Following last Sunday’s elections (in which all parties, healthily for democracy, seem to feel they’ve done well) Ian Gibson writes in El País (27th May): “España está viviendo gozosa la revolución de la normalidad, y por fin, después de tanta historia triste, se siente segura en su casa y fuera. Y, lo más importante de todo, contempla el futuro con confianza.” He finishes his brief article with a reference to the mass graves in Iraq, and a reminder that it was not so long ago that mass graves were being dug in Spain. But Spain, Gibson concludes, is finally “en la normalidad”. But perhaps the country will only truly be “en la normalidad” when journalists no longer feel it’s necessary to write articles reminding us that Spain is finally normal. There’s a balance to be struck somewhere between over-insistent harking back to the past - which makes the risk-taking that is necessary to progress difficult - and dangerous ignorance of it.
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