Flashmob!

I came across a programme on BBC Radio 4 about Flamenco music as protest. It’s available for another six days on BBC i player. Here’s a link but be aware it's not going to be there long. 

In the programme the writer Jason Webster, American born but educated in Europe and sounding totally British, starts off with a description of the day in May 2012 when a Flamenco flashmob staged a protest in a branch of Bankia in Seville. 

 I’ve not been able to find a video of that particular Flamenco flashmob but here’s a link to another one which took place in the Banco de Santander in Madrid. You can see the security guards at the bank trying, quite ineffectually, to push the protestors out through the doors of the bank. As a friend of mine would say, it was like herding cats; as soon as he got dancer close to the door he or she would whirl away in another direction. 

Back to Mr Webster on his programme, he and the Flamenco singer who sang in the bank talked about reactions in the branch of Bankia. Some people joined in clapping and “jaleando”, in other words shouting “olé” at appropriate moments. Older people though tended to be afraid and cowered against the wall. Bank employees were confused; after all they might lose their jobs! 

Part of the words of his song went like this: 

       Banquero, banquero, banquero, 
       tú tienes cartera, 
       yo tengo florero. 

More or less telling the banker that he may have a wallet but the singer has a pot of flowers and can still enjoy life; money is not everything! 

 The programme went on to talk about the history of Flamenco which has always had an element of protest although that has tended to get lost in the frilly frocks and the rhythmic stamping of the dances for tourists. 

At the start of the Spanish Civil War a Flamenco singer, Corruco de Algeciras, wrote songs in favour of the Republicans which are still remembered today. Ironically he was shot by Republicans during the Battle of the Ebro in 1938 because when his region was taken over by Franco’s Nationalists he was conscripted into the army and forced to fight on Franco’s side. 

Franco apparently liked Flamenco and used it and its songs to promote his brand of Spanish nationalism. The wild dance of the gipsy underclass was tamed for tourist consumption. But it seems the music never really lost its protest element and via the communication media it is coming into its own again in a new way. 

 The writer and presenter of the programme is married to a teacher of Flamenco dance. She ended the programme reading the work of the poet Francisco Moreno Galván, who told us: 

      un hombre sin trabajo / es un hombre sin destino, / que se le ha torcío el sino 

      a man without work / is a man without destiny / his fate has been twisted. 

Unfortunately, after making Spain his home for the last twenty years, Jason Webster has decided that he and his Spanish wife will have to leave the country, like so many people, because the unemployment situation is making it impossible for them to make a living there.