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A Harmony of Difference

Los Eslim Reloaded in la Calle Gerona, La Alquitara Festival de Blues Bejar Photo @Ruben Martin

In a world that often shouts about what sets us apart, there’s something quietly radical about embracing what brings us together. In this week's Camino a Ítaca a counterdance against the demagogues threatening to deport an imaginary eight million immigrants. 
From the rhythms of Castile’s town squares and narrow streets to the rare shared silences of Spanish bars and cafés, I’ve written a reflection two ways that celebrate the beauty found in difference...and the harmony that can emerge from it. They explore how diversity doesn't dilute identity but enriches it. It is a love letter to eight million reasons we might feel at home in a place not originally our own.
They're stories of music, language, and connection...woven from life here in Spain and wherever the Blues continues to tell its story.
Click over to read the version in English in the SUR in English or the Spanish version in the HOY.

Time to Get the Lead Out

They’ve turned “woke” into a punchline — something to mock, dismiss, or roll your eyes at. Why? Because it's easier to discredit the word than reckon with what it actually means.

“Woke” was never about arguing over coffee orders or policing T-shirt colors. It wasn’t about trends, lifestyle choices, or the internet’s latest moral panic. It meant being awake. Aware. Eyes open to injustice, ears tuned to warning signals. Watching out not just for yourself, but for others. Because danger doesn’t always knock — sometimes it creeps.

And let’s be clear: this isn’t about someone else’s rights, or problems that belong to other people in far-off places. What’s coming isn’t targeted — it’s sweeping. The erosion is real, and it’s accelerating. They're not just coming for "them." They're coming for you, too.

The forgetting is deliberate. The ridicule is strategic. That’s why remembering matters.

So best listen to Huddie Ledbetter , Lead Belly, who said it plain: ‘Stay Woke.’

Because they always come in the dark, and asleep is exactly what they’re counting on.

Click over to read more in my latest article at CounterPunch.

Poolside Austerity

Piscina natural (wild swimming hole) Villasbuenas de Gata

On Benches, Boulevards, and the Beauty of Belonging

One of the things I’ve always admired about life in Spain is how public public space truly is. A square is not something to pass through—it’s something to dwell in. A bench belongs to whoever needs a rest. A park, a pool, a plaza: these are shared extensions of daily life, not fenced-off amenities with wristbands and surveillance.

And most striking of all? There’s no shame in simply being there. No sideways glances. No sense that you’re “loitering.” That concept—so ingrained in Anglo-Saxon cultures—has never taken root here. Until now, maybe.

In my latest Camino a Ítica pieces, I reflect on the creeping encroachment of privatization into Spanish public life—how the very spaces that have long defined a more open, inclusive way of living are now being reshaped by the quiet return of austerity, market logic, and the ever-watchful eye of exclusivity. Read the piece in English in SUR in English or the Spanish version in the HOY.

Because once we stop noticing the velvet ropes going up around us, it might already be too late. (PDF en castellano abajo)

What If the Axis of Evil Served You Watermelon?

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."
— Mark Twain 

Samuel Clemens, the master of irony, wrote this during his "Grand Tour" around the Mediterranean in the late 1800s. It's a truism that doesn't always stick — not everyone becomes wiser through travel. But even for the most seasoned travelers, the road can still deal out unexpected lessons in humility.
In this week's Camino a Ítaca, I revisit one of those personal lessons — a journey through Iran that served up reality in heavy, humbling doses. As the war drums beat louder and popular narratives cast everyone in ancient Persia as villains from that awful 300 movie, Twain's words feel more urgent than ever.
Click through to read the longer English version in Counterpunch or read the version in Spanish over at HOY. (PDF en castellano abajo)

How Pure Is Pure Enough? Asking for a Carpenter From Nazareth

God help us. The war drums are beating again. Somewhere between the tortilla and the gazpacho, the far-right guardians of Spanishness are having a collective nosebleed — purity tests for everything from ham to human beings. I couldn’t sit idly by and watch the madness. No, I strapped on my battered typewriter and unleashed a column so dripping in irony it should come with a mop in this week's Camino a Ítaca.

Thus was born: “How pure is pure enough? Asking for a carpenter from Nazareth.” in the SUR in English.

