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AN ABRIDGED HISTORY OF EUROPE
by William M. BrintonChapter Seven:
Madrid (Spain) and Lisbon (Portugal)
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
(Photos...)March 24, 1999 was a critical date for Spain. The British House of Lords, the Law Lords, held that General August Pinochet was not immune from trial for alleged crimes of torture and conspiracy to torture Chilean citizens while he was president of Chile. The court had jurisdiction of the matter, because a Spanish judge had issued an order to extradite Pinochet from Britain to stand trial in Spain. The Law Lords also held that Pinochet could not be tried for offenses occurring before 1988, the date on which Britain incorporated the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment into the law of Great Britain. Parliament enacted the Criminal Justice Act in 1984. Its Section 134 did not become effective until September 29, 1988.
Leaves from a Beatus Manuscript (Spain, 1180)
Mirror of Medieval World, p. 79This complicated case began with the arrest in London of Augusto Pinochet. London police arrested him on an extradition warrant filed by Spain for the alleged murder of Chilean citizens while he was in power from 1973 to 1990. On various dates in 1998, Chilean exiles in France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and Denmark called for Britain to extradite Pinochet for trial in Spain. Pinochet has been a president for life and argued that no court outside Chile had any jurisdiction. While in Chile, several thousand Chileans were tortured by agents of the Pinochet government, killed, or both. In any case, most of those held in Chilean jails disappeared without a trace. At the initial hearing in London, the High Court ruled that Pinochet was immune from arrest as a former head of state at the time of his alleged crimes. On appeal, the Law Lords held that Pinochet's arrest was legal. It meant that Britain's Home Secretary must decide whether to act on Spain's request for extradition. This ruling was set aside for a conflict of interest because one member of the court had an undisclosed interest in Amnesty International.
The Surrender of Breda (Before 1635)
Diego Velàzquez
WebMuseum, ParisOn January 18, 1999, seven Law Lords began with a rehearing on the issue that Pinochet was immune from prosecution outside of Chile. On March 24, the Law Lords, in a 6-1 decision, ruled he was not immune and he could not be prosecuted for crimes committed before 1988. The entire opinion of the Law Lords was some 200 pages, but it is now available on the Worldwide Web at www.parliament.the-statione.19989/ldjudgmt/jd990324/pinol.htm. While the Pinochet case may apply only to this former head of state, authorities may still enforce the Convention on Torture or, alternatively, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or both. Violators may be prosecuted in the International Tribunal established by the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations Charter. It states in part that, "persons Responsible for Serious Violations of Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991," needed a court with subject matter jurisdiction outside the country in which the offense occurred. That court now has chambers in the Hague, the Netherlands. The statute of the International Tribunal appears at www.un.org/icty/basic/i-b-ens.html#1. Practically, there is now no reason why Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic may not be tried in this court for crimes against humanity, genocide, conduct made criminal by the Convention Against Torture, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Yugoslavia ratified the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1950. High army officials charged with the same crimes may also be tried in this court. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide appears to cover all aspects of this criminal conduct, does not immunize sitting heads of state from liability for crimes thereunder.
A History of Spain is available at www.emulateme.com/history/spaihist.htm, a site with 20 chapters beginning with the Introduction and ending with the Constitutional Monarchy.
The author of this history did not appear in the text, which is an estimated 75 pages. Spain is the state in which the Inquisition had its origins and may have been responsible for anti-Semitism on a world-wide basis. In 1488, Pope Sixtus IV issued a papal bull sanctioning the Inquisition in Castile. In his book, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, Benzion Netanyahu developed a theory in which the Persians, Egyptians and Greeks successively employed Jews in these countries to safeguard their interests. In the process, the Jews managed to alienate all three nationalities. When Rome expanded the empire to include land as far as Spain, Jews saw a way of protecting themselves by being at the periphery of the empire. However, the Visigoths replaced the Romans and managed to exceed them in their dislike of Jews. Being crude, the Visigoths were not taxed by this effort. The Jews, however, had managed to collect potential enemies, and the threat of complete isolation was a constant fear. This wave of fear led many Jews to "convert" to Protestantism.
Yo Picasso (Paris, Spring 1901)
Pablo Picasso
Mark Harden's ArtchiveA leader of the Spanish Jewry was Solomon ha-Levi who converted to the Christian faith in 1391. He was uniquely familiar with Jewish literature and a master of Jewish sources of law. This combination led to his appointment as chief rabbi of Burgos. Solomon ha-Levi had other ideas when he began further studies in Paris. However, 1394 was a disastrous year for Jews. French King Charles VI expelled all the Jews of his domain. So Solomon ha-Levi acted to convince his co-religionists that conversion to Christianity was better than permanent exile. The chief rabbi of Burgos had become an enemy of the Jews. Eventually, he helped write laws that were anathema to Jews. As a direct result, the hatred of Jews spread widely outside Burgos. By 1412, there was no option for survival except conversion; some fifteen years earlier, Ferran Matinez, a Catholic firebrand, led the way to Jewish expulsion absent conversion as a way to Christianize the Jews.
Jews, therefore, found themselves in a "Catch-22" situation. Many Old Christians were skeptical and questioned the sincerity of the conversions. Furthermore, it should have taken more than one generation to educate the Old Christians in matters affecting tolerance despite skepticism. Then, as time passed, Jews managed to move upward because of their talents. As they came closer and closer to making themselves indispensable to the royals in matters affecting tax collection, the poor peasants began to fan the flames of hatred toward Jews. This hatred did not stop with the poor. Those who were denied positions they thought were theirs, were infuriated when the conversos got the positions. The first attack on the Jews took place in Toledo in 1449. Juan Sarmiento led the rebels, but Sarmiento grew so intolerant, the Church replaced him and punished the rebels. Despite all the intellectual ferment that went into the foundation of the Inquisition, it was established in 1480 at a time when both Spain and Portugal were at war. Ferdinand and Isabella were monarchs at the time, and both joined in the petition to Rome to establish this infamous body to investigate heresy. Writers like Netanyahu too often use words that seem to have several definitions. Marranos, for example, were looked upon as corrupt. They renounced their Jewishness but secretly practiced their religion. Conversos renounced their Jewishness in order to be accepted into the Christian faith. Non-Jews saw this as corrupt and they saw the conversos as traitors. Actually, they openly said they wanted to end the Christian faith by undermining it from within. The Inquisition punished these heretics by burning them at the stake, and thousands of them died in this way. Most authorities believe that Ferdinand and Isabella saw the Inquisition as a way of advancing their interests in an absolute monarchy.
The Inquisition succeeded because it concealed its real motives. The hearts of the Inquisitors, led by Torquemada, were incurably perverted by tendencies that operated behind a smokescreen. These tendencies were expressed , from the highest officials of the Inquisition down to its lowest functionaries and agents, in a blatant disregard for human life, a fervid desire to flaunt power and exercise control over life and death, a capacity for repression that could crush any spirit, a morbid passion for inflicting torture and causing pain that could break all resistance, and a shameless rapacity designed to render the torturer to also be the person to inherit the worldly goods of the victim. The Crown also profited. After a trial marked by torture and distinguished by an utter lack of due process, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was ordered by the king on March 31, 1492. This was the year that Ferdinand and Isabella sent Christopher Columbus on a voyage to discover a new route to India that instead discovered the new world.
Some scholars, however erroneously, tried to validate judgments of the Inquisition. Validation was never possible. The witnesses of the Inquisition came from the class of Spaniards that hated Jews. Independent confirmation was also impossible for the same reasons. The Inquisition organized a reign of terror so it was difficult, if not impossible, to find defenders of those charged with heresy; people were fearful of their own safety. This Inquisition mentality was firmly established for all time in Spain and other European countries, including most particularly in Germany. The Hungarian government introduced a law under which many Jews who had fought in World War I in the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian army, and Jewish war widows and orphans were to be deprived of even the paltry benefits granted to their fellow Hungarians. Jews were also forbidden to participate any further in government service, newspaper offices, film studios or the theater. Jewish working men and women were no longer allowed to become members of labor unions. Anti-Semitism was widespread as seen by the election figures.
The text of the Spanish history whose web site address is provided above, moves through three centuries on a selective basis. Neglected, for example, is Spain's colonial ambitions. It occupied Cuba and the Philippines until 1898 when the United States went to war and freed these possessions from Spain. The Spanish Civil War (1935 - 1939) is still not fully explained. See flag.blackened.net/revolt/Spain/spainindx.html. Anarchists may have a point, but it may not be made with with violence. For a somewhat different view of the Spanish Civil War, see flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/pam_ch1.html.
The 1900s were different after World War I. Japan engaged in a build-up of its navy using American scrap steel for this purpose, until President Franklin Roosevelt banned this export by an Executive Order. The Spanish Civil War began in 1936 and ended in 1939 only three months before the outbreak of World War II. The Rape of Nanking by Japanese troops horrified the world by the brutal slaughter of Chinese inhabitants in Shanghai and other cities as well.
With the worsening situation in Europe and Asia, the United States found itself increasingly involved with Europe despite the Neutrality Act. Roosevelt knew that America could not stand by while Europe might be overrun by the Nazi armies of Adolph Hitler. Roosevelt also knew that his administration would almost certainly join the war against Nazi Germany. The Lend Lease legislation of 1940 still allowed Roosevelt to lease British bases in exchange for war munitions sold to the British and French until December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. During its relatively neutral period between September 1, 1939, and December 7, 1941, the United States shipped munitions, aircraft and old destroyers to Europe. An account of these invaluable supplies was provided by General Harold L. George of the Air Transport Command (ATC). General George wrote his speech for the benefit of the 30th anniversary held in Las Vegas in May 1972. C.R. Smith, then head of American Airlines, organized ATC, which extended to Asia as well as Europe. A copy of his speech in 1972 was provided to Colonel Benjamin H. Brinton, chief fiscal officer of the Air Transport Command. More than 300,000 aircraft of 100 different types were flown to various countries united in their determination to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan. They were flown by ATC pilots qualified through continuous transition training. More than 1.5 million tons of cargo flew in ATC planes in the last two years of World War II. Cargoes ranged from anti-tank ammunition to bulldozers, and from patients to prisoners to entire Chinese armies. At peak traffic, an ATC plane crossed the Atlantic every eight minutes and the Pacific every 26 minutes.
Volume Two of Martin Gilbert's A History of the 20th Century covered the years from 1933 to 1951 with each chapter describing a year's history. Spanish history in this three-volume set is well written and the digital version does well to supplement the narrative history ending with chapters on the Spanish Civil War, Francoist Dictatorship, Democratic Transition, Parliamentary Monarchy, and History and Culture of Spain. Gilbert, however, does not really mention Spain's constitutional history. Its constitution was unanimously approved by the parliament and approved by 87.8 percent of the citizens in a referendum held December 6, 1978. The Spanish constitution states that "the political form of the Spanish State is that of a Parliamentary Monarchy." Additionally, it provides for the separation between legislative, executive, and judiciary and gives institutional backing to the king as head of state and supreme head of the armed forces. Sovereign power is held by a two-chamber parliament called the Cortes, whose members are elected by all the citizens over 18 years of age. Today, Spain is a stable parliamentary monarchy. King Juan Carlos I has shown sound judgment in handling sticky political matters, such as the election of a Socialist government in 1978. It has plans to hold elections, and elect a new prime minister, probably not a Socialist, on a date fixed after party conferences take place.
Spain is now a member of NATO. For supplementary versions of Spain's history, see www.DocuWeb.ca/SiSpain/english/history/ and/or www.emulateme.com/history/spaihist.htm.
Portugal is Spain's next-door neighbor. AS 199 ended, one of its colonial outposts, Macau, was handed over to rule from Beijing, as Hong Kong was in 1997. Portugal's government was probably indifferent to tis transition from Portuguese rule. Chinese gangs had just about taken over Macau, and were fighting for control of tourism and casinos. I visited this tiny territory in 1986, a period marked by hotel construction on a massive scale. Fourteen years later, a uniquely civilized personage who made his home in Lisbon after World War II, emerged from obscurity. His executors had made an agreement to show his priceless paintings in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Beginning November 17, 1999, the Metropolitan Museum offered an exhibition of paintings and other objets d'art from the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. The museum was created under the terms of Gulbenkian's will in order to preserve, under one roof, the artworks in his collection. The catalogue published by the Metropolitan Museum was titled, "Only the Best." During his lifetime Gulbenkian amassed a colossal fortune by collecting a five per cent commission on all the Middle East oil negotiations he had engineered, including deals with Iran, Iraq and Kuwait, as well as some of the United Arab Emirates. As the "Director's Forward" of the catalogue states:
"This exhibition in one of the world's preeminent museums is not strictly in keeping with Calouste Gulbenkian's characteristic discretion. Gulbenkian acquired his pieces in negotiations wrapped in secrecy, employing subtle diplomacy in correspondence either with dealers or with owners of works that aroused his interest."
The Wreck of Minotaur... on the Haak Sands (1810)
Joseph Mallard William TurnerGulbenkian came to Lisbon during World War II after the Nazis took Paris, and he made the Portuguese capital his home for the last years of his life. Gulbenkian died in 1955.
The seven paintings appearing in this chapter were personally selected by Calouste Gulbenkian. In 1919 Gulbenkian acquired from Christie's in London The Feast of the Ascension in Piazza San Marco (Venice, 1775), by the Italian painter, Francisco Guardi.
In 1930 Gulbenkian bought the full-length portrait, Helena Fourment, painted by Peter Paul Rubens in 1630. Rubens was a widower at the time, and he married Helena who was the daughter of a friend. This remarkable painting hung in the State Museum in St Petersburg, now known as the Hermitage, before it was sold to Gulbenkian. Also in 1930, Gulbenkian had a representative purchase Fête Galante, painted by Nicolas Lancret in 1730. One of Gulbenkian's favorite paintings was said to be Thomas Gainsborough's, Mrs. Lowndes-Stone. Boy Blowing Bubbles, painted by Eduard Manet in 1867, was acquired for Gulbenkian from the Estate of Lewisohn (New York) by his representative, André Weil.
Gulbenkian's selection also includes Reading (1870), a portrait of two sisters by Henri Fantin-Latour. Fantin-Latour apprenticed with his father, before studying at the Petit École de Dessin in Paris. Fantin-Latour's training included copying the Old Masters, before he began nature studies. He was inspired by the music of Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz and Johannes Brahms. As well, the collection includes Joseph Mallard William Turner's 1810, The Wreck of Minotaur... on the Haak Sands, (one of a series of major canvases dedicated to catastrophes and storms at sea); and Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Fête at Rambouillet (1770).
Hardly anyone else in the world couldl have had Calouste Gulbenkian's inspiration, money and drive that built the museum which holds this marvelously ecelectic collection of art.
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All contents © 1999 William M. Brinton