Paddington Bear Nationalism for the Spaniards: "the Blitz spirit". It was like this after the race riots in Britain last summer when a whole load of idiots went and tidied up the mosques. The Guardian produced a cartoon of hooded riot policeman standing in front of foreign temples reciting Churchill's 'Never Surrender' speech. The idea that nationwide race riots shouldn't be happening at all, and that we're resembling more and more a third world souk passed notice.
On day 1 after the blackout apart from the resilience images, the focus of the media and the society went away from everything that happened behind all that: people died, business lost their inventory, people couldn’t go back home, people got trapped in the middle of nowhere, etc.
In twitter Spain and, as a consequence, in the real world, there is a part of the population that is unable to understand that there is an existence apart from their own and their tiny little worlds that just cover a few blocks and a limited knowledge of anything outside of it. Little by little communities are dying and with it goes the capacity of turning the moral decline that comes alongside the economic one.
An interesting piece. The whole thing brought to mind the ongoing issues with the collapse of the electrical infrastructure in South Africa. Load shedding has been ongoing since 2007, and yet the only major incidents of protests that I am aware of were in 2023. Failure has become normalised and people have adjusted to it. With this in mind, it is sadly not surprising to hear about the acceptance of dysfunction in Spain. It is why I am somewhat saddened to think that even if there was widespread power failure in the UK in the depths of winter, the public would likely accept it to some extent.
As a Spaniard who lives in the UK, no, I don't think the UK public would accept a power outage in the depths of winter.
I think there is much more bite in the UK media landscape, for starters. The government on whose watch it were to happen would be pilloried. It was already a huge scandal that winter fuel allowance was cut -- imagine headlines about British pensioners freezing due to a power cut.
Also, the UK has no communitarian street life compared to Spain -- and even less so in the winter months. What would people fall back on? Do Wetherspoons have back-up generators that they could use to power their pubs and provide refuge? The story then would be about private business stepping in to do the job the government should have.
Ultimately I think there's just more cynicism in Britain now than in Spain, where many hate the Sánchez govt but perhaps not more than they've hated any other govts. So they just shrug their shoulders. In Britain it is palpable that people have never been so angry and discontented; even though a majority seemingly muddle along complacently, it's a majority that gets smaller by the minute.
I would hope that you are right and that I have underestimated the Great British public. I am going to have to keep an eye out on the warnings about blackouts, as it does seem as if we are not too far away from there being general power outages.
There was a big blackout in North America in August 2003. Luckily the weather was nice so it was something of a party atmosphere. Lots of barbecues and people chatting with strangers. I wandered down to my local parish and there was a one year memorial Mass for a Portuguese lady. The family was nice enough to welcome strangers and offered plenty of delicious food. It wouldn’t have been nearly so nice in the winter, or if it had lasted much more than a day or two.
Incompetence sounds unlikely to me in a modern developed grid system, they are monitored real time per second I am told. Perhaps a softening up, like a body blow in boxing, to see how the masses will respond to mass control through energy withdrawal.
It seems to me that COVID was a dry run to ascertain if pretty much the entire world could be put under house arrest, without political due process. It turned out that they could, with almost no resistance; each person walking willingly into their allocated cage. So perhaps, this is the thin end of the new 'normal'. Or, perhaps it's time to wake up.
Paddington Bear Nationalism for the Spaniards: "the Blitz spirit". It was like this after the race riots in Britain last summer when a whole load of idiots went and tidied up the mosques. The Guardian produced a cartoon of hooded riot policeman standing in front of foreign temples reciting Churchill's 'Never Surrender' speech. The idea that nationwide race riots shouldn't be happening at all, and that we're resembling more and more a third world souk passed notice.
Really good piece, guys.
On day 1 after the blackout apart from the resilience images, the focus of the media and the society went away from everything that happened behind all that: people died, business lost their inventory, people couldn’t go back home, people got trapped in the middle of nowhere, etc.
In twitter Spain and, as a consequence, in the real world, there is a part of the population that is unable to understand that there is an existence apart from their own and their tiny little worlds that just cover a few blocks and a limited knowledge of anything outside of it. Little by little communities are dying and with it goes the capacity of turning the moral decline that comes alongside the economic one.
An interesting piece. The whole thing brought to mind the ongoing issues with the collapse of the electrical infrastructure in South Africa. Load shedding has been ongoing since 2007, and yet the only major incidents of protests that I am aware of were in 2023. Failure has become normalised and people have adjusted to it. With this in mind, it is sadly not surprising to hear about the acceptance of dysfunction in Spain. It is why I am somewhat saddened to think that even if there was widespread power failure in the UK in the depths of winter, the public would likely accept it to some extent.
As a Spaniard who lives in the UK, no, I don't think the UK public would accept a power outage in the depths of winter.
I think there is much more bite in the UK media landscape, for starters. The government on whose watch it were to happen would be pilloried. It was already a huge scandal that winter fuel allowance was cut -- imagine headlines about British pensioners freezing due to a power cut.
Also, the UK has no communitarian street life compared to Spain -- and even less so in the winter months. What would people fall back on? Do Wetherspoons have back-up generators that they could use to power their pubs and provide refuge? The story then would be about private business stepping in to do the job the government should have.
Ultimately I think there's just more cynicism in Britain now than in Spain, where many hate the Sánchez govt but perhaps not more than they've hated any other govts. So they just shrug their shoulders. In Britain it is palpable that people have never been so angry and discontented; even though a majority seemingly muddle along complacently, it's a majority that gets smaller by the minute.
I would hope that you are right and that I have underestimated the Great British public. I am going to have to keep an eye out on the warnings about blackouts, as it does seem as if we are not too far away from there being general power outages.
There was a big blackout in North America in August 2003. Luckily the weather was nice so it was something of a party atmosphere. Lots of barbecues and people chatting with strangers. I wandered down to my local parish and there was a one year memorial Mass for a Portuguese lady. The family was nice enough to welcome strangers and offered plenty of delicious food. It wouldn’t have been nearly so nice in the winter, or if it had lasted much more than a day or two.
True wisdom looks far down range to what the shortsighted are blind to.
Incompetence sounds unlikely to me in a modern developed grid system, they are monitored real time per second I am told. Perhaps a softening up, like a body blow in boxing, to see how the masses will respond to mass control through energy withdrawal.
It seems to me that COVID was a dry run to ascertain if pretty much the entire world could be put under house arrest, without political due process. It turned out that they could, with almost no resistance; each person walking willingly into their allocated cage. So perhaps, this is the thin end of the new 'normal'. Or, perhaps it's time to wake up.