It’s a short ride through cultural absurdity — a landscape where being “too foreign” is a sin, but eating a Big Mac while complaining about immigrants is perfectly fine. If you’ve ever wondered whether your curry is unpatriotic, or if your neighbor’s flamenco isn’t pure enough to pass inspection — congratulations, you’re already in the story.

So pour a stiff drink, adjust your tinfoil hat, and click the damn link. The purity police are already watching — might as well give them something to read. Click over to read the Spanish version in the HOY or read below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

Shit Floats

In this week's Camino a Ítaca a look at how mediocrity seems to rise to power here in Spain. This of course happens everywhere, but here in Spain there seems to be a particular subset of people whose sole ability is to play the system and reach the top without having any other discernible skills. They head an already disproportionate representation of the country. Where are the güiris in public office? Click over to read the Spanish version in the HOY or the English version in the SUR in English. (PDF en castellano abajo)

Kill it With Fire - The Boston Review

In my latest piece for Boston Review, I examine how Spain's far-right party, Vox, is actively working to rehabilitate the legacy of Francisco Franco. By revisiting the brutal events of the 1936 Badajoz massacre, the article explores how historical atrocities are being reframed to serve contemporary political agendas. This manipulation of memory reflects a broader global trend where the far right seeks to control narratives of the past to influence the present.
Read the full article here: "Kill It With Fire"

Half a Million Reasons

The Camino a Ítaca is in no way linear, it circles and loops and starts all over again. As spring turns Cáceres into the allergy sufferers nightmare, another event takes places, one that has been going on for more than thirty years. It's quasi-religious in the way that in some sectors it can't be questioned for fear of dispelling the myth that they seem to think we don't deserve. It's no longer the World of Plastic and Piss that I once wrote about, but the colonial tinge remains. The brand still takes the piss and gives nothing in return. Click over to read the original piece in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

This wasn’t your typical, “Is everyone feeling alright? Let me hear you say, yeah!” It was more a plea than a rousing chant. Halfway through her set it sounded less like a chant than a last-ditch appeal to connect with the swelling crowd. She shaded her eyes against the late-afternoon Thursday sun, spun on her heel, artfully flicked the fringe of her dress and shouted, “I love the landscapes of this region, vamos Extremadura!”

Silence? No—its opposite.

Her heartfelt appeal was met with heroic indifference in the form of an incessant drone of humanity. Her words vanished into an insectile hum—cicadas fed through a distortion pedal and Marshall stack. She had hauled her art up from Andalucía only to meet a giant, collective mute button.

This was lip syncing in reverse. The performers were trying to sing, making every effort possible to connect with the audience. The band nailed every note, but the PA returned nothing except a muffled sludge—felt in the gut, unintelligible in the brain. The stage became a rolling Instagram backdrop for the considerable number of people who, despite the ban on the botellon, still seemed to think the stage was simply some sort of elaborate photocall for their corrillo selfies. Any hope of a real cultural exchange fell from the sky like strangled doves, the notes dying before they cleared the first row of concert-goers.  

Thursday’s sonic fiasco was merely prologue. On Friday evening, after a cursory sound-check during the break, the band struck up to welcome Africa’s premier diva, five-time Grammy-winning Angélique Kidjo. Draped in vivid African print, she strode to centre stage, leaned back, and loosed that titanic voice—only for the impotent mix to shrink it to a whisper. It was a Zoom call out of sync: her mouth moved, but neither the lyrics, the snare, the percussion, nor keyboards survived the journey across the plaza.

Those who cared about the music faced a no-win choice: wander the plaza in search of a sonic sweet spot that never materialised, or stand rooted in front of the stage, forced to watch Angélique Kidjo endure the slow humiliation of being reduced to lip-reading practice as her roar arrived as a rumour.

“WOMAD isn’t what it was,” you hear. How could it be? Thomas Wolfe was right: the road back home is closed for renovation. Thirty odd years have rewritten Cáceres and its people. The provincialism that was once turned on its head is now resigned. The franchises and outside world have moved in. The festival itself has been outsourced in layers, until all that remains of Gabriel’s founding vision is a logo rented by the hour.

