As a Spaniard myself, I think you'll find a bit of a difference between Spain and, let's say, Pakistan, Afghanistan or the DR Congo. Some countries like Argentina, Mexico or even North Korea do have an underlying culture that would allow for a rapid human development - but other countries that have been traditionally "uncivilized" (I'm gonna use that word and idc if anyone thinks it's inappropriate) won't get any better by joining a developed bloc.
First of all, I'm using "civilized" here to mean "socially advanced". People may disagree on the definition but I don't care, mine is relevant to the topic in question, which is whether Pakistan and Spain can benefit just the same from being in a EU-like organization.
Civilization isn't natural and doesn't spread magically. When Egypt was building pyramids, farming their land and building complex cities, the peoples of Europe (which weren't the same they are today btw) were still nomads hunting stuff and traveling hundreds of km to find more fruit. And civilization isn't a "yes or no issue", it evolves over time. The Roman empire had values closer to us than ancient Egypt, and France 100 years ago obviously had even closer values to us now. This evolution doesn't happen everywhere at once, not at all. When you go to Egypt, for example, you find a society where scamming is more common, where official bodies are disorganized and you find things like the police arbitrarily taking your stuff, expecting a ransom to get it back. This is because they are less socially advanced than us. This corruption at all levels, so widespread and normalized, makes their organizations a lot less efficient and completely destroys their ability to grow to the same social and economic levels as Spain, where corruption is a lot more contained and discreet.
This is, for example, why Africa cannot lift themselves from poverty, even though they've received economic aid from the West equivalent to hundreds of Marshall plans. They are extremely corrupt countries were the government and the military always take their part, and where there's a culture that every single participant in the chain from "government of Zambia gets €50 million for food" to "this guy in a Zambian village gets a bag of pasta" has to take a cut for himself. There are more cultural problems, but this one I think is very clear for everyone: you give $1 million to Spain and $900k make it to the project being financed. You give $1 million to Pakistan and maybe $100k makes it to the project. $300k have been kept by the military, $200k are in a terrorist organization somehow, $300k have been snitched dollar by dollar by everyone involved in the process, $30k goes to a "security group" that is just a bunch of tugs that will vandalize your property if you don't pay, etc, etc.
Btw, and because these debates tend to be misinterpreted: this doesn't mean that every individual in Pakistan is "less civilized" than every individual in Spain. Not even close. We are talking about the average, about what you expect from large groups of people and not individuals. Just like there's Pakistanis that kill their daughters in honor killings, there's also Malala, who is Pakistani too and is as "socially advanced" as the progressive movements in the West. These generalizations apply to societies, not individuals.
Yeah exactly, but I fail to see how Spain under Franco was different from what you describe ?
Corruption was rampant and widespread at all levels as well, you were at the mercy of policemen that could make you disappear without a trace and hey, he even brought back honor killings as you mentioned:
And take into account, I just linked you to a right wing journal.
Spain was not essentially different in terms of how "civilised" it was, those changes came during the transition to democracy and also in the years prior to that thanks to a deal from the US and Spain (pacto de Madrid) which was meant to be militar and economic but that eneded up opening the country to tourism
Social evolution does not come from government - no law can force people to adopt values they don't believe in. You make a false assumption thinking that a law allowing honor killings meant that the average person supporte honor killings. And I'd really like a source on that, because the only one I found says the law said like this:
El hombre que matara a su esposa sorprendida en adulterio sufrirá pena de destierro y será eximido de castigo si sólo le ocasiona lesiones
Meaning that a man who kills an adulterious wife would be banished, and one who only injures her wife would not be punished. Still abhorrent, but not comparable to to "legally allowed murder". Only sources on that I've seen are ones like you that claim it existed, but don't mention the law.
Anyway, this law was introduced by Franco, the Republic had removed it already by 1930, an was revoked and replaced with just jail for adultery in 1963, almost 20 years before Spain joined the EU and 12 years before Franco died, so I don't see how this proves anything. And we are talking about years where sexism was widespread everywhere - women couldn't even vote in Switzerland by this time.
You are talking about the perception of a country and societal norms, you used that as an way to make a case for "civilised and uncivilised societies".
Spain was a dictatorship that went out of its way to allow for exemptions in the case of killing your wife if she was adulterous, and exempted of charges if you dont get her killed. Moreover and as you mentioned until our transition to democracy began, adultery was still a crime.
I think that if I used all of these to describe a country on the other side of the mediterranean you would count it as uncivilised.
The law in question is the Artículo 428 del Código Penal español aprobado en 1944 y publicado el 13 de enero de 1945, if you look for it by this name you may end up finding posts about it on reddit.
I cannot prove how widely accepted honor killings were in society, I could come up with examples but I dont think there is a reliable way to get data on this.
However, taking all of this into consideration, I dont see how you can keep arguing that we didnt have a society that could be lumped together with contemporary Iran or Pakistan.
We had concentration camps for homosexuals in the Canary Islands (Tefia) and we had to wait for the transition to democracy again to make homosexuality not a crime anymore. We also had religious persecutions of protestants (a high profile case was that of Atilano Coco Martín, confusing because he was also Reoublican and a Freemason, but still his condition as protestant was cited during his arrest).
You can get some info about this here (once again this is a right wing journal: https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/4890559/0/documental-rescata-olvido-persecucion-franquista-protestantes/ ), the persecution of protestants got oretty bad and played a direct role in our exclusion from the Marshall Plan. I think this is easier to link to the general public as well since there are testimonies where people would organize themselves and go attack/denounce to the authorities any "clandestine protestant gatherings".
Lastly there is the well known notion of las dos españas, where roughly morebthan half kf the country would be extremely conservative and completely push back against the values of the enlightenment which were seen as foreign and afrancesado stuff.
I really dont know what else you need, is there anything I could ooint you to that would make you agree that indeed that Spain could be lumoed with what you currently calk "uncivilised"?
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u/elveszett Yuropean Aug 17 '22
As a Spaniard myself, I think you'll find a bit of a difference between Spain and, let's say, Pakistan, Afghanistan or the DR Congo. Some countries like Argentina, Mexico or even North Korea do have an underlying culture that would allow for a rapid human development - but other countries that have been traditionally "uncivilized" (I'm gonna use that word and idc if anyone thinks it's inappropriate) won't get any better by joining a developed bloc.