Bread and Cheese...
24/April/2007 17:25 .Local life
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This is assuming that you have made the minimal effort in the first place to register. If you haven't done this, then slap yourself on your wrists immediately and make a promise to go and empadronate tomorrow morning. Shame on you! Assuming you have been socially responsible, you must be asking yourself which way does your pueblo lean? . Loja is no different, it proudly leans left historically - or so its inhabitants claim - even revolutionary some may say if you would just take a peek into the pages of local history.
So peeked I have. And there I beheld the tale of the Revolution of Bread and Cheese. We all know about the civil war. Some even know of the 2nd Republic that opened the wounds to that fateful conflict. Perhaps, one or two amongst you have even heard of the 1st Republic, but how many have heard of the self-proclaimed republic in the Poniente Granada region in 1861?
Grab yourself a cheese sand-which and read on.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, Andalucia was still crippled by feudal laws that permitted semi-absent landowners to work their land if they wished, or to leave them if they preferred. The vast majority of Andaluces, hungry landless peasants were often unemployed for just half the year, forced to daily scrape food from an often empty cupboard and a living from an unjust and politically turbulent system. Most of the arable land had been redistributed after the Catholic Conquest according to a complex system of privileges and favours. Nothing short of a revolution would wrest the vast tracts of land in Andalucia from this apathetic class, and a starving, illiterate peasantry were coming to the very same conclusions.
Landless, unemployed and starved they may have been, but complacent and apathetic, they were not. So on the 28th June 1861, one irritated Lojeño - Rafael Pérez del Álamo - gathered 600 workers together and attacked the cuartel of the Guardia Civil in Iznájar, a pueblo in the Cordoba province. Upon taking the town he issued the following statement:
Ciudadanos: Todo el que sienta el sagrado amor a la libertad de su patria, empuñe un arma y únase a sus compañeros: el que no lo hiciere será un cobarde o un mal español.
Tened presente que nuestra misión es defender los derechos del hombre, tales como los preconiza la prensa democrática, respetando la propiedad, el hogar doméstico y todas las opiniones. En nombre del Centro Recolucionario, Rafael Pérez del Alamo. Iznajar, 28 de junio de 1861
Citizens: Everyone that feels the sacred love of freedom towards its mother country, grasp a weapon and join your companions: those that will not l be cowardly or bad Spaniards. Be aware that our mission is to defend the rights of man, such as is defended by the democratic press, respecting property, the domestic home and everyones opinions. In name of the Center Recolucionario, Rafael Perez of the Poplar. Iznajar, 28 of June of 1861
Clearly moved by such an oration, the whole village joined with him and the following day they marched in the direction of Loja. In those days Loja was famous because a certian Navarez - Prime Minister of Spain - had been born in the town and he was a powerful and priveledged noble whoose wealth and position inevitably rested on the unjust rents of lands, political control of the town hall, and the typical military and clergy ring of corruption.
For five days the area remained under the new workers councils, land was redistributed, raspberries were blown at monarchic effigies and cheese and bread was, presumably, eaten voraciously.
Then a General Serrano arrived with troops from Granada, forcing the peasant army to disperse. Battles were fought, insults hurled, men were captured. But Rafael Pérez del Álamo fled to Madrid whilst many others moved onto Granada with the aim of gathering more support for their cause. But these men too were later detained. Many were executed, many others imprisoned until ironically, one year later, the head of the very state that the army had denied legitimacy - Queen Isabel II - was touring through Andalucia, when she decreed an amnesty for all those implicated in the cheese and bread uprising - including Rafael Pérez del Álamo.
So, when you are considering which way to vote in the municipal elections next month and you find yourself looking for clues as to which way the town leans, don't just look at the town as it is now; look at its history; its victories and its defeats; it cheese shelves and its bread shops. And in there you will find the true character of its people. Then vote as you see fit.
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