The festival’s supporters cling to the brand like a VIP wristband—never mind that the bar ran dry years ago, terrified that any criticism might cancel Cáceres’ only mass gathering not dedicated to the celebration of death, be they prophets, virgins or bulls. If WOMAD really preaches tolerance and respect, it should start at the mixing desk and give the artists the basic courtesy of being heard.

If WOMAD can’t or worse, won’t fix the faders, perhaps it’s time to stop renting nostalgia and look beyond the franchise.

The Battle for History: Herodotus, Truth, and the Rise of Authoritarianism

Modern Herodotus

In this new essay I follow Herodotus—the world’s first fact-checker—into the twenty-first-century war over memory. Beginning with his insistence on weighing every side of a story , I trace how today’s strongmen —from Xi’s 2024 Patriotic Education Law to Trump’s “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” order —use the same ancient playbook: rewrite the past, monopolise the future . Along the way you’ll meet Scythians hot-boxing hemp saunas, Artemisia out-sailing the Greeks, and museum curators battling Project 2025—proof that plural voices have always out-witted propaganda.
Click over to read it on ZNetwork.

Dear America, we’re just not that into you

In my latest piece over at rabble.ca, I explore how Canada's evolving relationship with the U.S. reflects much more than just political tension—it’s about identity, values, and what it means to forge a path forward in an increasingly polarized world. I take a hard look at the historical dynamics between our two countries and ask the question: can Canada offer a better example for the future?

The piece, Dear America, We’re Just Not That Into You, dives into everything from the rise of political extremism in the U.S. to how Canada’s commitment to solidarity, equity, and compassion could become a guiding light in these turbulent times. It’s a bold take on what might be next for our neighbor to the south and the role Canada could play in shaping a more hopeful future.

Grandpa's Newspapers

Nostalgia, memory, love: all powerful emotions. And what can trigger them? In this case, Pop Rocks exploding in a sensory sugar rush. In Spanish they call them Peta Zetas but it's a story that could easily be told in German, Russian, Romanian, Albanian or Cambodian. It's a story that will be told again in Argentina and in the good 'ol US of A. This week in the Camino a Ítaca, a disturbing memory of someone loved. Click over to read the original version in HOY in Spanish or read the English version below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

Bitten Tongues, Buried Truths

The Peta Zetas hit your tongue like a .44 magnum in a janitor’s closet—a chemical blast that made Sydney’s New Year’s fireworks look like damp sparklers in trembling hands. FACT: Even now, nearly fifty years later, just closing your eyes summons the ghost of that taste, and your taste buds explode.

It wasn’t just the sugar slamming your bloodstream with the raw voltage of a faulty electric chair in one of those backwards states where governors still get aroused signing death warrants—no, it was the savage anticipation that wrought your young brain. After a week of pure psychological warfare dished out by the penguin-suited masochists who made Dante look like a travel brochure writer, this was the reward.

But that torment was only half as excruciating as waiting for that dead-eyed priest to finish his cosmic threats about your immortal soul being flame-broiled for eternity, just for the audacity of thinking a human thought. But that was Grandpa's rule, man—that duplicitous rogue— No candy until after Sunday mass.

Sunday morning memories with your grandfather were like those Peta Zetas—intense, intoxicating, impossible to shake. These candy rituals became the scaffolding of love in your developing brain—twisted, perhaps, but genuine. Old men don't reveal themselves to children directly. They speak through rituals, through candies after mass, through calloused hands on shoulders. You hold these memories like delicate birds, afraid to squeeze too hard. Because while you were busy chasing sugar highs, he was feeding you something else entirely—stories.

They started sweet, those tales. Heroic yarns about order, discipline, the glory of the ‘before times.’ But bite down too hard, and the cracks showed. A sneer at the ‘weakness’ of democracy. A toast to men in crisp uniforms who ‘knew how to clean up the filth.’ By the time your tongue caught the sour beneath the sugar, it was too late—the aftertaste was already in your blood.

Funny, how the brain works. It lets you keep the warmth of his laughter, the wrinkled grip of his hand around yours, even as it tries to vomit up the rest. You can still taste the candy, yet you can still hear the sermons—both kinds. The ones from the pulpit, and the ones from him.

