Originally Posted by
IBK
If I understand you correctly, you don't like Arteta because he is arrogant; you link this arrogance to the superiority of Spanish people, and you are citing as an example of this an alleged state of denial in Spain over Franco. You deny my suggestion that any cultural feeling of superiority in Spain may (as it is in the UK), may be linked to it once being a powerful colonial power - a perfectly reasonable suggestion - by drawing a distinction between the UK - that had not had a direct military dictator (albeit that Cromwell's Protectorate comes close) and Spain. Yet unless you have issues with Germans; Italians; Chinese; many Africans etc who have also suffered dictatorship then I fail to see this point.
I also have issues with your suggestion that somehow all Spaniards are Franco apologists or deniers. I have lived there and while there is a sense of shame and maybe a traditional reluctance to think about the horrors of the Franco era (it only of course ended very recently in 1975) there are few who either admire or exonerate him. Further, just like in this country, where we have traditionally been in denial over our imperial brutality, this is changing with the modern generation.
Bloody hell - even for on here this is off on a tangent on a football thread :wacko: