques, Catalans or Galicians, whereas the Span- ish centralist patriotism is not, in fact, nationalist The lessons both Adorno and Cervantes at all. taught us serve as powerful reminders that 8 My line of argumentation in this section is as scholars and as citizens, it is imperative greatly influenced by Kevin Robbin’s nuanced that we dare to question our given “place analysis of Turkish cultural identity (“Interrupt- in the world” so that we might move to- ing Identities: Turkey/Europe”). A very similar ar- wards what lies ahead and separate from gument can be found in Amin Maalouf’s In the our own location, beyond Normal. Name of Identity. 9 A prejudice that, as George Mariscal has shown, would travel intact from the Black Leg- Notes end to the genderized and racialized language of 1 I am indebted to Joseba Gabilondo for sug- Manifest Destiny and to this day taints the United gesting the neologism “prozaic,” to Brad Epps and States’ opinion of all things Hispanic. Joan Ramon Resina for a dialogue that helped me 10 Kobena Mercer has analyzed a similar situ- to re-focus my arguments and to Teresa Vilarós for ation in 1980s Britain, which is characterized as a providing both the forum and the intellectual “neoconservative remythification of the imperial stimulus for important debates. A shorter, slightly past” and a fabricated response to a generalized different version of this essay (“La normalidad y crisis of national identity (289-90). sus síntomas”) has appeared in Spanish as part of a 11 Ironically, that quote is widely attributed to special monographic issue of Letras Peninsulares, the conservative nineteenth-century politician A. edited by Victor Fuentes. 2 Cánovas del Castillo. Interestingly, the political essay is not men- 12 The Cervantes quotation I take from Juan tioned in Mermall’s otherwise excellent introduc- Goytisolo’s “Lo que no se dice de Sefarad.” tion to the contemporary essay in Spain. 3 The other titles are: Auto de terminación, El Linaje de Aitor, Vestigios de Babel, El chimbo expia- Works Cited torio, Sacra némesis, El bosque originario and La Álvarez Junco, José. Mater Dolorosa: la idea de tribu atribulada. El nacionalismo vasco explicado a España en el siglo XIX. Madrid: Taurus, 2001. mi padre. Amat, Nuria. Letra herida. Madrid: Alfaguara, 4 In the case of Juaristi, Azurmendi and 1998. Onaindía, the “past” they renounced is their mem- Azurmendi, Mikel. La herida patriótica. Madrid: bership in ETA. For Haro Tecglen (and many, Taurus, 1998. L. Elena Delgado 133

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