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WE SPANIARDS ENJOY SAYING, “SPAIN IS DIFFERENT.”
Enrique ZUGASTI, Head of Tax
www. tgs-edisa.com
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We do not say it with the same sense of national pride Americans display or with the satisfaction of a dominant industrialized economy such as the German, nor with the deep respect for tradition the Japanese cherish. With amused resignation, we say it without arrogance, mindful of our illustrious past and immense creative potential, which is only surpassed by our limitless capacity for selfsabotage. Spain is akin to a great artist in the twilight of his career: full of lights and shadows in constant contradiction, it continues to advance due to strokes of genius and an earnest desire to live.
Otto von Bismarck once remarked, “Spain is the strongest country in the world; the Spaniards have attempted to destroy it for centuries and have failed.” This ongoing inner conflict has existed since the advent of history. Since the 10th century B.C., Greeks, Phoenicians, and Celts had been at war (among themselves and with each other), passing through the Punic wars (between Carthage and Rome) between the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. (during which Iberian nations fought on both sides). The fall of the Roman Empire and the arrival of the Muslims in the 8th century A.D., followed by the Christian reconquest and the establishment of the unified crown of Castile and Aragon in the 15th century A.D. (the prototype of modern Spain), comprise a period of more than two millennia of internal conflict in Spain.
The union between the crowns would have provided a short period of peace to a region that finally attained integration. However, we decided to export our war fervor to half the world. We created an empire that stretched from the current Philippines through North Africa, much of Europe, and much of the Americas; we managed to remain faithful to our Spanish style, fighting outside our borders and among us without a century’s rest until the twenty-first century.
In pursuit of an unrivaled diplomatic base, Spain could have retained the pioneering commercial spirit of the Phoenicians, the social organization of the Roman Empire, the leading science of the Muslim empire (leaders in mathematics, medicine, and astronomy), the most extensive maritime network in history, the industrial revolution that was taking place in the Spanish territories in northern Europe, and the connections with the Church of Rome and half the world. Time after time, we continually discarded almost everything, only to reinvent ourselves later.
And herein lies the great value of our people: regardless of how often we shoot ourselves in the foot, we are always capable of presenting the best version of ourselves without losing our optimism. After losing the war in Cuba to the U.S. Navy, the Spanish coined the idiom “way more was lost in Cuba, and we returned whistling,” which precisely encapsulates this dichotomy. This tenacity and unique entrepreneurial spirit have produced three Roman emperors (Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius), philosophers (Seneca or Averroes), exceptional writers (Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Lorca, and Delibes), two Nobel prizes in medicine (Ramon y Cajal and Severo Ochoa), the invention of the submarine, and the gyroplane (the forerunner of the modern helicopter), world-class painters such as Picasso, Velazquez, Goya, and Dali) as well as reference architects (Gaudi or Calatraba) and historically remembered athletes.
This Spanish DNA makes us the first country in the world for organ donations, the country with the highest life expectancy, the second country in terms of the number of tourists per year, one of the five countries in the world with the best high-speed railway network, and one of the five countries with the highest generation of renewable energy; in short, a country that will never stop creating opportunities despite itself.
Current Spain is a reflection of its past, both positive and antagonistic. A nation that prefers facing the future to remembering the past. Yet it looks forward with enthusiasm and inventiveness. Spain will always forge opportunities and welcome visitors and residents with open arms. It is a country to be familiar with, a place to reside and invest, and a nation that never falls but will always rise—a nation for everyone.
We Spaniards are fond of saying, “Spain is different”.