¡VIVA ZAPATERO!

In last week’s post, I wrote about fact manipulation through selective use of data. Any argument can be impregnable if one picks and chooses the facts and data that are suitable and convenient to the task at hand. Politicians often take a quote and use it out of context. On the other hand, one does not expect a respected newspaper to engage in such tactics when reporting news.

With a nod of apologies to those of you not familiar with the Greek media, I am sad to report that the Athens daily KATHIMERINI (“The Daily”) is guilty of such unseemly practices. I subscribe to the email version of the newspaper and usually read the sections on Greece as well as editorials. A few days ago, I read a piece on Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in The New York Times (“Leader Pushes Spain to Left, Rejecting Calls to Slow Down,” December 13, 2006). On the following day, a translation of the article promptly appeared on Kathimerini attributed to The New York Times, with which the Greek daily has an exclusive content agreement.

For some reason, I decided to re-read the article in Kathimerini and, to my surprise, discovered that the translation had omitted quite a few parts of the original. The editing resulted in a far more negative view of Zapatero. What was more troubling to me was that this view was attributed to The New York Times. And so, Kathimerini translated this quote:

''Zapatero takes for granted issues that many people, particularly the older generations, still worry about,'' said Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, a founder of the Elcano Royal Institute, a public policy research organization in Madrid, who added that the prime minister ''is governing with half of Spain, but against almost the entire other half. That is risky.'' So far, so good.

However, Kathimerini chose to ignore that Mr Lamo de Espinosa went on to say (in the Times original article) that “Mr. Zapatero acquired political maturity when democracy was already established in Spain. He takes democracy for granted, and he takes social and political stability in Spain for granted.'' Or, more importantly, that ''even if Spaniards are unhappy with the policies of Zapatero, it doesn’t mean they will prefer the opposition.”

Many more omissions from the original result in a ‘translation’ that is at once one-sided and a negative view of Mr Zapatero; the original is not. The original article’s point is summed up as follows: “Yet recent history suggests that Spanish governments are hard to dislodge from power in the absence of major crises or scandals, particularly governments that lean to the left.”

Do I have a problem with Kathimerini’s negative view of Mr Zapatero? None whatsoever: Kathimerini is a conservative daily and Greece is a free country, so Kathimerini can print whatever it pleases. Do I have a problem with an article that poses as a translation of an article in The New York Times; one that is nothing but a pick-and-choose version which promotes the position of Kathimerini’s editorial board under the veneer of legitimacy lent by The New York Times? You bet I do.

And so I decided to add my own brief take to the Zapatero story, so as to set the record straight for KATHIMERINI’s editorial board.

The title of this post (¡VIVA ZAPATERO!) is the title of a 2005 documentary by Sabina Guzzanti, a big hit at both the Venice and Sundance film festivals. The documentary tells the story of the conflict with Silvio Berlusconi over a late-night TV political satire show broadcast on RAI-3. The show, RAIot, lampooned Berlusconi and, this being Berlusconi, it was cancelled after the first episode. Guzzanti called her documentary ¡VIVA ZAPATERO! as the Spanish Prime Minister, immediately after gaining power, ensured that the head of the state-run public broadcasting company would no longer be a political appointee, as was and is the case in Italy.

It is a telling honor for Mr Zapatero who has quietly revolutionised Spain since being elected on 14 March 2004, just three days after the devastating Madrid train bombings which left at least 200 dead.

This is how Spain’s 43-year-old Prime Minister described his leadership vision in an interview with Time Magazine a few months after he was elected:

“The economic, social and cultural progress of a nation depends on citizens counting for more and having more rights. That's the essence of my policy. Democratic power is the only voice most citizens have. The corporations and the media don't need power; they already have it. I said when I came into office that I don't want to be a great leader; I want to be a good democrat.”

I will neither dwell nor harp on Mr Zapatero’s well-known initiatives. Upon being elected, he immediately withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq. He drastically severed longstanding ties between the Spanish State and the Roman Catholic Church. He presided over the Spanish Parliament’s approval of the new Statute of Autonomy for the region of Cataluña.

Mr Zapatero decided to expend his political capital on reshaping Spanish life and society. Again, his initiatives in this sphere are well-known. He openly defied the Catholic Church by legalising gay marriage and making divorce much easier. He introduced a legislative package condemning Franco’s dictatorship and honoring its opponents. He gave a sweeping amnesty to 700,000 illegal immigrants. He offered more affordable housing, a massive expansion in education, and state aid to spur employment. Finally, Mr Zapatero has strongly promoted the expansion of women’s rights and access to power in a society that had traditionally confined them.

Zapatero’s era is merely an acceleration of Spain’s amazing trajectory to modernisation in the years since 1975, when General Francisco Franco died. Greece too returned to democratic rule in July 1974 when the military junta that had ruled the country with the support of the US government collapsed in the wake of the Cyprus fiasco. One would have expected the two countries to follow a parallel path to modernisation upon return to democratic rule. Sadly for Greece, this has not been the case.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Kathimerini editorial board, please make sure you afford your Greek readers a bit more fairness next time you translate an article on Mr Zapatero’s achievements.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy and Healthy New Year 2007 to all! Unless I decide to take my laptop along to the beach next week, I will not be publishing my next post until 7 January 2007.