This past weekend the Iberoamerica Summit taking place in Santiago de Chile became like a pre-fight press conference.
You can read about it here. Basically what happened was that Chavez berated Spain’s previous Prime Minister, Aznar, calling him a fascist and other names. Following Chavez’s remarks the current Spanish Prime Minister, very mildly reminded Chavez that the previous Spanish Prime Minister had been freely elected by the people of Spain. During his remarks Chavez, whose microphone was turned off, kept interrupting saying something or other, while the Spanish Prime Minister tried to continue with his remarks. It was during this back and forth that the Spanish King, who was seated next to the Prime Minister leaned forward, pointed to Chavez and said “¡Por qué no te callas!”, or “Why don’t you shut up!”, using the informal “you”. The video is here.
It was nice to watch, I now have a ringtone of the King of Spain saying “¡Por qué no te callas!” to a nice beat.
For more weirdness, later on Chavez was speaking when he took a call in his cell phone he said was from Fidel Castro. Unfortunately Chavez could not figure out how to turn on the speaker function on his cell phone, so he proceeded to relay Fidel Castro’s comments as he got them. Along the lines of “Yes, yes, yes, Fidel says blah, blah, blah…”, repeat.
The King of Spain is probably the coolest monarch alive. He was handed power from the dictator Francisco Franco and instead of becoming Franco II he turned Spain into a functioning democracy. Later when the Spanish military tried to take over the government in a coup the King basically said “Sorry, but no”, and saved Spanish democracy. King Juan Carlos has balls the size of mountains.
One more thing to notice in the video, immediately to the right of Rodriguez Zapatero is seated Cuba’s foreign minister, Perez Roque, he’s the toad-looking guy, who gives a beautiful performance of “how to squirm uncomfortably when your two sugar daddies are fighting”.
There are royal remnants in a few spots. Spain, Norway, UK (of course)–for all I know there may be some in Polynesia and Africa.
I love it when the mask of diplomacy comes down (well, most of the time–I didn’t like Bush pawing the German Chancellor). That he used the informal is very bold and wonderful. If I knew Spanish, I’d salute him in it.
I don’t know much about Spanish politics, so I have no idea what Zapatero is like outside of this instance, but I looked at a few related videos and found this one, which shows all of what Zapatero was trying to say. It’s admirable that he was able to remain civilized and attempt to communicate while others were clearly only there to hear their own voices. And yes, the King of Spain is cool.
That is beautiful. I love the quote from Zapatero right around 1:21 when Chavez finally shuts up:
“The best way for the people, for our people to come together is for to respect each other as democratic representatives of our people, and I ask that that be the rule of conduct in this forum that represents the citizens, we must respect the leaders who are here, representing our peoples. That is my fervent desire, because our behavior shapes our decisions, so let’s disagree, even radically disagree, but respect the person with whom we disagree.”
Chavez is such an ass - I cracked up when I heard about this on the news. He really should shut up. Preferably permanently, but that won’t happen soon enough…
Spanish news programs are having a lot of fun counting how many places already sell that and similar ringtones, how many clips are in youtube, how many…
Until two days ago, Chávez, being on the left side and then some, was a dear of the current stablishment (let’s not forget that Zapatero is a Socialist). All of a sudden, they’re showing these clips of “stuff Chávez said before being elected vs his actual deeds.”
The King of Spain is, among other things, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Only because the only time he’s used that power was to tell the 23F golpistas to stand down doesn’t mean he forgets his powers; it means he respects the political system he chose for his country. He chose to go for parliamentary monarchy and he stands behind his choice, but it was his choice.
PP (Aznar’s party) is asking for the head of the Minister of Exterior, because the only time there has been an accusation here of Aznar’s government knowing anything about the Venezuelan failed coup which Chávez accuses Aznar of having prepared and backed (ehrm, excuse me Mr President, but weren’t you in prison for a failed coup?) - it was that Minister. Who, as mentioned, was all buddy-buddy with Chávez until 48 hours ago…
There used to be a “newscast” which was called “las noticias del guiñol”, “gignol news”: huge puppets of politicians and others. For quite a few years it was the best newscast in Spain if you ask me. It closed shortly after ZP got elected. This weekend’s show could have been straight out of there - only, their jokes were never as crazy as reality has managed to be.