But time is a savage editor. The older you got, the more you noticed the newspapers he read and the hateful programs that droned through Sunday afternoons after church. The casual remarks about ‘those people’ that slithered into lunch conversations. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory, especially when a civil war is concerned. We all hunt for rationales for believing in the absurd, some are just better at it.

Maybe that's what haunts you most about those Peta Zetas—not just their explosive sweetness, but how they represent your own complicity. Every Sunday you took the candy without question, building monuments of affection to a man whose ideological compass pointed straight to hell. Was your childish love blind, or was it bribed into silence for a few pesetas?

There's no neat resolution here, no morality tale with a tidy lesson. Just the wrenched reality that humans can simultaneously be sources of tenderness and vessels of hatred. Some memories remain fundamentally corrupted, like beautiful fruit grown in poisoned soil. Kundera warned that the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Ominously, it seems that many have willfully chosen the latter. In burying history, Spain doesn’t just forget its sins—it sugarcoats them, passing poisoned sweets to generations to come.

The Birth of a Civil War in Yemen in Counterpunch

Sana'a, Yemen

Over twenty years ago, I lived in Yemen. Decades later, I found myself receiving WhatsApp messages from friends and former students in Sana’a—as bombs rained down around them. Real-time updates from people I cared about, living through hell. That experience will never leave me.

What I didn’t expect was to see that same war discussed in a Signal group chat by U.S. officials—punctuated with emojis, fist bumps, and the tone of a frat party watching drone footage like it was Call of Duty.

This past Sunday, CounterPunch, one of the few American outlets with the guts to run it, published my longform piece:
👉 “Yemen in Flames: From Depraved Spectacle to Signalgate”

It’s a dark, sharp, and deeply personal chronicle of how Trump-era officials planned airstrikes on Yemen with the casual detachment of gamers, turning mass death into a grotesque kind of entertainment.

📌 From screenshots of chats to the dehumanization of entire populations, the piece shows how modern warfare has become performance art for sociopaths in positions of power.

📰 Read the full piece here:

The Great Unravelling

"For a moment, it felt like we had won. The bad guys were relics. Fascism was a lesson Spanish schools didn't teach, and liberal democracy was what all the cool countries were wearing."

The Camino a Ítaca climbs the Statue of Liberty this week for a look around to see what is left of something precious that we once took for granted. It's not gone...yet. But it is clear that what we once thought immutable is nowhere near permanent. This week in both English and Spanish. Click over to read the unravelling in Sur in English here or a slightly shorter version (word count issues) in HOY in Spanish here. (PDF en castellano abajo)

The Age of Mean

Ages rise and rot, and this one smells like cheap cologne, pancake make-up and cold, hard cruelty. The Age of Reason left town long ago, probably hitchhiking with Elvis, and in its place slithers the Age of Mean—petty, ugly, and proud of it. Welcome to the golden era of the selfish, the crass, the smug boor with a megaphone and a middle finger raised to anything resembling decency. In this week's Camino a Ítaca, a long, bittersweet gaze back to when empathy wasn’t a punchline, and "love thy neighbor" wasn’t just another blunt object for hypocrites to swing at their enemies. This piece, apparently too radioactive for an English-reading audience, fell victim to the silent chokehold of self-censorship. The shadow of Musk looms large, its stench thick and suffocating, proof that even across the Atlantic, the game is rigged, and the referees have left the building.

As one rejection email advised: "Thank you for submitting this to the Post-Gazette. It's not an article we can use, partly because we favor a cooler, more humanistic style (not referring to people as "slithering," for example)..." 

But then one light shone out of the cowed darkness. Rabble.ca took at chance. Click over and see what the fuss was about.

Globalization and its Discontents

I've been called a lot of things in my life. My surname alone has had people thinking that I'm from a lost tribe to an island in Japan. In this week's Camino a Ítica, the way my name can cause consternation among some. Life on the peninsula is no longer so monochrome, or monotheistic. Click over to read the English version on page 22 of the PDF in SUR in English or in Spanish in the HOY. (PDF en castellano abajo)

The line between continents blurs up here, lost in the madness of these mountains—great, hulking beasts with snow-drenched peaks, their ridges twisting like the spine of some prehistoric leviathan sprawled between the Black and Caspian seas. Less a boundary between East and West than a stone-fisted barricade between the East and the even more bewildering East.

For centuries, they’ve loomed like bouncers at one of history’s rowdier saloons, keeping the Indo-Europeans and the rough-and-tumble Caucasian and Turkic tribes apart. The Russians and Persians have played tug-of-war over this place for generations, and yet, in one of history’s great absurdities, these crags somehow manage to carve Orthodox Christian Georgia and Armenia away from the Muslim-majority north—except for Azerbaijan, which juts into the Caspian like a defiant middle finger.

We had left the sleepy village of İlisu in Azerbaijan and were hiking toward Russia, following the glacial Kurmukh-chai River as it cut deeper into the mountains, pushing forward with the simple plan of going as far as we could until someone in a furry official-looking hat stopped us.

Along the way, we met a shepherd who greeted us in a singsong Azeri. When it became clear we understood nothing, his wizened, weathered face darkened with suspicion before he switched to the language of the empire, the tongue of the Tsars. Still, nothing. Our blank stares unsettled him.

How could we not speak Russian? To unravel this mystery, or perhaps to confirm we weren’t extraterrestrials, he pulled out an old bottle of homemade honey vodka, still stamped with the fading letters CCCP and poured us each a stiff drink. Through wild gestures and, eventually, song, we pieced together his bewilderment: that someone might not speak Russian simply did not compute. It was as if we had told him the sky was not, in fact, blue. This did not fit in with his worldview.

I was reminded of this the other day while out for cañas. I don’t even remember how the conversation started, but at some point, one of the older parishioners of the bar looked over and said, “What kind of name is that? Troy? I mean, what’s it short for?”

I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I told him it wasn’t short for anything, it was just Troy.

“Impossible! That’s no name. There’s no San Troy. It must be short for something, like… Troncio.”

In no mood to argue, I explained that it came from the tragic city of Priam and turned back to my drink. But he wasn’t finished.

“Impossible! Troya would be female, and you have a beard!”

I tried to steer the conversation toward football or jamón, safe topics, national pillars, but no. He was deep in the trenches now, determined to restore order to a world where all proper names must have a saintly origin or at least a good Catholic ring to them.

Finally, he delivered his verdict. “You need a real proper name.” He thought for a moment, then grinned over his half empty glass of Veterano. “Something like… Manolo.”

“Sí, Manolo!” A name as sturdy as a pair of alpargatas, as dependable as a midday siesta. The matter was settled and he ordered another drink.

I nodded and accepted my fate. After all, at least he didn’t suggest Jesús.

Imagine if I had told him my surname?

What Is, Isn't?

JD Vance comes to Europe

Poor Chicken Little, after everyone ignored the little guy for so long, saying he was exaggerating, that what the fascists were saying was only electioneering, peanuts for the gallery, not to be take seriously...
And then came Vance to Europe to let everyone know that they are playing for keeps. Not only are they dismantling the little saftey net built over the decades in the United States, but that they want the same for Europe too. In this week's Camino a Ítaca a Japanese kitsune fable. When will the enchanted be able to see the foxes for what they are? Will it be too late? Click over to read the originally published version in Spanish the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

The landscape unfurled like an ancient scroll painting, revealing a world cloaked in the pristine silence of winter as a farmer named Tadahiro, one of those sturdy tillers of the soil who formed the backbone of feudal Japan, was walking home. The snow in Hokkaido is unlike anywhere on earth— it falls in a blanket so thick that it seems to muffle the very air, as if the gods themselves had hushed the world.

Then to his wonderment, through the settling snow came the most magnificent parade he had ever witnessed. The lantern-bearers came first, their paper lights casting pools of golden radiance across the whiteness. Behind them processioned ranks of samurai in silk hakama, their sword hilts gleaming. Musicians followed, their flutes sending haunting notes into the winter air. The gifts came next - lacquered boxes bound with silk, their contents worth more than a farmer would see in a thousand lifetimes. And there, at the heart of this splendor, moved the bride herself, her wedding kimono so fine it seemed to float above the snow.

As Tadahiro let this assembly pass, his old friend Taro happened upon the scene. What followed was one of those moments when reality itself seems to split along its seams. For where Tadahiro saw nobility and splendor, Taro saw only a troupe of foxes, padding through the snow with twigs in their mouths.

