Viva Madrid

Mario Vargas Llosa

Madrid does not have the grace of Seville or the elegance of Barcelona, and despite its splendid museums, palaces, parks and ancient convents, it is not profound in the manner of Santiago de Compostela or Avila, where the past seems more alive than the present. What is unmistakable about Madrid is its being the most open and universal of Spanish cities, a city which belongs to no one because it belongs to everyone, those who were born and live in it, or are just there for a while, long enough so that, seated at one of its sidewalk cafe tables, they can sip a beer while contemplating that strange, chameleon sky, which still endeavours to resemble the sky in the pictures of Goya - one of the few things in Madrid that have not, in recent decades, changed beyond recognition.

When I first knew Madrid, in 1958, it was still fairly provincial, with its clumping night watchmen and its church ladies in shawls casting dirty looks at girls in slacks. In that Madrid you could still recognise the 19th-century city of Benito Pérez Galdós, and reconstruct the movements of the personalities of his Fortunata y Jacinta, or revisit the urban landscape inhabited by the anarchists of Pio Baroja in Aurora Roja and La busca. Now such expeditions of literary archaeology have grown almost impossible because, since the 60s, the Madrid of the present has been devouring the past, causing it to fade from sight.

Madrid's modernity is not only in its buildings, new developments, infernal traffic jams, proliferating fast food outlets, the piebald invasion of tourists, or the alert ear that can, in the queues at the Prado or at night around the Plaza Mayor, hear all the languages in the world. It is in the mental cosmopolitanism of its people who, in their diversity, have grown emancipated from the stigma of a "municipal" Madrilenian identity (as Rubén Darío would say) and who, like the people of London, Paris or New York, have become citizens of the world. Thus, in an exhibition at the Galería Moriarty, the Japanese photographer Atsuko Arai a couple of years ago could show how, without leaving the historic centre of town, the capital of Spain was a microcosm harbouring the landscapes and cultures of half the planet.

It has been this free spirit and this unblinkered mentality of an open city, hospitable and democratic, the emblem city of a remarkable transformation of Spain in the last quarter-century, that the fanatics sought to destroy, on the morning of March 11, when they placed in Atocha the bombs that have left more than 200 dead and 1,500 wounded - 12 nationalities, typically enough, being represented among the victims - in the most ferocious terrorist massacre suffered in Western Europe in modern history.

The killers were not mistaken in their target: today's Madrid represents precisely the negation of the radical inhumanity of the obtuse, exclusive tribal spirit of fundamentalism, religious or political, which hates mixture, diversity and tolerance and, above all, liberty. This is the first European battle in a savage war that began exactly two years ago with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, and whose inroads will probably fill with blood and horror a good part of this new century. It is a war to the death, of course, and owing to the present fantastic development of the technology of destruction and the fanatic, suicidal zeal that inspires the international movement of terror, it is perhaps a trial even more difficult than those represented by fascism and communism for the culture of liberty.

Compared to September 11 in the United States, the March 11 attack in Madrid has an added factor in terrorist strategy: apart from causing the largest possible number of deaths, the intention to influence the political life of the victim country. It achieved this: thanks to the savage massacre, a considerable number of Spanish voters, hurt and infuriated, voted for the opposition and overthrew the governing party, for which the surveys had assured an easy victory.

According to unanimous consent, they punished the Aznar government for supporting the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, which was always unpopular in Spain. In this way José María Aznar, a figure who had given the Spanish economy its greatest impetus since the transition to democracy, created four and a half million jobs, modernised institutions and gave Spain a presence and dynamism on the international scene it had not had since the 17th century, was humiliated and made the scapegoat of the bestial rage of al-Qaida. Of such ingratitude is democracy made, and this defeat recalls the one inflicted on Winston Churchill, who had saved the United Kingdom from Hitler and won the war, only to be sent after the 1945 elections to paint watercolours in the South of France.

What is going to happen now in Spain, with the new government of Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero? In economic policy, probably nothing. Fortunately for everyone, the Spanish Socialists are now a party much more liberal than socialist, their economic approach being essentially similar to that of Aznar's Popular party, so that everything indicates that support for the market economy, private enterprise and the insertion of Spain into world markets will continue, though with different rhetoric and faces. It seems impossible that the country could now return to the populism of lamented memory, or to corrupting interventionism. In this ambit, at least, the progress attained in the past eight years should continue.

In international policy, Zapatero proposes a prudent, non-acrid distancing from the United States, to approach the version of Europe personified by France and Germany. This may mean much or little, apart from insubstantial gestures. The latter is the best that could happen to Spain, of course, if it does not wish to lose the international role it has attained in recent years and return to its previous role of nobody, or at most an obscure acolyte of France, without presence or voice.

The announcement made by Zapatero that he will withdraw the Spanish troops from Iraq unless the UN takes charge of the situation has in my view been a mistake, as pointed out by senator Kerry, who is likely to be the next president of the United States. The new leader's opposition to the invasion, perfectly legitimate, is one thing; another is the presence of Spanish soldiers in that country, where they are not fighting but on a mission of peace as generous and noble as that of the same troops in Afghanistan, ex-Yugoslavia and the Latin American countries where they train police and soldiers to act in democracy.

To withdraw them now, when according to the Oxford Research International survey published on March 17, 70% of Iraqis declare that (despite the monstrous attacks) their life has improved since they were relieved of Saddam Hussein, is an unjust, unfriendly act to the millions of Iraqis who, like millions of Spaniards in the times of Franco, desire to live in peace and liberty, and also, a message that not only al-Qaida and its demented killers, but the democratic countries themselves would interpret as a surrender to terror, admitting that by placing bombs and killing innocent people they achieve what they want. The Iraq war is in the past. What is now at stake there is a slow and difficult transition to democracy, and a country like Spain, with a new socialist government, cannot cease to lend a hand in this process toward legality and liberty for the Iraqi people.

In the fields of education, culture and cooperation with Latin America, Zapatero has outlined reasonable projects, with commendable enthusiasm. Hopefully his government will go on supporting institutions such as the Instituto Cervantes and the Casa de America which, political questions apart, have performed exemplary work in recent years. Hopefully, the new prime minister will have the subtlety, the firmness and intelligence necessary to successfully cope with the tremendous challenges that await him in the roughest, most dangerous conflict for the future of Spain: that of the peripheral nationalisms.

This problem has not shrunk, but grown rather with the formidable endorsement received at the polls by Esquerra Republicana, a party which, however peaceful, knows very well what it wants. What it wants is an end to the monarchy, and the entire secession of Catalonia; while, though for different reasons, both the Basque nationalist party (PNV) and ETA terrorists are saying openly that with the new government they will find fewer obstacles to the attainment of their designs, which are much the same: the independence of the Basque country.

You don't need second sight to predict that, in this field, the new Spanish government will face serious problems, and sooner than it wishes. Hopefully it will face them remembering that, in spite of the great doctrinal differences that separate it from the Popular party, in everything concerning the defence of the constitution, democratic order and the unity of Spain, this political force is the only real ally it has.

To return to the bombs and deaths in Atocha. They have served, in my case, to show me how personally attached I was to Madrid, how much I love this city, and to show me to what extent it is one of my preferred places. How can I otherwise explain the bad conscience I feel at not having been there after March 11, to share the trouble, fear and rage of so many friends in these days of shock, with three deaths in the National Library, where I have spent so many happy afternoons reading, and where I wonder whether some of the people I meet in the Cafe Central might not have been among the victims? Madrid will, no doubt, survive fanaticism and terror, and since March 11 has added to its credentials of being at the heart of what is still free and decent in the world.

2004