ANARCHY

My learned friend Leo Keohane is writing a thesis on the nature of Anarchy. Initially Jack White became a bit player in the scenario, however JRW seems, like Topsy, to have become the focus of the Opus. Leo´s draft thesis created a whole new range of thought processes for me.

Now living in Spain I cannot fail to associate anarchy with what some might consider to be its spiritual home. Anarchy, like Socialism, has never been tried. The nearest exemplar was probably Catalonia in the 1930´s. Living amongst these philosophical people one has to reflect on the nature of the Spaniard vis a viz Anarchy.

Take one example. The smoking ban which has tyrannised smokers in Dublin, New York, Edinburgh and elsewhere was introduced in Spain in January 2006. The media had countdown warnings of so many days to go. As a great Hispanophile I was fascinated to see how the average Spaniard would react. Anyone familiar with the country will quickly picture the scene - rows of wee men with voices conditioned by many years of smoking black tobacco and glasses of chewy red wine, all addressing the entire bar in tones so far up the decibel scale as to be approaching the pain threshold. The idea of them standing on a clean floor without a hint of ash, matches, dogends and fag packets just seemed perverse.

So it was with keen interest that we visited our normal run of bars in the New Year 2006. We prised open the door and lo and behold nothing - but nothing - had changed. All the wee men still puffed away at their Ducados and Fortunas; the layer of smoke still as dense as their voices.

Why no change? Apparently, all a bar is required to do is state at the door whether it is a smoking or non-smoking establishment. Above a certain square metreage there has to be a section for smokers, below it, it is simply a Yes or a No. Needless to say every bar opted for Yes and even the larger bars, though they claim to have smoking/non-smoking sections seemed completely oblivious to any divisions.

Anarchy? I think so. Too many people associate anarchy with chaos and ferment or as Leo put it - men with Christmas pudding bombs. Anarchy is about the absence of rules and reflects a peculiarly free state of mind. We could see no protests, no civil rights demonstrations, no indication whatever of smouldering dissent. New Year 2006 came and went and Spain´s cafe society carried on as normal.

One caveat, we have only observed rural southern Spain. What happened in the more northern parts and in the sophisticated cities of Barcelona and Madrid (or on the bastardised Costas) we cannot say but somehow one feels that the Spaniard´s great love of food, drink, talk, decibels and smoking will not change much from region to region.