"Have you lost your senses?" Taro demanded and then mumbled something, watching his friend bow deeply to what appeared to be nothing more than common forest creatures. "They're only foxes!"

Taro’s harsh words acted like a spell-breaking charm. In an instant, the magnificent procession dissolved like melting snow, leaving only a line of foxes trotting through the snow, carrying nothing but sticks that Tadahiro's enchanted mind had transformed into all the trappings of a noble wedding.

Japanese kitsune legends remind us that sometimes the veil between worlds is as thin as a snowflake, and reality itself might depend entirely on who is doing the looking.

These mischievous foxes still have the power to enchant. Just recently, the branches in their mouths spelt out in enormous letters a headline in the Economist, “Spain shows Europe how to keep up with America’s economy.” It then ranked it the best performing economy of the OECD based on performance in the last year. 

Yet even though the Economist isn’t precisely known as radically left-leaning, enchanted right-wing commenters steadfastly believed the pablum spooned to them by the Spanish conservative press. They assured that the country had banned private property and was two small steps away from becoming a bankrupt Maoist dictatorship.

Their confirmation bias simply wouldn’t allow them to see the foxes for what they were. They weren’t seeing a cadre of billionaires and their evil minions openly moving to gut the Welfare State. Instead of seeing things like Milei’s chainsaw for what it is, a tool designed to take away their pensions, socialized medicine and education and do away with limits on working hours and minimum wages, they saw a magic wand that was going to make them too wealthy and upwardly mobile. Just like hardworking Abascal and his patriot friends.

Just what did Taro mumble that broke the spell?

San Cristóbal in Montánchez, Spain

Castillo de Montánchez

Longform read published in the February issue of Perceptive Travel Magazine. (click over)
A family trip to a curious festival where the blessed are not the meek, but in fact their modes of transport.

"The sweep before us was more than 180 degrees. The savannah, some 1300 feet below, rolled off into the far-off confines of the horizon and was fringed with the blueish humpbacks of breaching sierras. The checkerboard of holm oak trees that made up the dehesas pixelated the undulating topography of differing shades of green and parched beige. White specks of small villages broke up the scene like tiny errors on a tactile screen."

As Time Goes By

With just days before the freely elected orange Himler assumes the most powerful office on earth to disassemble the world order from inside, the Camino a Ítaca takes a look back at how eight decades of anti-Nazi propaganda on the silver screen have proven to be no match for the masses of disinformation fed to all through their tiny screens. What was once bad is now good and what was once evil is now accepted. The hundreds of thousands who lost their lives fighting these extreme righ-wing ideals now sleep uneasily as the very real threat of fascism returns. This time not by violence and force, but mire insidiously by fake news and misinformation. Click over to read the published versions both in Spanish in the HOY and in English in the SUR in English. (castellano abajo)

I’m starting to suspect that everything that comes out of Hollywood isn’t quite real. I’ve been there on many occasions, seen the white letters up on the hillside and tripped over the junkies on Hollywood and Vine. So, I know that the place in fact exists. It’s what it has produced that I am no longer certain of.

I’m picturing Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn climbing the cliffs of Navarone. Or maybe something lighter when Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson make a Luftwaffe colonel’s life impossibly complicated as they try to escape.

We don’t even have to reach so far back to find more films on the same theme. We’ve seen Stephen Spielberg direct Liam Neeson in a most harrowing film about a terrible list and Tom Hanks searching for Private Ryan. Or perhaps more recently, Christoph Waltz’s unparalleled quiet, yet menacing depiction of pure raw evil. One that might even approach the heinous malevolence of someone like Reinhard Heydrich in Tarantino’s inglourious remake.

For eighty years Hollywood has churned out constant reminders of the monumental struggle that took place in the 30s and 40s. All are, in their own fashion, depictions of a time when things were remarkably black and white. The false Hollywood narrative of cowboys and indians temporarily replaced by something more easily digestible. On one side we had people fighting for supposed freedom and democracy. While on the other, supporters of authoritarian regimes who had no compunction about sending millions of people who didn’t fit into their mold to their deaths in purpose-built extermination camps from Fuerteventura to Rivesaltes to Birkenau. Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito’s defeat and the subsequent freeing of the concentration camps have flooded our screens ever since.

