Murga on the dancefloor

The Canarian Murga competition 2024 held in Santa Cruz de Tenerife was won last night by Los Bambones from San Cristóbal de La Laguna.

What's he on about?, I hear you ask. Well, Murga is a choral artform perfected in the Canary Islands, and particularly Tenerife and Gran Canaria, where choirs of at least twenty, often wearing clown costumes with painted faces, sing tight harmonies acapella-style, acompanied only by percussion and kazoos. What they sing about is the interesting thing as the subject matter is highly political and satirical, providing a scathing commentary on contemporary issues by sending up politicians and calling out corruption and general idiocy in public life.

As such, it is hugely popular and seems to occupy the public space which in the UK used to be taken by Spitting Image and today by Have I Got News For You and Mock the Week on TV and Dead Ringers on Radio.4. It is closely linked to Carnaval in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, although in the latter it has somewhat been eclipsed by the Drag Queen Gala. The final of the annual Murga competition was held in Santa Cruz last night before a huge live and TV audience, running for a marathon seven hours and culminating at around 3.30 this morning with the victory of Los Bambones.

Apparently the tradition started in 1917 when a crew of sailors from a Spanish naval vessel docked in Santa Cruz harbour was given shore leave to attend Carnaval. Coming from Cádiz they sang Murga, to the delight of Canarian Carnaval-goers who enthusiastically adopted the format the following year. Due to Carnaval allowing a certain licence when it came to dress and behaviour it proved rich soil in which Murga could grow and flourish. By the time Franco came to power it was so entrenched in popular culture that not even he felt it expedient to try to ban or restrict it. Thus for decades it became the only platform for any sort of public dissent or political critique, providing a relarively safe outlet for dissent in a tightly controlled Catholic and Fascist society.

It still seems to fulfil that role today, even when Canarian society, in all other respects, has liberalised and secularised out of all recognition and where almost anything goes. But appearances can be deceptive. The church still exercises its influence over politicians, especially the more conservative ones (who are in the majority), and there is a residual circumspection around dealings with authority - councils, police and bureaucracy of any kind - no longer a fear exactly but a definite wariness and distrust. And not without good reason.

It pains me to say this but corruption is endemic in Canarian society*, for a host of reasons - historical, cultural, ethnographic, religious, political, geographic and even geopolitical - too complex and intertwined to go into in detail here. This is not necessarily criminal in nature, although it often is so, it is more an insidious malaise in public life, a mixture of lethargy and apathy. 

Few dealings with authority are easy or straightforward and the concept of transparency, openness and accountability is almost entirely alien. Much of this, I suspect, is to do with too many layers of bureaucracy, with too much duplication and too little interconnectivity. But this is not happenstance; I suggest it is the result of a deliberate policy going back many years, which has its roots in colonialism - in this case Spanish.

In this archipelago layer upon layer of bureaucracy has accrued over time and, far from being reformed, has simply been added to. Take, for example, the Cabildo system of local government (in UK terms perhaps closest akin to a county council), which used to be the norm throughout Spain and its Empire but which has everywhere else been abandoned as a relic of colonialism. In the Canaries, too, it was abolished but reinstated in 1912, ostensibly in the interests of promoting wider island autonomy. There are also multiple police forces (I think I've counted five) which no one seems entirely clear cover precisely what areas of law enforcement - a perfect cover for inefficiency and corruption. 

There is also a plethora of council and government offices dotted about the islands meaning that a 'one-stop shop' is an impossibllity, necessitating often lengthy journeys between offices and even towns - made the more frustrating by their often closing at 2pm, or not opening at advertised times due to local holidays. There is simply too much opportunity for things to fall between the cracks or for wholesale departmental buck-passing. Add to this the overlay of EU bureaucracy which comes with being part of Spain and the Byzantine structure becomes virtually impenetrable, in fact positively Kafka-esque.

It is clear that a massive job-creation scheme is in operation here, sustaining a large, comfortably-off, politically conservative middle class whose complaissance is assured by well-paid, secure and untaxing public sector work. The working (and non-working) class get this, of course, and are angered by it but tend to leave it to the Murgas to give voice to their frustrations in their ferociously wittily routines. Murga undoubtedly provides a societal safety-valve but the problem is, even those in power can laugh at it. And, while they do, nothing changes.

The people aren't (yet) taking to the streets to express their dissatisfaction over lack of jobs and housing, the cost of living, over-tourism, environmental degradation, government waste, inefficiency and nepotism, and politicians and bureaucrats feathering their own nests. But social media responses to the Murgas' recent performances seem to suggest that the tide may be turning.

Maybe it's time to launch the Murga Party?

 

*NB: The UK has fallen to its lowest-ever position (20th) in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index (CPI), which ranks countries by experts’ views of possible corruption in public services. So, nothing to crow about, although Spain ranks 36th.