What Is the Song in the Background of Our Favorite Series?

2 Oct, 2021, No comments

La casa de papel, or in English Money Heist is a popular Spanish series about incredible robberies done by the team of criminals led by El Professor. As the fifth season of this attractive series has been aired recently, a new song in the final episode has drawn everybody's attention. Spoiler alert! A thematic song of the whole season which was highlighted in the scenes of the death of one of our favourite characters (not mine though) Tokyo has left many wonder which song is that.

Besides the Bella Ciao which became the trademark song of the Netflix series, season five has brought to us a new old hit. Bella Ciao was the song of Italian left-wing resistance movements during World War II, and the Money Heist has brought it to life in a way. However, the new song in the latest season is not Italian nor it is from the time of WWII. Trademark song of this season is a Portuguese song from the 1970s. The new song is not Italian, nor was it composed during the war. But the aim of this blog is to reveal the history of Grandola Vila Morena, which is the name of the song, why is it important and why series directors decided to add it to the show.

Grandola Vila Morena is a song written by Portuguese song-writer and singer José Afonso and recorded in 1971. What makes this song interesting is its political background. Namely, the song became iconic in Portugal after being used as a radio broadcast signal by the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement during their military coup operation in 1974. The broadcast of this song on the radio was a signal for the Armed Forces Movement, which was composed of military officers who opposed the authoritarian regime, to start the coup and the revolution in Lisbon. The revolution was successful, and Grandola Vila Morena played an important role in coordinating its begging. The Carnation Revolution, as it was called later because of Celeste Caeiro - a famous pacifist, offering carnations to the soldiers when the population took to the streets to celebrate the end of the dictatorship. The song has since been considered a symbol of the revolution and anti-fascism.

From this point of view, it can be said that Grandola Vila Morena has had a very important historical role. It marked the begging of the transition of Portugal towards democracy and what it is today, a modern developed state - a member of the European Union. Having in mind all previous songs that have been picked for the series, it is not strange why Grandola Vila Morena was chosen for the latest season. Its anti-fascist sentiment and revolutionary legacy perfectly fit the concept of the series.

Lastly, we are looking forward to watching the second part of season five in December, when it is announced to air...

Enjoy the official #LaCasaDePapel video featuring highlights of Season 5 with #GrandolaVilaMorena in the background

If you enjoyed reading this text while drinking a cup of your favourite coffee, feel free to buy me the one!

Black Knights, Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Balkans

24 Dec, 2020, No comments

Democracy, or maybe better to say liberal democracy, is the most popular type of polity set-up world-wide in 21^st century. After the third wave of democratization, as Huntington (1991) coined it, the highest number of states in the world are considered democracies. The countries from the Balkans have been part of the third wave of democratization.

Although all Western Balkans states fulfil minimum requirements to be qualified as democracies, that does not automatically imply high quality of democracy. Except Croatia, all other Western Balkans states were designated as transitional or hybrid regimes by Freedom House Nations in Transit Report (2020). Montenegro and Serbia have changed category from a semi-consolidated democracies in the previous reports, and all countries together have recorded lower democracy scores. There are different explanations for the democratic backslide in the Western Balkans.

The European Union is the most famous external promoter of democracy among the Balkans’ countries. However, there are negative external actors which promote autocracy, also called “Black Knights” (Tolstrup, 2014). The most famous Black Knight is Russia in who’s interest is to support authoritarian leaders. Tolstrup gives two distinct modus operandi of Black Knights: by boosting various material and strategic resources available to the autocrat or by undergirding and solidifying regime legitimacy (Tolstrup, 2014: 4). Russia was present in the Balkans also, most notably in the case of Serbia. Aleksandar Vučić current President, and former Prime Minister of Serbia, has built very good relationship with Russian president Putin. Vučić enjoyed endorsement by Putin in several elections, which enabled him to show his invincibility to the electorate. However, not only authoritarian regimes are black knights, Tolstrup notes that “democratic external actors may also behave as black knights” (2014: 4). In the case of Serbia, Vucic has also few times got the endorsement from Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel who organized high-profile meeting with Vučić a day before presidential elections in Serbia in 2017. on which Vucic was the candidate. This meeting made an impression to the electorate of Vucic’s invincibility and his policy with no alternative. These are all elements Tolstrup mentions in his article. In the same manner the EU member state supported authoritarian rule of Milo Đukanović in Montenegro. Nevertheless, many authors described support for authoritarian leaders in the Balkans as EU’s policy for ‘stabilitocracy’.

According to the Freedom House report, Bosnia is also characterized as a transitional or hybrid regime (Freedom House 2020). However, Bosnia was never considered by Freedom House as anything more than hybrid regime, but not because of black knights. The problem of Bosnia is its very rigid power-sharing political system. Consequences of the rigidness are the ethnification of institutions and inefficient decision-making (Bieber, 2004: 239). Bosnian society is deeply divided today on the ethnic lines with Serbian, Bosniak and Croatian children going in separate schools, deputy ministers who are by law members of different ethnic communities than ministers usually are powerless and without any influence – “window dressings” how Bieber call it (2014: 237). In contrast to Bosnia, Bieber gives an example of North Macedonia where Albanian community is present, not only in every government from 1990. onwards, but also in public administration and police (Bieber, 2014: 241-242). In the case of Macedonia, this is not just bare political representation of Albanian minority, but their actual and effective participation that given North Macedonia functionality vis-à-vis Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet, we should be honest and say that N. Macedonia is also described as a hybrid regime (Freedom House, 2020) and has also recorded democratic decline (although only few score points) in comparison to previous reports. However, N. Macedonia was a hostage of authoritarian leader – Gruevski, who was finally defeated in 2016. and cleared the way for N. Macedonia to continue democratic reforms and consolidation.

On the other hand, neighboring states of Bosnia, namely Serbia and Croatia, have been accused as black knights undermining Bosnian statehood and reform struggles (Igman Initiative 2020). Serbian government is keeping good relations with the Republika Srpska while Croatia is supporting creation of the third entity within Bosnia, which would be Croatian. This would for sure lead towards more deeper cleavages and maybe even disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Leadership of the Republika Srpska is constantly threatening that they would leave Bosnia and become independent state, Milorad Dodik, recently elected for Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina refuses to use official flag of the state, Croats lobbying for the third entity – all of these show how divided Bosnia is. It is so divided that its functionality is questionable quarter of century after its creation. When there is no functionality within the state, we cannot talk about the quality of democracy at all.

Vučić and Merkel during media conference

In the end, the Balkans region was never known for the high levels of democracy in its history. However, from the break-up of Yugoslavia, successor states have been recording improvement when it comes to the quality of democracy, until recently. Esen is arguing that Turkey is part of global democratic backslide and classifies it as a competitive authoritarian regime (Esen & Gumuscu, 2016: 1582). For him, competitive authoritarian states are not autocratic regimes, but they are not democracies either. They are somewhere in between. These states have competition among the political actors, but the competition is not fair. Other elements of competitive authoritarianism are: uneven media access, politicized state institutions, uneven access to resources, and violations of civil liberties (Esen & Gumuscu, 2016: 1585-1594). Observed states from the Balkans in this paper show same elements of competitive authoritarianism. Some of them more and some less. Therefore, we can also put Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia in the group of countries that recorded democratic backslide in past decade. Huntington in his famous theory on waves of democratization has also identified waves of de-democratization after first two waves of democratization. Maybe current global democratic backslide can be seen as third wave of de-democratization.