In Spain however it would take another 40 years. Franco was never toppled He died peacefully in bed with his death marking the beginning of the end to perhaps Europe’s longest dictatorships. At last, the good guys had beaten the baddies and fascism seemed to have finally been put to rest.

But then something happened. It came back.                                 

Four years ago the world watched a violent mob try overturn a free and fair election. Nazi flags were seen flying in the Capitol building of a country that lost 400,000 plus lives fighting the very ideology invading its legislative core. Worse yet, the coup attempt’s leader, Donald Trump, has now been reelected. In Italy, an open supporter of Mussolini now runs the country. At the same time, in the cradles of the most atrocious crimes of the 20^th century, Germany has seen a surge in support for the far right, while in Austria Nazi supporters may form a government.

In Spain, young people blithely sing fascist songs on school outings while more and more women look back fondly on a dark period when they had next to no rights. Regime apologists now sit in all levels of government and in attempts to whitewash the past, the traditional right has joined them in attempts to repeal laws reminding us of past horrors.

In a world where Mayor Stasser has become the good guy and Rick Blaine the bad, you no longer need dystopian movies, just pay attention. Please Sam, don’t play it again.

Marco Polo and the Three Wise Men

The Three Wise Men woken by an angel Maestre Gislebertus, h. 1130

In an age when American culture seems to permeate and even obliterate traditions around the world, it's refreshing to local traditions hold strong against the ceaseless tide. Here in Spain they have incorportated Santa Claus and the mass consumerism of America into their Christmas season, but the main event is still the Three Kings Day (Epiphany). The thing is, as with many aspects of Christianity, the Spanish have really turned it into a nativist narrative (the legends of Santiago or Saint James and the pagan inspired Virgin cults). In this week's Camino a Ítaca, a reminder that the foundational myths of the faith looked East before looking West. Click over to the version published in English in Sur in English (PDF p.16) or the Spanish version in the HOY. 

Modern-day Tehran tumbles out of the Elburz mountains like an unspooling roll of chimerical fabric. It starts out fresh and clean but as its splendor runs out, it becomes dustier and more frayed at the edges as it loses altitude and peters out on the doorstep of Kavir, the Great Salt Desert. In a question of 30kms the metropolis plunges 600m down from the modern, wealthy mountain heights in the north, through the dense smog that perennially chokes the megacity and then fades into the humbler, haphazard developments and villages it has swallowed up along the fringes of the desert.

In one of these towns, now engulfed by the metastasizing capital, still stands the ancient caravanserai stop of Rayy. A place where a young Italian named Marco Polo just might have passed through in the XIII century enroute with his destiny with the great Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan.

Further along the Silk Road in Saveh (or Kashan depending on your transliteration), the Genovese youngster encountered a square building housing three sepultures, each boasting an unblemished corpse complete with hipster beards and stylized hair. He asked around but no one was able to tell him who these incorruptible Methuselah were.

It was another three-day journey until he found out that they were three ‘kings’ who had set out from the East to worship a prophet in Judea. With them they carried the classical bling of the day, Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. These gifts were in fact chosen to ascertain whether the prophet was a God, an earthly King, or a Physician. If he took the Gold, then he would be your typical Bourbon or Windsor, that is to say an earthly king. If he fancied the Incense he was a God and if he was after the mysterious Myrrh he was a Healer.

After conferring with Herod, these magi finally found the baby prophet. The youngest went in first and found the child apparently just like himself. The middle one entered next, and like the first, he found the prophet seemingly of his own age. Lastly, the eldest went in and wouldn’t you know it, the same happened to him. To clear up this circus trick they agreed to go in together and to their surprise found a baby that was just thirteen days old. Amazed by the miracle, they presented their gifts and in a truly trinitarian move, the child took all three. In return, the child gave them a small, closed box.

We know curiosity kills cats, and the same might be said for camels. The three kings couldn’t wait to get home to open the box and when they finally did, they only found a small stone. In their disappointment, they tossed the stone into a well only to be surprised by a flame bursting up and creating the everlasting light that would become the foundation of another of the monotheistic faiths, Zoroastrianism.

With so many of its followers xenophobically insisting on their faith being the basis of the West, Polo’s account serves as just another reminder that Christianity was not only born in the near East but once looked further in that direction in its foundational stories.