Extremandalus

Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online (in Spanish) as well.



It seems as though Caceres has been converted into a comet, or at least that’s what a specialized consulting group for the Group of World Heritage Cities has decided to call us. Like other, smaller, less connected UNESCO cities, we are visited by less than 300,000 people every year and therefore are regarding as a celestial body in our solar system of small signifigance. Better connected cities like Segovia and Salamanca which receive more than that number are termed ‘satelites’ and then the larger tourist magnets like Cordoba, which greet more than 600,000 visitors a year, are given the galactic title of ‘planets’. Words have power and the metaphors’ meanings are clear. The state of our dismal rail connections is well known to most, so the obvious question of how all those tourists arrive to their destinations aside, brings us to why tourists choose these places in the first place. With national tourists, the black legend of the supposed dry desert of Extremadura is hard to combat but this existing prejudice shouldn’t affect foreign visitors. For a Nordic tourist, Baeza or Caceres are equal unknowns and in Europe burdened with hertigage, castles and cathedrals, it’s difficult to stand out among the spires. When a foreigner decides on Cordoba or Granada, they think of what makes the cities and experiences special, different from what they can see elsewhere and a lot of this is thanks to their Islamic legacies. In contrast to Andalusia, here in Caceres and in Extremadura in general, it almost seems as though this period of history is somehow an embarrassment, something to be ashamed of. It’s as though one foreign religion is somehow more valid, more autochthonous than another foreign Abrahamic belief that also happened to be prevalently held here for centuries. Words do have power and it’s time to move on and leave terms like ‘reconquest’ to the thankfully few on each side of the Mediterranean who relish in such 13th century thought. By embracing and promoting this legacy, whose imprint literally surrounds the city, perhaps we can transform into a satelite.